A question all too familiar in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) space. Companies that spend money on a system don’t want to have to ask “why won’t our salespeople adopt the CRM we bought?!”
Here’s a hard fact – your CRM provides no benefit to your sales team.
Most CRMs are implemented as a mechanism to track sales activities and keep an eye on each salesperson’s sales pipelines. The problem with that is there’s no real value in a system that feels a lot like data entry.
Tracking sales activities is great! It answers a couple of key questions management generally wants to know. 1) “What is the salesperson doing all day?” 2) “What contact frequency are my salespeople keeping with their customer base?” Great information, but again what benefit does that really provide to the salesperson?
This is easily perceived this as data entry only. Even worse – data entry that does nothing for them other than appease management that also has an all too familiar George Orwell feeling that “Big Brother is watching.” That doesn’t provide value. In fact, it’s seemingly counterproductive. The perception becomes “management wants data entry from me rather than sales.”
Obviously that last statement is not the case, but it’s a perception that can be felt that just adds to the resistance and adoption of a CRM system. You’re tasking people that want to drive customer interaction rather than log it.
The same sentiment is likely felt about a sales pipeline. Though more understandable why it’s important, if users are already reporting on their sales activity in an Excel spreadsheet that already works, why switch?
Most CRMs lack the basic features like being able to quickly and easily enter call notes or efficiently capture sales metrics. Two key features that are supposed to increase a company’s revenue through a CRM implementation.
Do you want your sales team to adopt a CRM?
The best advice I can give a key player implementing a CRM system is to start with the people that use the software. Before a CRM is ever rolled out, find out what features mean the most to the users. What are their current pain points, and how will this system make them better?
Give them a tool that empowers them. Present useful information that applies to an individual customer, or arms them to have better and more meaningful conversations. Drive sales and customer service statistics that show outstanding invoice balances or open issues that might be a pain point. Make the process to log interactions as simple as a two-click solution.
These are all little ways that can deliver value within a CRM. “Little”, but the impact they can deliver is substantial that is a great place to open the conversation of “what do my salespeople need in a CRM?”