Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is a widely used tool for managing contacts, driving sales, streamlining operations, boosting customer satisfaction, and more. But, even in 2025, 22% of sales professionals are still unsure about what CRM actually does. That is an alarming statistic, and one that suggests that they are not using CRM correctly, or that they haven’t been trained in the first place.
Why implement CRM?
CRM is considered a must-have in today’s modern business environment. It is much more than a digital address book. It organizes customer data, tracks sales, and streamlines your team’s workflow. Using CRM to automate tasks like follow-ups and centralizing communication saves time and reduces errors. For you, this means stronger customer relationships, more closed deals, and less manual work. CRM success criteria often include:
Increased sales efficiency
CRM is designed to streamline and enhance sales processes within an organization. Key functionalities include lead and opportunity management, account and contact tracking, sales analytics and reporting, collaboration tools, integration with other tools, mobile sales apps for on-the-go access, sales forecasting with predictive analytics, and workflow automation. CRM aims to provide a holistic view of customer relationships, improve sales efficiency, and empower teams with tools for effective communication and collaboration.
Boosted customer service
Customer service is a component of CRM focused on optimizing customer support operations. Key features include efficient case management, a knowledge base for self-service, multi-channel engagement options, customer feedback and surveys, and integration with other applications. CRM aims to provide a unified and personalized customer service experience.
Field service automation and remote accessibility
Many popular CRM tools streamline field service operations. This helps optimize the scheduling and dispatching of field service technicians, while providing real-time data for decision making and the automation of field service processes. CRM enhances efficiency in managing and delivering services in the field.
Many CRM tools facilitate remote collaboration for field service technicians. They enable remote assistance through augmented reality, allowing technicians to receive guidance for issue resolution. This feature enhances collaboration, reduces response times, and improves the efficiency of field service operations.
Marketing automation
Many CRM tools empower organizations to orchestrate and streamline their marketing efforts. Look for one which provides tools for creating and executing targeted marketing campaigns, managing the customer journey, and analyzing campaign performances. With features like email marketing, lead nurturing, and customer segmentation, marketing within CRM enables businesses to engage with their audience more effectively.
Why CRM implementations fail
Did you know that 75% of CRM implementations fail? Lack of training is the number one implementation challenge. Organizations must prioritize comprehensive training and ongoing user support. User adherence often relies on a mix of large features and small shortcuts that simplify their lives, while adding value to their work and benefits to the organization. We must not overlook the small additions - the little "extras" that can make all the difference between acceptance and rejection. For example, you can personalize the tool by creating fields, titles, and workflows, etc., that are in sync with your business processes.
Organizations that don’t prioritize manual data entry automation also struggle with user frustration and poor adoption rates. Therefore, it’s important to ensure that the whole team agrees and understands the business needs and CRM requirements, and that everyone adheres to the same working methodology.
Less than 40% of companies fully implement their CRM system, which leads to a failed project. Ensuring that your CRM integrates well with other business tools, and that there is a clear strategy for deployment, helps avoid technical and strategy-related obstacles. Start small with essential features and gradually scale, allowing teams to adapt smoothly and to avoid overwhelming complexity. For example, if you are in the business of selling a product or service, you must integrate your lead capture process with your CRM tool. Many companies miss out on this last mile connectivity and lose vital leads in the process.
How to implement a successful CRM strategy
Implementing a successful CRM strategy involves several key steps:
- Define clear objectives: Identify the specific goals you want to achieve with your CRM strategy, such as improving customer service, increasing sales, or enhancing marketing efforts. Ensure that everyone has a clear understanding of the objectives. Send frequent reminders of the objectives in progress.
- Choose the right CRM system: Select a CRM platform that aligns with your business needs and objectives. Consider factors like ease of use, customization options, integration capabilities, and cost. Also look at specific features such as AI capabilities, mobile accessibility, customer service management, marketing capabilities, and field service management.
- Gain senior management buy-in: Ensure that senior management is fully committed to the CRM initiative. Their involvement is crucial for securing resources, driving adoption, and setting the tone for the entire organization. They are there to define, communicate, and support the “why” of the CRM project in relation to the organization's objectives. Lack of consistency can be disastrous. In the eyes of employees, management's involvement must be clear and visible.
- Involve key stakeholders: Engage employees from different departments who will be using the CRM system. Their input is valuable for designing processes that meet their needs, and for gaining buy-in. You need a good balance between senior/intermediate/junior skills. Avoid the trap of the last hired employee. Select and involve key resources, champions, leaders, and super users as early as possible. Free them from their daily tasks so that they can fully focus on the project. Evaluate potential pockets of resistance... present and future. (Shifting control or power over information between different resources/groups.) Designate a resource who will take care of internal demos from the beginning (supported by the experts). Define and evaluate future CRM administrators as soon as possible.
- Understand business processes: Map out your current business processes and identify areas where the CRM system can provide the most value. This will help you tailor the system to fit your specific workflows. Ensure that the whole team agrees on and understands the business needs and CRM requirements, and that they adhere to the same working methodology.
- Data management: Establish guidelines for data entry, maintenance, and quality control. Clean and accurate data is essential for effective CRM operations, helping you gain valuable insights into customer behavior, sales trends, and marketing performance to inform your business strategies.
- Set an adequate budget: For quality work, it is necessary to set aside an adequate budget. Often, a significant portion of the budget is spent at the beginning of the project, leaving very few resources to make final adjustments, which are often sloppy tasks that make the difference between partial or full user buy-in.
- Training and support: We can’t emphasize this enough! Provide comprehensive training for all users to ensure that they are comfortable with the system. Ongoing support and resources should be available to address any issues that arise. Pay special attention to the resources that will operate and administer the CRM by educating them on the system's ins and outs. Provide ongoing training/mentorship for these individuals as well as all other users.
Choosing the right partner
Choosing the right partner to implement your CRM solution is vital. The consulting team needs to understand and blend quickly with your company culture, and not the other way around. The consultants must also understand and adapt to your internal policies. The project team must be familiar with the different levels of formal and informal decision-making and influence.
Changing significant resources mid-project (both customer and vendor) can have a direct impact on project schedules, workloads, and costs. Make sure that you select a partner where the consultants have longevity with the organization and are there to remain focused for the duration of your project.
At Alithya, we always keep the end user and the project scope in mind when carrying out implementation activities and project decisions. Our team is sensitive to the various signals that could indicate that one or more success criteria are not being met, and we are flexible enough to adjust quickly. Contact us with any questions, or to learn more about the power of CRM.