The Two Reasons CRM Trials Fail

As CRM consultants, we provide our clients with a lot of trials at xRM.com. Adopting new CRM applications entails risk. Understandably, many of our potential clients are reticent to invest in applications that they have not yet tried. CRM applications are complex, and evaluating their suitability during a limited trial is a daunting task.

From a user’s perspective, the main purpose of a trial is to help the user evaluate an application’s effectiveness as a tool for his or her business. The unfortunate truth is that the vast majority of trials fail to deliver on that purpose. Most users are no closer to making a decision about the software’s effectiveness as a business tool at the end of the trial period as they were at the beginning. The two biggest causes of this failure are lack of knowledge and lack of time.

Most users who request a trial to evaluate an application do not really have the knowledge necessary to accurately judge the effectiveness of the program. They know their business and industry, but they usually do not know much about the software that they are test driving. The new software seems less intuitive and more difficult to use than their old software, even if they were unhappy with their old software because it was difficult to use!

The second cause of failure is a lack of time. The people who are charged with judging the suitability of a particular application frequently just do not have enough time in their schedules to evaluate it. They have good intentions, but the software generally just sits there, barely used, for the seven, fourteen, or thirty days that make up most trial periods. Not surprisingly, the trial ends and they do not have the knowledge they need to make a decision. Most people in this scenario end up delaying the final decision until some magical point in the future when they will have both the time and the knowledge to make an informed judgment. These frustrated trial evaluators generally end up continuing to use the old applications that were failing to meet their needs in the first place.

At xRM, we deal extensively with Microsoft Dynamics® CRM. Industry experts frequently laud Dynamics CRM for being easy-to-use due to its familiar ribbon interface, Microsoft Outlook® integration, and role-based privileges. However, Dynamics CRM is still an incredibly powerful and frankly complex piece of software that is difficult to evaluate in the few short weeks of a trial without having a strong background with the program.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Trial Resources from xRM

In order to make Microsoft Dynamics CRM trials more effective for our clients, we created two educational resources. We designed these resources to arm our potential clients with the knowledge that they need to determine if Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online can help their businesses grow and prosper. With the right information, users can evaluate the ability of CRM Online to meet their needs more quickly and accurately.

Our Microsoft Dynamics CRM webinars are one-hour long and cover the basics of Dynamics CRM, as well as provide an opportunity to ask questions about the product.

The Success Portal is a self-help library of concise training videos that covers hundreds of topics related to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The Success Portal provides an opportunity to learn as little or as much as you want to about CRM at your own pace.

Both of these resources are free for companies that name xRM.com as their Partner of Record (opens as a Doc), a process which takes only one minute and costs nothing.

xRM is a Microsoft partner that specializes in CRM and private cloud services. To inquire about the company’s services, email sales@xrm.com or call 1-800-836-5147.