Why I Hate Every CRM App on the Market

Having spent the better part of two decades in sales related positions, I have experienced every iteration of Customer Relationship Management Programs on the market.

Everyone is familiar with the big dogs: SalesForce, Microsoft CRM, and HubSpot. But some promising newcomers have entered the space as well such as Cloze.

All of these programs have two things in common. First, they are great for managing the sales cycle and hosting the critical information an organization needs to make decisions. Secondly, they are time-consuming and not useful in the field.

Every organization has to collect data from its sales efforts. Without it, forecasting would be almost impossible or overly laborious.

From basic contact information to detailed customer interactions, CRMs help management extract reports that tell a story.

The ability to attach documents is especially useful. It is important to have instant access to proposals and contracts from an account management perspective. Almost all CRMs get these things right. So what are they doing so wrong?

What CRMs get wrong is on the app side.

Any outside sales person I’ve met has agreed that time management is their biggest challenge. Getting everything we do in a day entered into the CRM feels like a near impossibility. Top sales professionals spend more of their time meeting with prospects and closing deals than performing data entry tasks. Expecting a high performer to spend 2-3 hours a night or 8-10 hours on the weekend updating a database is just unrealistic and leads to some fun to watch standoffs between Management and the field.

So what is the solution?

Create apps with a built-in "field" mode. GPS is a staple in mobile applications so why is it that every CRM app misses this basic function? They all seem to have GPS but the tool doesn’t function the way we need it to. Here is what I imagine happens in the field if CRM apps were useful.

1.     Arrive at a location. Open CRM app. Click either “new customer” or “existing customer.” The app uses GPS to locate you and match the address with a current prospect or give you a list of companies located there.

2.     You choose the company name (i.e. Sunshine Apartments). If it is a new entry, the CRM app automatically would fill in the basic information such as address, company name and website.

3.     The app then automatically creates a “meeting” entry that you can save until the meeting has concluded.

4.     At the conclusion of the meeting, you would open the same entry and take a picture of the business card which the app would scan and complete the meeting contact information for you.

5.      The app would then ask two questions that you'd quickly answer. Revenue? Stage?

6.     You add a quick note, start your car and move on to the next client.

All you did was open the app, take a picture, tap out a note. It seems like you did a whole lot more but you really didn't. This scenario could be done while your A/C kicks in.

If this is already built into an app just like this, please let me know! I would love to be behind on this. What tools do you think would make field sales easier?