No matter the product type, all manufacturing companies share a common set of operational needs that have to be met for them to reach their business goals, stay competitive, and build long-lasting customer relationships. New technologies and systems, including customer relationship management (CRM) and workflow automation, play a key role in addressing these needs.

With this in mind, we recently reached out to Insightly manufacturing customers to learn about their experience and changes observed as a result of implementing Insightly CRM. We asked questions that covered common operational and business areas in manufacturing: from planning and forecasting through production, inventory management, sales, distribution, and customer service.

In this post we share key takeaways from 115 manufacturers who completed our anonymous email survey. We hope these insights will help decision-makers and CRM administrators in manufacturing companies to evaluate their own CRM needs and select the right solution.

We asked questions in the following categories:

  • User adoption
  • Productivity
  • Customer insights
  • Return on investment (ROI) and revenue growth

User adoption

User adoption, or a process of adopting and using a new CRM by its intended users, is one of the top concerns of any company that’s introducing a CRM to the team for the first time or is switching to a new one. After all, it doesn’t matter how sophisticated and powerful a CRM is if your team finds it hard to adopt and incorporate in their daily work.

Not surprisingly, when asked why they chose Insightly CRM, 57% of our survey respondents cited “adoption and ease of use” as one of the most important factors in their decision-making.

But adoption is only the first step in ensuring ROI in any new technology —consistent, frequent, and as-intended usage is what determines its long-term benefits. To that end, we learned that 77% of manufacturers use Insightly CRM on a daily basis.

Productivity

Automating repeatable processes to minimize human error and save time across different workflows and departments is critical to ensuring productivity.

In our survey, 42% of respondents reported improvement in “implementing repeatable business processes” (workflow automation) and 39% reported overall improvement in employee productivity as a result of using Insightly CRM.

Users also reported slashing weekly hours spent on administrative and routine tasks.

Customer insights

The soundness of your business decisions depends on the accuracy, relevance, and timeliness of your customer data analytics. Access to a single source of truth with a 360-degree view of your customer allows you to align your teams and engage with customers at the right time with the right message, build superior products and customer experience, and make solid business decisions.

In our survey, 69% of respondents reported having a more accurate source of information on their customers, sales, and projects as a result of implementing Insightly CRM and 47% reported improvements in understanding and reporting sales performance.

ROI and revenue growth

Of those survey respondents who were able to observe results, 70% saw positive ROI within the first year of using Insightly CRM.

As far as revenue, survey respondents reported 18% annual revenue growth as a result of using Insightly CRM.

The degree to which manufacturers are able to streamline their operations and improve productivity has a direct impact on the quality of their customer and business relationships, ability to scale and, ultimately, grow business.

For more insights and data charts from our survey, please download the FREE ebook below.

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