No matter how much prior focus is laid on not making mistakes while CRM implementation, something or another goes wrong easily. When the CRM systems were introduced in the beginning, they offered businesses a long-term strategy to promptly engage and manage customer relationships, close more deals, and automate any kind of recurring tasks.

A common misconception that comes with a Zoho CRM implementation is that it is seen as a one-time event. People make the mistake of thinking that after the implementation of Zoho, all lost leads, broken sales methods, and lack of follow-ups will be repaired. Even though it is true that the Zoho CRM system is designed to support the sales process through and through, it must also be remembered that the system will not by itself cause the business to grow.

Hence, it is necessary to consider CRM implementation as an important long-term and company-wide process as opposed to a one-time event. Oftentimes, the managers have the best intentions but their strategies end up hitting the hard ground during the implementation phase. In this blog, we will see why that is by looking at the 10 common Zoho CRM mistakes and how to avoid them.

Somehow, this tends to be one of the most common mistakes during the process of Zoho CRM implementation. Understanding that you have a problem is the primary step. You may also have heard this before but let us look at this point in reference to the sales cycle.

You must understand the CRM strategy starts to unfold right when you are deliberating about choosing a CRM system. It is very much possible to think that you do not even have a problem. You must know how to manage all the touchpoints a potential customer can possibly have with your business.

Factors such as knowing how to sift through emails, the important points in your notepad, managing your call records, the customers who are there in your sales pipeline, and the revenue that can be expected next month are all important. If you feel that any of these factors are not understandable or known by you then there is a good chance that there is a problem in your sales cycle.

When you know all the problems, you will be able to use the features offered by the CRM system in a much better way. After all, the CRM systems are there to support you and make your work-life easy to manage. So you must see the problem for what it is and own it because the good news is that there is always a solution.

You must remember that communication is key in this situation. As a manager, you should understand the value that a CRM system is capable of bringing to your business. Once you understand this value properly, you will be able to make a better sense of the big picture and the value that CRM can bring to your organization.

All employees are like puzzle pieces that fit into a bigger picture of your business growth. Getting a better context of how the CRM can support these roles can help employees to buy into the CRM strategy. You can help your team make the most out of the value of CRM by considering factors like the business growth strategy of CRM, the value provided by CRM to each time and organization, and the context of an existing CRM process.

All through this, the important part is to keep in mind that the sales team needs extra attention during the change. You would not want the sales team to think that you are adding a mundane task to their already existing busy day. You can gain buy-in from the experienced sales professional by offering a context of how the CRM system is designed to work on tedious tasks and problems out of the way so that the focus can be on closing deals.

Any changes can open a door for misunderstanding, loss of motivation, and frustration. Being a manager you can set expectations from the beginning. It doesn’t matter if your goals are not clear at the moment, you can give your team an idea of where you want to go and how the online CRM system is going to help in achieving that.

It must be clear that a CRM is like a consistently functional strategy that helps a team close more deals so that the business can grow. You can keep your team motivated by answering questions like what is the need of implementing a CRM system, how will the CRM system support the individual roles, and how can a CRM system offer a better context about these processes?

Avoid being the professional who has one meeting with the staff only to disappear later. It is necessary to be present and involved in the integration process. This way, you will not just give your employees a new process but you will also integrate a system into an already existing process.

Your employees should be able to trust you and when you are proactive while keeping your team accountable for integrating the process, the online CRM implementation and function become easy. The focus should be to keep the team in the knowledge by facilitating regular communication on how the employees are integrating CRM into the process.

Other than this, you must also be able to schedule individual meetings with employees and ask for their special input on the improvement of processes within the CRM system. In addition, you should also be able to hold the team leads accountable for supporting a long-term strategy with the integration of the CRM system.

It is easy to know that we need a CRM system but it is much harder to implement and use the CRM system in a suitable way. It is possible that you have deployed your CRM system to check off all important items. You could have also created roles and profiles, migrated the correct data, set up the workflow automation, put webforms on your website, scheduled the sales pipelines reports, and set up lead assignments.

However, the main challenges come when you are getting your teams to use it all. You have to give this part due consideration so that the job can be successful. Setting up the online CRM system and deploying it is a small part of the entire CRM strategy. The CRM system implementation actually continues after deployment as well. This is a long-term strategy.

You can consider factors such as how your team will be using the CRM, how the team will support the sales, marketing, and customer support, how the team will be held accountable for updating data constantly, how the employees will be trained, and which online CRM training will make you available to your team.

An effective Zoho CRM implementation strategy will include the development of a company culture where the customers are at the center of a business. You must be dedicated and consistent with your goals and strategy so that the CRM system can support your business growth in the right manner.

A common mistake while choosing and implementing the CRM system is getting attracted to multiple features without really understanding if your business requires them or not. There are many users who do not end up using the features of CRM properly.

You do not have to choose the most advanced and feature-rich uses. Rather, it makes sense to determine the most suitable features for you based on the business needs that you have. Make sure that everything is aligned with your budget and priorities.

Before the implementation, make a list of all the features that you want to use. It will also be beneficial if you end up getting the inputs of your end-users while asking them about the workflow pain points that they wish to solve.

Choosing and implementing a CRM structure is only the beginning of a long battle. A robust online CRM system will not mean anything if no one understands how to use it. Therefore, correct implementation and training the end-users on how to use the CRM system is important.

When you do this, you will help your team understand the need and benefits of using the system and also encourage them to integrate the CRM into their daily tasks. This will help you in having a low adoption rate. Businesses have a long way to go when it comes to CRM adoption.

Businesses must realize the importance that the CRM system is capable of bringing while increasing sales performance. The best way to avoid this mistake is by having a proper training program in the right place so that the end-users can have a chance to explore the system before officially adopting it in everyday activities.

Taking the support of a Zoho consultant can help you train the team for using CRM. You can discover the training tips such as planning, using resources, determining best practices, and creating training modules for making the most out of a CRM investment.

The most important benefit of accessing a CRM with a mobile device is that you can do it anytime and anywhere. This is one of the common CRM mistakes made by many companies. You must realize that mobile CRM keeps you on top of your tasks without any need to be in front of the computer at all times.

Not using the mobile CRM app properly can slow down the response time to customers and increase the chance of missing out on important customer updates. Most salespeople who use their mobile phones are able to meet their sales quotas as compared to the ones who do not.

Most of the teams that use the mobile CRMs also end up improving their overall productivity. You can choose a CRM system with an excellent mobile CRM app and ensure that the sales team downloads and uses it.

The customer data is more like the lifeblood of a CRM system. It is necessary to ensure that you migrate and maintain correct and updated customer data into the online CRM system.

Despite understanding the importance of this, many businesses fall into the trap of maintaining bad data that result in inaccurate sales forecasts and outdated customer information. All the missing, outdated, and incomplete data ends up costing a lot to the companies. 

To make sure that this does not happen, organizations can create a standard practice on data entry for the team to follow. For instance, the process of identifying mandatory fields that should be filled out when creating a new customer profile so that duplications are removed.

This can include full name, company name, contact details, landline, and mobile details, address, and social media profiles. Other than this, you can also schedule periodical setups to clean the maintenance system. Doing this can help in seeing duplicate or missing information after which steps to rectify things can be taken immediately when the process is done regularly.

One of the prime benefits of using a business tool and multiple software applications is the ability to integrate tools with each other. Any failure to do the same will end up decreasing the productivity level as it forces the users to use various systems and toggle between different business tools.

As a result, the chances of data duplication and scattered business knowledge will increase. Most people understand that lack of business integrations with other tools is one of the biggest challenges of using the CRM structure.

Before the CRM implementation, make a detailed list of all the business tools and see if they are compatible with each other or not. The CRM providers must have a list of native and third-party integrations available to use the system. If you have a CRM system and are planning to subscribe to other tools then you can do the same by checking if the CRM integrates with these tools or not.

In case you discover that the CRM does not integrate with a business tool then you can also consult a Zoho consultant. The consultant will introduce an automation tool that can connect apps and services. Two or more applications will be easily connected to automate all repetitive tasks without any need to code or depend on developers for integration.

Making CRM mistakes can be costly. They do not just include financial impacts but they also lead to a loss of valuable time and key customer data management. The good thing is that careful research on important aspects such as knowing the right features, integrating them suitably, and following the implementation process can avoid common CRM mistakes.

You can consider all the mistakes mentioned above so that they can be avoided or you can do a better job and take the support of a Zoho consultant. This way, your business will be prevented from making potential hiccups down the road.