Businesses that embrace technology perform better and gain a competitive advantage. More and more businesses are looking to automate their business processes to improve accuracy, reduce errors, and save costs.
A CRM system is a popular solution for companies to digitise, organise, and manage various departments. However, with popularity come many myths that can hamper the process of looking for a CRM system and affect the success of organisations. Here we have busted a few myths about purchasing and using a CRM system:
It Is Not Easy To Learn And Use
Many of the earlier versions of CRMs were difficult to understand and use. Their users required a great amount of training, and any problems that arose needed the intervention of the IT department to be resolved. Today’s CRMs are easy to learn, and you can also integrate other applications with them. They come equipped with customer support so no need to rely on your IT team to get issues resolved.
It Is Only Useful To Big Organisations
No matter what the size of your business is, a CRM system will help you to organise your customer information. It automates the process of entering customer data and details of your interactions and transactions with customers. This enables you to sell and communicate better with customers and improves your relations with them.
It Is Too Costly
CRM was expensive in its early stages as it was made for large businesses that had big budgets. Purchasing the system was a costly affair back then, and its installation, setup, training, and licensing required extra costs. However, with the advent of cloud, all the aforementioned additional costs were eliminated and CRM became affordable. The increasing competition also resulted in a drop in the system’s prices.
Today’s CRM plans offer free basic versions with affordable upgraded versions. Users also get the flexibility to choose which features they want in their plan and to only pay for those features.
It Is A Long-Term Investment
The CRMs of the past used to be expensive, and it was difficult for their users to switch them out after investing heavily in them. Today’s CRMs offer affordable and flexible monthly plans which users can opt out of at the end of any month.
All CRM Systems Are The Same
Every company has different needs, so every CRM has different features. CRMs can be customised to suit the needs of different companies. Before looking for a CRM, you have to first understand the problems that your organisation is facing and think about how you want the system to solve those problems.
It Can Only Be Used By Salespeople
The customer data that a CRM system provides will be useful for other departments of an organisation apart from that of sales. The data can be used by marketing departments to create personalised campaigns for customers, monitor the activity on target social media platforms, and respond to queries and comments. A CRM displays the history of the purchases and interactions of each customer. Using this information customer service teams can provide customers with better support and recommendations and gather feedback. The information also helps in planning inventory better. CRM simplifies the hiring process for HR departments by automating the sorting of potential candidate data by their number of years of experience, skills, and interview performances.
Customer Data Is Not Safe In It
With today’s CRM system being cloud-based, the security of customer data is a concern. The data can be at risk if your chosen vendor is not a reputed one. Reputed vendors equip their CRMs with security features like security certificates, firewalls, and data encryption. They perform a minimum of two backups per day and have a good uptime of more than 99%.
It Comes With Hidden Costs
This also depends on the vendor you choose. Reputed vendors will explain each feature of their CRM to you and tell you the price of each of them. They will not charge you for features that you do not want in the software. Make sure to get all your questions about the software answered by your chosen vendor.
