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More than 80% of executives regard employee resistance to using new software as being the biggest hurdle faced when implementing a system, according to a survey by hosted CRM software firm Really Simple Systems.
The survey examined the opinions of 500 users of customer relationship management (CRM) systems, including SME owners and directors as well as sales, marketing and IT managers.
It's all about people
Respondents' views on the current state of the CRM market and the efficacy of products currently available were in some ways surprising. For example, 82.9% said that, rather than technical or integration issues being the main challenges, simply getting company employees to use the software was the biggest challenge faced.
John Paterson, CEO for Really Simple Systems, said: "Too often companies make purchasing decisions for applications based on features rather than ease of use, and then they find that those extra features get in the way of usability. Companies need to make sure that simplicity is as important a factor as functionality when choosing their CRM system."
Avoid complexity
The main finding of the survey was that 71.9% of executives said that they would be prepared to trade functionality for ease of use when it comes to choosing a CRM system.
"The fact that nearly three-quarters of the people we surveyed are prepared to trade functionality for ease of use is indicative of a increasing desire for CRM products that provide core functionality in an easy to use package, rather than solutions that are unwieldy," Paterson said.
Following that finding, it was no surprise to find that 42.9% of respondents said they use less than half of their existing CRM system's functionality, and 50.5% said that synchronising data was a major issue.
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