A recent survey by Zoho revealed what is on the minds of CRM administrators today. Zoho polled an international group of over 1,000 CRM administrators across diverse industries. See if you can relate.
When you think of a CRM Administrator does a more technical person come to mind? From my experience, that’s not always the case. Frankly, I find that being a CRM software administrator is a role nobody seems to want the responsibility for. Often times the role is assigned to an administrative person. If this person lacks the skills and experience to meet the demands of the role, it can have a significant impact on the return of the firm’s CRM investment.
Regardless of who is filling the CRM admin role, this survey is a reflection of the goals, needs, and challenges that many firms face. Let’s have a look.
The chart above revealed the priorities of business owners and managers. It reflects the intended purposes of CRM. Better reporting is clearly a strong desire. Zoho is well-equipped with the reporting and analytic features to meet this requirement.
While reporting topped the list of goals, I would suggest every one of the goals is of similar importance.
The chart below shows a strong alignment between the goals listed above and the metrics that are tracked in the CRM database.
The survey findings indicate the goals of mapping workflows into the CRM system and leveraging automation is the most popular duties expected of the CRM Administrator. Automation is possibly the hardest function to achieve. Without a strong understanding of the CRM’s advanced features, a deep understanding of the business processes, and other skills, a CRM Administrator would be severely challenged with building automation into any CRM application on their own.
According to the survey, CRM Administrators are charged with providing education for their users. Eighty percent (80%) of Administrators indicated they provide user education. However, it is not clear if they are doing the training themselves or providing outsourced trainers and external resources, such as videos to meet training demands. Also, the survey does not reflect whether the users feel they’ve been adequately trained. I would have liked to see more data on this topic.
One of the most interesting findings has to do with integrating CRM with other systems. The most valuable CRM systems are not stand-alone applications. The nature of CRM lends itself to integration with other business critical applications. The survey findings are a reflection of the most common operating aspects that businesses want their CRM integrated with.
Customer support came out as the top priority but I think Zoho CRM owners benefit from Zoho’s ability to accommodate every one of these integration needs:
Customer Support, Business Intelligence, Email Marketing, Help Chat, Accounting, and Workflow.
Zoho offers over 50+ business applications to meet the full spectrum of needs organizations have today. Zoho can truly meet the large claim it makes with its marketing slogan — “The Operating System for Business.”
If your firm is looking to achieve better results with Zoho solutions, contact First Direct Corp. We are a Zoho Authorized Partner and will help you implement Zoho CRM based on your unique needs.
Contact us at (845) 221-3800 or fill out our online form here to send your queries to us.
