New Research From SugarCRM Reveals a Customer Relationship Crisis

Struggling to get a clear picture of their customers, 49% of sales leaders in Australia say their CRM is costing them revenue

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CUPERTINO,
CALIFORNIA - Media OutReach -
19 February 2021 – Fueled by lack of visibility into customer data, companies
are facing a customer relationship crisis. Fifty-two percent 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 per year each, according to a new CRM and Sales Impact Report from
SugarCRM.

The
research reveals that many businesses lack the necessary tools to provide the
kind of customer experience that will keep them competitive. Besieged with
status quo CRM systems, sales leaders are struggling to ensure their sales
teams are spending enough time with customers and can access the data required
to build and maintain these vital relationships. The report surveyed 1,000
sales decision-makers in the US, UK, Germany, and Australia, and found that 49%
of Australian sales professionals believe their CRM systems are costing them
revenue — demonstrating the extent of the issue.

“Customer behavior has
fundamentally changed and businesses around the world are facing a customer
relationship crisis,” said Craig Charlton, CEO of SugarCRM. ”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.

The research 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. The CRM and Sales Impact Report
also revealed 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. And upon reflection, almost half (48%) of
those sales professionals reported not knowing why customers churned.

In addition, 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.

To download the full CRM
and Sales Impact Report from SugarCRM, including regional data for the US, UK,
Germany, and Australia, visit:

https://www.sugarcrm.com/au/hd-cx/content/crm-sales-impact/.

About SugarCRM

The SugarCRM sales, marketing and service platform helps
businesses deliver a high-definition customer experience by eliminating the
blind spots, roadblocks and busy work that plagues legacy CRM. For growth
companies and anyone who wants to work smarter not harder, Sugar provides the
clear view of the customer that teams need to reach new levels of business
performance and predictability.

More than 4,500 companies in over 120 countries rely on
SugarCRM. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, SugarCRM is backed by Accel-KKR.