If there was ever an application that can rightfully be considered "mission critical," it’s CRM. If you don’t want to end up wasting time and money, beware of these five "gotchas" that can bring any CRM system to a screeching halt:

Gotcha #1. The vendor doesn’t know your industry. If your industry is different from other industries (and what industry isn’t?), you’ll likely need a CRM system that has certain unique features, or can be customized to match. If your CRM vendor has scant experience in your industry, the likelihood that you’ll get what you need is minimal.
Solution: Ask your vendor to provide specific references that match your business and the requirements of your sales organization. As you interview the references, only count the opinion of those who’ve achieved measurable business results.

Gotcha #2. Your organization isn’t ready for change. To make the best use of your CRM system, it will probably be necessary to make adjustments in personnel, goals, direction, compensation, and so forth. Such tactics always involve change – a process that many organizations find challenging. But without these changes, your CRM system is likely to fall flat.
Solution: Since your CRM vendor is leading the charge on the technology end of CRM, they’re probably the right people to be leading the charge on the change management aspect. Ideally, the CRM vendor will have enough experience to make the change process easier on your organization.

Gotcha #3. The system is designed for sales management. Successful CRM implementations ALWAYS focus on helping the sales team to sell, rather than helping management to track sales activity. Therefore, if the CRM system is to be successful, you’ll need to understand which processes and best practices are most likely to thrive in your environment.
Solution: Work with your CRM vendor and your sales staff to come up with a "What’s in it for the sales team" document. Use this document to drive user adoption, and to hone your plan for data quality, communication, training, measurement, management reinforcement, and business alignment.

Gotcha #4. Misunderstandings about data ownership. (Note: This "gotcha" is only relevant for companies using on-demand CRM.) Turns out that some companies have had difficulty getting control of their customer information once their contract expires and have no way of knowing if there are still copies of their customer information on their former vendor’s system.
Solution: Choose a CRM vendor who offers flexible deployment options so you can take your customer information in-house if you are not comfortable with potentially losing control of this key asset.

Gotcha #5. MORE misunderstandings about data ownership. Sales pros leaving a firm often suspect that they’ll lose the contact information of customers that they’ve entered into the CRM system. This causes them to waste time entering all customer data twice, once into the corporate CRM, and once into their private contact manager. This redundant activity damages productivity.
Solution: Define and publish a policy concerning employee data ownership. Hint: rather than trying to control the contact data, have sales reps sign a non-compete agreement. That way, you can give them the contact data when they leave the firm without worrying that they’ll use it to help a competitor.

The above is based largely upon a conversation with Dale Hagemeyer, a research VP at Gartner, the world’s largest high tech analyst firm.