6 Common Misconceptions About Legacy CRMs

Let’s face it. You joined the #1 CRM bandwagon in a rush to make your sales process foolproof. You picked a legacy CRM software in the hope that it would equip your salespeople to hit win rates consistently and engage better with leads.

Well, you are not alone.

Sales leaders are under constant pressure to improve the overall performance of sales teams by cracking win rates, increasing the quality of leads and improving the monthly recurring revenue. 

Because of this, the most likely course is to pick a market leading CRM without checking if it is the right solution for your business.

But aligning your sales strategy with the world’s #1 CRM would be like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. 

If your salespeople shudder to even use the CRM you picked and your win rates continue to decline, you need to step back and put your selection through a litmus test and onboard the right CRM vendor.  

4 Signs Your Business is Using a Legacy CRM

 

  1. Excel Vs CRM: Your sales teams still want to use spreadsheets over your complicated CRM. 
  2. Expensive promises: Your CRM is piling up expenses over time for your business with negligible ROI. 
  3. Complex software: Your CRM is complicated to use and your business needs a separate team to implement it. 
  4. Difficult to track: Numbers aid businesses in making decisions but pulling numbers from your CRM is a monumental effort. 

If your CRM shows any of these signs, you need to consider switching to an intuitive CRM that works for your business. It should not be the other way around

In fact, according to a Forrester study, more than 69% of businesses are looking to replace their CRM solutions in the next two years. 

Here are some common myths about legacy CRMs that need to be addressed. 

Debunking 6 Misconceptions about Legacy CRMs 

 

#1 Legacy CRM solutions can grow your business

Most legacy CRMs promise growth, they promise that you can become a market leader by using their CRM, that your sales teams can hit win rates, attain quotes and improve sales performance. 

But this rosy picture is the stark reality: 

As per the 2018-2019 Sales Performance Report issued by CSO Insights, legacy CRM solutions have not helped a majority of their customers achieve the outcomes they had promised. 

For the past five years, business metrics such as win rates have remained stagnant at 47% and quota attainment has dropped from 63% to 54%. This means that sales teams are still closing less than half of their forecast deals.

This clearly indicates that legacy CRMs could be an impediment to your business growth. 

#2 Expensive CRMs deliver value for money

Many sales leaders invest in expensive CRMs believing claims that overhead costs will reduce over time.  According to the Forrester report on SaaS CRMs, 31% of CRM buyers believe that existing CRMs involve expensive upfront costs. 

With a complex, clunky CRM, you will spend significant time and money just setting it up. Some CRM vendors claim that their plans are just $25 per user annually, which doesn’t seem expensive. But as your business grows and you need more features, the cost could go up to almost $300. 

Also, imagine adding a built-in phone to your kitty actually costs close to $3,600 for some legacy CRMs when you can have the same built-in phone at just $19 per month with Freshsales-Freshcaller integration. You only need to purchase the phone numbers you need and pay-as-you-go for calls, which gives you flexibility depending on the size of your organisation. 

With Freshsales, as your business scales from small to mid-market to enterprise, we design our CRM to keep up with your needs—and stay friendly with your wallet. 

#3 Legacy CRMs are easy to implement

Businesses tend to put so-called ‘gold standard’ CRMs on a pedestal and so are unable to gauge the pain these would put their teams through during implementation. 

Legacy CRMs usually involve hiring heavyweight IT teams to implement the software and keep it running. Business owners have to hire specialists who can code, and often , even salespeople are required to code. Why should your salespeople have hire developers to code , when they should ideally be spending all their time selling? 

Some legacy CRMs also charge around $23,000 just to implement their software for your business. You can save on such costs if you get a CRM like Freshsales, which has an easy-to-use interface that can get your salespeople started quickly.

“Freshsales’ simple interface gives us a clean and minimalistic view of customer data. We almost went with Salesforce until we learned about Freshsales. It was incredibly easy to use and came with all the features needed.” – Guy Brand, Co-CEO, Big Shot.  

#4 Legacy CRMs can improve productivity 

Did you know that top salespeople use LinkedIn six hours per week to research prospects and connect with peers? How will your salespeople dedicate so much time to selling, when manually adding leads into the legacy CRM is hampering their productivity? 

In addition to this, some legacy CRMs also require your salespeople to manually adding call details, create email copies and send emails to prospects. 

Freshsales CRM helps your salespeople know the customer better by automatically enriching a lead profile with publicly available information.  Your salespeople can also automate manual tasks and set up intelligent workflows to perform those tasks. 

#5 Legacy CRMs are intuitive and easy to use 

CRMs are supposed to be a sales team’s best ally. But a complicated CRM can forcefully remove salespeople from the sales floor and transform them into CRM implementers for your business. 

Legacy CRMs boast about having an easy user interface. But in reality, salespeople find it very hard to maneuver inside those CRMs, when they should be knowing it by the back of their hand. 

You wouldn’t face that problem with Freshsales. According to Elisa, from Packly, a logistics firm, “Freshsales is really intuitive and easy-to-use thanks to its accessible menus and filters. There is also the possibility to customize some overviews in order to keep all essential information at your fingertips.”

#6 Legacy CRMs provide great customer service 

If you are spending big bucks, you expect a certain level of commitment from the CRM vendor to douse fires when things go downhill with your CRM. But guess what? Some legacy CRMs actually charge you for customer support once you sign the dotted line.

Some legacy CRM vendors actually charge about $9 for providing one-on-one advice and 24×7 technical support. 

So over time, paying for support will start impacting your costs. With Freshsales, you don’t need to fret because it has a robust customer support system that will address your queries quickly. Most importantly, it comes free. 

Brian Engles, Director of Partnerships, Facilitron, vouches for our customer service: “A huge takeaway, product aside, the team at Freshsales is world-class, with outstanding support, success and service from both the sales and product teams.”

So look beyond legacy CRMs blowing their own trumpets with claims about improving your performance and growing your business. Exercise caution while choosing a CRM partner for your business, and ensure that they have the chops to deliver on what they promise. 

Choose a CRM vendor that is an equal partner and is invested in your growth as much as you are. 

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