Sydney, Australia – Australian business leaders are stating their dissatisfaction with their current customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, new research by global software company SugarCRM shows.
According to the report, 49% of Australian sales professionals believe their CRM systems are costing them revenue, suggesting that sales leaders are struggling to ensure teams are spending enough time with customers and can access the data required to build and maintain these vital relationships.
Furthermore, the report shows that 52% of sales professionals in Australia believe that their CRM systems are unfit for purpose, while customer churn is costing mid-market companies an average of US$5.5M each per year.
For Craig Charlton, CEO of SugarCRM, the recent data reflects the greater change in customer behavior, and businesses around the world are facing a customer relationship crisis.
“Sales teams are bogged down with administration and stuck with an inaccurate picture of the customer with little advance notice or insight into customer churn. These findings are a wake-up call for companies relying on the market-leading incumbents in CRM with software that is tuned to steady-state and known customer behaviors,” Charlton said.
The research also found that 53% of sales leaders are fatigued and frustrated with the CRM admin burden placed on their sales teams, which is taking them away from customer-facing activities. Indeed, sales reps are only spending 54% of their time selling. Furthermore, over half of sales reps in Australia (52%) reported their customer churn increased in the last 12 months, with 52% of respondents having trouble predicting when customers would churn.
Lastly, upon reflection, almost half (48%) of those sales professionals reported not knowing why customers churned, while 50% of Australian sales leaders admit that they cannot access customer data across marketing, sales, and service systems, leaving customer-facing team members without a clear picture of their customers.
“The gap in customer data, the millions of dollars lost to churn, and the lack of insight, prevents sales and business leaders from acquiring the intelligence they need to make both vital strategic and tactical decisions. Companies that close the data gaps and improve the accuracy and completeness of their customer data, stand to improve retention, increase revenue, and gain more predictable business outcomes,” SugarCRM said in a press statement.