by Jack Bailey-Grundy 
Some scary statistics here – and ones that are so easy to rectify if caught early. Time and again we hear stories of poor CRM adoption, no-one having faith in the system or the data, and general under utilisation of an expensive investment.
But the reality is CRM systems, correctly configured, with time taken to ensure the system meets needs, can be a godsend – and we hear this flip-side story equally often.
An off-the-shelf CRM will hardly ever suit a businesses needs – how could it be set up for every business case in the world? So ensuring you budget time for planning, configuring, implementing, data cleansing a system is at least as important when investing in a new system – it’s these that really will allow you to see the value in the long term.
The tips on offer in this article are great ways to improve your use of CRM – but can often bring their own overheads. Getting it right early on – not necessarily configuring a solution to cure all ills – but a simple configuration that works for your business, will make a huge difference.
The other key factor is management buy-in. The best adopters get Management teams using the system as their go-to system and seeing the benefit early on. If they are using it, chances are they’ll be driving their teams to use it too.
An Introhive survey of 185 sales and business development professionals found that 70 per cent spend at least four h
An Introhive survey of 185 sales and business development professionals found that 70 per cent spend at least four hours a week entering data into their CRM. Sixty percent spend an additional four hours a week deciphering that data. Of the 60 per cent of sales executives that use CRM daily, only 23 per cent classify it as very easy to use when looking for insights.