Yes… don’t worry, you’re not alone. In fact, according to Harvard Business Review, 70% of CRM implementation projects fail!
So first things first, organizations tend to expect the following from Salesforce as a product:
- Quality customer insights
- A 360-degree view of every single customer profile
- Acquiring relevant data that can help sales and marketing efforts
- Increasing productivity through sales automation
- An increase in quality leads
- Better marketing automation based on data
- Easier account management for all departments
These expectations are what Salesforce constantly promotes. But having expectations without defining a specific and granular WHY is half the problem.
A specific WHY could look something like this:
We want to humanize and improve our customer service experience by creating a single record for each individual customer so that our reps can quickly review a customer’s relationship with our organization before assisting them. This will allow our reps to save time and reduce customer frustration.
This example may seem incredibly specific, but this is exactly the type of business objective that will allow for a smooth implementation.
Think about it for a second, if your only expectation is ”Having a 360-degree view of every customer profile”, how will you measure success once the implementation is completed?
Now that that’s out of the way, it isn’t too late to revive your Salesforce implementation.
But first, it’s vital that you understand why it failed in the first place.
What made it fail in the first place?
Adoption issues
There are various reasons why some implementations fail, but this statistic speaks for itself ?
”Less than 40% of companies have achieved adoption rates of over 90%’’
(G2 Learn Hub)
Now this shows us that even if the implementation went well, it’s as useful as a blank excel sheet if employees don’t use it.
That’s because you must make your employees feel like they’re part of the decision-making process when you’re considering Salesforce. Most times, leaders fail to show their workforce how a CRM will make their job easier.
Plus, humans are creatures of habit and routine. This means that every single one of your employees is used to doing things a certain way.
Therefore, if you truly want to increase user adoption, show them that it’s beneficial for them not only for the company.
Wrong expectations
”Because everyone else is doing it’’ isn’t a strategy! It’s crucial to understand that a CRM won’t shape your sales and marketing processes.
If we look at Salesforce CRM as a product, it doesn’t do much for your organization if your processes aren’t already modernized.
Remember! The real value of a CRM is how it supports the existing processes of your teams. In other words, if you don’t already have solid processes in place, Salesforce won’t help you create them.
Inaccurate data
Having ‘’clean’’ data isn’t an end state. Salesforce administrators, end users, and leadership teams must all work together to ensure that all data entry and collection is standardized.
And once again, if your current data isn’t clean, make sure to fix it before moving on to Salesforce.
Pro tips:
- Keep data entry processes very simple for the end users
- Clearly define required fields
Lack of training
This point ties back to adoption issues. But what does proper training look like?
First things first, a good portion of your implementation budget should be entirely dedicated to training end users.
A 2-hour crash course won’t do the trick. Make sure to book weekly training sessions and make sure to explain why they’re doing what they’re doing and how it’s benefiting them as well.
How to fix it
- Make a list of all your Salesforce products and integrations.
- Next to each one, note down which ones are being used.
- Formulate your WHY and how you’ll measure success if you were starting from scratch. Make sure to include all stakeholders in this discussion.
- Make a list of all the problems that Salesforce is already solving for your organization.
- Make a list of all the problems that you wish were solved already.