You're considering a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for your business. But you have reservations. Do you really need a CRM system? Will it take forever to install? Will anybody use it once you do? Will it work? How will your employees react to the changes to your business CRM inevitably requires? You also wonder whether it will be worth the cost. And how success will be measured? These are all questions you should be asking.

But let's start with whether you really need CRM.

The CRM wake-up call for most businesses is usually something negative. Your top-performing sales person leaves and takes his entire customer contact data with him. Or, while customer service is trying to help a frustrated customer, your sales team tries to upsell her. She feels ill treated and dumps you. Here are some other signs that it's time to consider CRM:

• You lack a 360 degree view of the customer that includes sales and support
• Sales spends hours updating spreadsheets
• There are channel conflicts between sales people and channel partners calling on the same customer
• Sales reporting and forecasting are tedious, inaccurate, time consuming
• Marketing cannot measure the success and ROI of its campaigns
• Service treats every problem as new because it lacks customers' service history
• Fulfillment asks for details common to every order, every time

The common denominator is having data in the right place, in the right format, at the right time. Without a CRM system, it's impossible to keep this information in the minds of all of your employees.

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