The year is winding down: it’s time to look back and draw the conclusions on what went well and what could have been improved instead. This is the best time of the year for good intentions and important resolutions, taking the chance to change what has not worked perfectly during the past year.
In addition to changing practical things, like the office furniture disposition, at the end of the year most professionals and companies rethink how to organize their work. Have we been efficient or have we lost a lot of time in non-productive activities? Why some sales have gone wrong? Was the workload balanced or have we been constantly under stress? Consequently, the element that has the highest impact on the way we work is our CRM (Customer Relationship Management), which is the tool that helps us organize our work and simplify the management of customers, to-dos and information. If we are not completely satisfied with our CRM – or if we have never had one – this is the right time to take action!
But how to tell if it’s really the time to change our CRM? Since the CRM impacts on the management of our daily activities, then the best way is to ask ourselves the right questions to see if we are happy with how we worked last year. Here is a list of questions: if you answer yes to at least 2 or 3 of them, then it’s probably time to change something…
1. Do you work to much?
After spending a long day’s work between calls to clients, meetings with your team and preparation of proposals, do you work also on evenings and weekends to collect information about what you did, filling in your CRM? If the answer is yes, it means that it’s not your CRM that’s working for you, but you who are working for it!
2. Don’t you feel free?
When you are out of office, do you often feel you are missing something, because you can’t have easy access to information you could need? Do you print and take with you hundreds of documents to be sure to have what you need? Maybe your CRM is not flexible enough and is not consistent on all platforms like desktop, mobile and tablet!
3. Do you ever forget important things?
Some times last year, did you ever forget to call a customer or to send an email, or did you have difficult times in remembering exactly what a customer asked you during a meeting? Your CRM should be your personal assistant, remembering things to do at the right time and making sure you always have the most relevant information ready to access. For example, Sellf sends you notifications on your smartphone when it’s time to do something important, and makes sure that you actually complete the activity!
4. Do you fail in surprising your customers?
When you meet your customers, do you not remember the name of their dog or if they take their coffee with or without sugar? More, had you been not able to write any striking sale proposals? Don’t worry, nothing is wrong with you memory: you can not remember everything! Thats exactly the reason why your CRM must provide you this information before you need them, allowing you to be always a step ahead!
5. Are you unaware of what your colleagues are up to?
Are you updated on their work every day, and are you able to coordinate things perfectly? Meetings, calls to colleagues, e-mail sent to share important information are among the most time-consuming activities with less added value. A CRM should be the tool that allows the whole team to know what their colleagues are working on, to access their information and to be the first to celebrate for their successes, stimulating everyone to do always their best.
6. Do you feel you are not in control of your business?
When you get up in the morning, do you know exactly how many sales you won this month and how close you are to achieve your monthly goals? Your CRM should provide this information quickly and easily, without requiring complex data analysis.
7. Do you spend too much money?
When you get your monthly bill from your CRM, do you think about what you could have done more with that money? Then perhaps what you’re paying for does not balance the benefits you receive. A digital tool should amply repay its costs with the results it helps to achieve, without being a burden!
8. Do you not really use your CRM?
This is one of the most difficult questions to answer, because it requires an act of conscience. Do you see your CRM as a friend, an indispensable tool that has saved you in many different situations, or as a necessary evil that you have to fill out in every spare moment you can find? And what about your colleagues, do they use it daily or only after they are asked to?
If you have answered to all questions honestly and you realized that more than one thing is not working, then it’s time to deal with change. Change is not always a negative thing: of course, it’s easier to keep doing as you have always done, but at what cost? If you fear the migration process, several CRMs now allow you to start quickly and with minimal data entry effort. Sellf, for example, allows you to be up and running in minutes, by importing your customers and contacts data through Excel spreadsheets (which can be exported from your current CRM) and automatically synchronizing with your smartphone and your tablet.
Now the next steps are:
– Define with your team all the problems you are facing with your current CRM, and the needs that are still unresolved.
– Try the free trial of the CRM services you think that could fit your needs; Sellf, for example, allows you to try the service for free with your team.
So, what are you waiting for?
PS: What are the problems you are facing with your actual CRM? Tell us about it in the comments, we will tell you whether Sellf could solve them!
