Four Major Causes of Salesforce Implementation Failure

You’ve invested time, money and resources into a Salesforce system that was supposed to grow your business and transform your sales process but the results have been less than desirable. In fact, you can’t even get your employees to use Salesforce as it was intended. Sound familiar? You’re not alone. According to industry standards, 43 percent of customers use fewer than half the features they have on their CRM.

Forrester Research has conducted an evaluation surrounding CRM implementation challenges to access why they fail. The results showcased four major causes of CRM failure:

1. People – The misalignment of a CRM with company culture along with insufficient training, results in end users refusing to adopt the new technology. You’ll often hear staff say that the CRM is taking more of their time than helping. In this case, the CRM has not been strategically designed to solve problems or work hand-in-hand with employees.
2. Process – Inadequate and confusing documentation that doesn’t match company workflow or processes makes a CRM useless. It is crucial to configure lead generation and sales processes to the functions that are being automated within a CRM.
3. Strategy – Unclear objectives, poor deployment practices or a lack of collaboration from the CRM key stakeholders, results in an ineffective CRM system that has been designed in a bubble. Clear objectives, training and collaboration ensure that the CRM system being deployed is a valuable investment that will actually be used.
4. Technology – Data problems including insufficient, outdated and messy data create a lack of CRM functionality. When implementing a CRM, it’s important to clean data before it is incorporated into the system and to create both processes and standards to make sure information remains relevant.

The best way to guarantee Salesforce success is to address each of these potential sticking areas before the system is implemented. However, if Salesforce has been deployed and is falling short of expectations, all hope is not lost. Through research, training and minor system tweaks any organization can be put back on a path to correct usage and success.

Sarah Londerville from Manomin Resawn Timbers experienced a shoddy Salesforce installation which left her with an expensive system that didn’t actually work.  Hear how we not only fixed her issues but came up with innovative ideas on how to improve and streamline her business processes.

If your company is in need of a Salesforce Tune-Up, contact Kiwi Group today.