Not so simple software

A recent survey conducted by Ramsdean, Hampshire-based Really Simple Systems, a provider of hosted CRM software, revealed that over 80 per cent of respondents regarded employee resistance to using the software as the biggest hurdle they faced when implementing a new system.

The survey questioned 500 users of CRM encompassing SME business owners, directors and sales, marketing and IT managers on their views of the current state of the CRM market and the efficacy of products currently available.

Surprisingly, of the users polled, nearly 83 per cent of respondents said that getting staff to use the software was the biggest challenge they faced.

'Too often companies make purchasing decisions for applications based on features, not ease of use, and then find that those extra features get in the way of usability. CRM adoption has always been an issue and the solution is to make the software easy to use, not more complex. Companies need to make sure that simplicity is as important a factor as functionality when choosing CRM systems,' said John Paterson, CEO of Really Simple Systems.

Supporting this another key finding of the survey revealed that almost 72 per cent of the respondents surveyed said that they would be prepared to trade functionality in their CRM systems for ease of use.

'That nearly three-quarters of the people we surveyed are prepared to trade functionality in their CRM systems for ease of use is again indicative of a increasing desire for CRM products that provide core functionality in an easy to use package rather than solutions which in their attempts to tick all the boxes, predictably, become unwieldy,' added Paterson.

Other findings from the research revealed that: around 43 per cent of respondents use less than half of their existing CRM system's functionality, while 50 per cent said that synchronising data was a problem. 67 per cent said that finding time to evaluate CRM systems was a major issue.