CRM and Salespeople are in a love-hate relationship – CRMs love salespeople, but the feeling isn’t mutual from sales.
The CXO-level team, which includes the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Revenue Operations Head, or Chief Sales Officer, would enlist the endless benefits of using CRM systems. Unfortunately, it has become a common problem in every organization - the sales people refuse to use the platform - no matter the benefits.
Some of the common reasons for frustration is that they find storing the data time-consuming. Deal flows do not match the actual sales process. Not being able to see the big picture by capturing historical close rates and applying them to current pipelines. This data allows sellers to project their sales cycle to determine if they have enough activity to be ahead of their quota. Also, a common misconception among the sales team, is that the “CRM is a tool for their manager to keep a close eye on their work”
But while sales tends to get the blame, other factors also contribute to poor adoption in many cases such as:
A lack of IT/systems knowledge - “There are a lot of non-technical sales people out there and are not prepared to admit they don’t get it!”
Projects have been rolled out without consulting the users first - “CRM systems fail because the company has decided to invest in a new piece of technology (decision at Board meeting – ‘wouldn’t it be great to have a fantastic CRM system’) without engaging with the rest of the business.”
Over-complicated systems - “If they have to go too far out of their way, different logon, different software, etc. then they just won’t use it.
How Will CRM Help Your Salespeople
We cannot deny the fact, technology is meant to make our life easier. Let’s look at the big picture behind deploying a CRM system and how it can make the life of salespeople easy and manage their tasks to ease and close those deals.
Numbers Don’t Lie
According to research from HubSpot, companies that have adopted a CRM that fit their needs and the needs of their customer will experience some some significant improvement in Sales productivity and sustainable growth:
29% increase in sales by using a CRM system
34% increase in sales team productivity
$8.71 average return for every dollar spent on a CRM.
8-14% increase in the amount of sales cycle by data accessibility through CRM.
Your CRM is not all about Software and Features!
The success of the CRM system lies in creating alignment between your customer experience and integrating it with your organizational goals. Breaking down at the execution level you need to put customer experience at the core of your CRM strategy. It needs to resonate with the requirements of your sales team by keeping in mind these points.
Integrating it with your sales strategy: Your CRM is the center point of your sales, marketing, and customer success team. Your system should be in alignment of all departments - not just sales.
Communicating clear objectives: You need to sell the CRM system to the salespeople! Telling is not selling! Instead, you need to cover the business benefits and also the all-important question that each salesperson will want to answer ‘What’s in it for me?’”
Demonstrate the ROI: Ultimately it’s a battle of time vs value. You need to ensure to showcase the big picture with industry benchmarks and success stories.
Taking regular feedback from the sales team: Listening to their needs and complaints then acting on their feedback is a sure way to encourage the adoption of a CRM system.
How Will CRM Help Your Salespeople
The above facts and specifications of the CRM system brings us closer to our discussion on how a CRM will help our salespeople. A large part of a successful system lies in deeply embedded CRM strategy and alignment with your sales team. There are other factors which help in the decision-making such as:
Industry-specific CRM
CRM features
Technical Integrations
Deciding on a CRM system seems to be a simple task, it could become overwhelming due to the large ecosystem of great solutions. The systems are also very similar - which does not make your job easier. Below are some of the areas to consider in your CRM system for your sales team that will definitely help make your decision-making easier to decide on a feature-rich CRM system.
Your sales team needs a centralized database across your sales organization that can manage all information across departments.
Your sales team needs to manage all communication with prospects to ensure sales reps are tracking buyer journeys. Including interactions, phone calls, emails, sales playbook, Quotes etc.
Your sales team needs to organize contact data to ensure sales reps are tracking if a contact visited a key website page, downloaded content or connected with another sales rep.
Your sales team needs to segment prospects or customers to reach out to who meet specific criteria, such as lifecycle stage, lead nurturing process, or meets a lead scoring threshold.
Your sales teams need to create sales reports to manage their pipelines, deals and contacts. They also need to ensure they are meeting their targets and keeping track of their goals. Also, sales managers can keep track of the deal quota and monthly, quarterly targets.
Your sales teams need to automate forecasting systems to ensure sales projections for upcoming months. While also adjusting pipeline estimates as necessary.
Your sales team needs to scale the sales processes over time to identify patterns and see which sales processes are working and which ones could be improved
Where to Get More Help with Your CRM Systems
If you are still unsure about your CRM system strategy, a marketing automation consultant will be able to help translate your requirements and guide you through your selection process.
Enidan Marketing is committed to helping your business navigate the world of marketing operations with confidence and calmness. For more information, feel free to reach out to us by email or phone. We are looking forward to talking with you!