REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Oct. 22,
2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sellers are working harder than
ever but their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are
not working for them, according to a new study conducted by CRM
analyst firm Beagle Research Group in partnership with Oracle. The
study, "Getting Past the Breaking Point of Yesterday's CRM,"
includes insights from more than 500 sellers in the U.S. and found
that sellers are frustrated with the time-consuming, manual, and
unintegrated elements of their job. In addition, the findings
highlight the various ways that sellers are doing their best to
accomplish sales objectives while not having the tools they need to
excel.
Sellers Would Rather Clean the Bathroom Than Update Their CRM
System
While sellers' responsibilities have expanded,
conventional CRM systems are stuck in the past and are holding them
back – and this is especially true for inside selling:
- 90% of sellers complain that parts of their job take longer
than they should. The top areas listed were entering notes in the
CRM system (35%), updating or working in multiple systems (34%),
and sales training activities (31%).
- 86% are frustrated by certain elements of their jobs. The
largest frustrations cited were handling repetitive administrative
tasks that could be automated (43%), updating multiple systems that
ought to be connected (38%), following up with a prospect that they
know isn't interested (38%), and re-entering email or calendar data
into their CRM system (35%).
- 85% of sellers have made potentially embarrassing mistakes due
to faulty CRM data. The top mistakes identified by sellers include
calling the prospect by the wrong name (33%) and having the
opposite idea of what a prospect wanted (29%).
- 66% of sellers would rather stand in line at the DMV, get stuck
in traffic, do jury duty, clean the bathroom, make a trip to the
dentist, or even be nagged by their significant other than update
their CRM system.
The Majority of Sellers Don't Use Their CRM System
Regularly
Sellers prefer to spend their time
selling, yet they get bogged down by tasks that take longer than
they should. CRM systems promised to solve this challenge, but have
failed:
- Sellers rely on an average of eight tools to do their daily
jobs. The top five most commonly used tools are email, the
internet, smartphones, video conferencing, and Word documents.
- 55% of sellers rely on a combination of applications – and
several that aren't well integrated – plus manual tools such as
Post-it Notes.
- 46% of sellers have found a roundabout way or created a
non-standard shortcut in their CRM system.
- Only 47% of sellers use their CRM system regularly and only 40%
use it as intended.
Sellers' Work-Life Balance is Suffering and Making Them Wish
They Had Superpowers
Outdated CRM systems are
hurting productivity and are causing sellers to conduct business
outside of normal office hours to meet their quotas, making them
wish they had superpowers to do their jobs.
- The inefficiencies of CRM systems are often preventing sellers
from meeting their quotas within normal work hours, and as a
result, sellers have taken sales calls in a variety of unusual
places:
-
- 50% of sellers have taken calls on vacation. Sellers are also
taking calls at the dinner table (40%), at a party or social event
(33%), in the bathroom (30%), at the gym (24%), or on a date
(16%).
- 98% of sellers wish they had superpowers to help them
accomplish their day-to-day duties:
-
- The most common wish was the ability to predict the future
(30%), followed by having a perfect memory (19%), having
super-focus (16%), knowing a prospect's mood (13%), being extremely
organized (12%), and reading their sales managers' minds
(8%).
Supporting Quotes
"The CRM systems that are widely used today are simply not
adequate. They do not cover the spectrum of a seller's everyday
work activities, and sellers are having to spend considerable time
and effort to make up for those shortcomings," said Denis Pombriant, managing principal, Beagle
Research, Inc. "Our research has shown that outdated CRM systems
are not only impacting sellers productivity, but are also impacting
the overall financial performance of organizations. But there is a
silver lining: improvements in technology over the last several
years are resulting in new data-driven and AI powered solutions –
the next era of the CRM – that can reduce sellers' workload and
empower them to focus on what they do best: selling."
"Selling has always been a hard job, and the global pandemic has
not made it any easier as customer behaviors have dramatically
changed in a very short amount of time," said Katrina Gosek, vice president, Oracle Cloud CX.
"Our research has proven that traditional CRM systems are simply
not working. Sellers are tired of having to piece together
information across the sales process and tired of conventional CRMs
that are an endless burden of data entry. They are asking for sales
technology that acts as a source of recommendation. At Oracle, we
are reinventing the selling experience by leveraging front and back
office data, providing a modern AI-driven user interface and
offering clear guidance through real-time customer insights that
put sales teams on the path to success – and closer than ever to
the superpowers they need."
Learn more about this report here.
Methodology
Beagle Research identified over 500 line of business employees with
primary responsibilities of selling to new accounts via digital
tools, in the business to business space. During June and July of
2020, we fielded a survey, inquiring about their jobs, the wins and
frustrations they encounter, and the technologies they use. Because
we were able to pinpoint these individuals, we believe our results
are highly accurate (z-test = 95/90).
About Beagle Research
Founded by Denis Pombriant in 2004, Beagle Research is
a Boston based firm specializing
in research and analysis of front office business technology trends
in CX/CRM. In addition to this report, Pombriant is the author of
many other studies and several books on CRM.
About Oracle
The Oracle Cloud offers a
complete suite of integrated applications for Sales,
Service, Marketing, Human Resources, Finance, Supply Chain and
Manufacturing, plus Highly Automated and Secure Generation 2
Infrastructure featuring the Oracle Autonomous Database. For
more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit us
at oracle.com.
Trademarks
Oracle and Java are registered trademarks
of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of
their respective owners.
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SOURCE Oracle