We’ve all heard the staggering statistics behind this-and-that CRM product. “Will cut lead gen time in half in 90 days!” or better yet, “Gain 85% more customers per year!” Right.
The unfortunate thing is many really terrific CRM products actually can have a monumental impact on your sales process. That is, if anyone would use them.
The trick to finding a CRM product that actually benefits your business is figuring out how to get people to actually adopt and use the process, and not just some people. Everyone. Over 66% of companies say they have a hard time raising adoption rates over about 50%. That’s a discouraging number.
Here are a few ways to get higher CRM adoption rates without losing your whole sales team to Groupon or Apple or whatever the foosball-in-the-breakroom-company of the month is.
Make Your CRM Software Unavoidable
Doesn’t that sound…annoying? At first, yes. There’s really no getting around the inevitable discomfort that comes with implementing a new CRM, akin to getting a new phone with a whole bunch of foreign-seeming buttons to learn. Before you launch companywide, it’s crucial to put safeguards in place that consistently remind your team to use the CRM, trust the CRM, love the CRM. Also, make it difficult (and awkward) to avoid the CRM-driven data at meetings and in status reports and you’ll see adoption rates rise.
Put Your CRM in the “Cloud”
Cloud computing doesn’t just make things more convenient for everyone, it’s going to make your employees more mobile. That’s a great value-add! If you can find a way to reward employees who are consistent with their CRM use with flexibility (say, work from home Fridays or longer lunches) you’re going to see more people taking advantage. In general, your staff is going to care most about the things that make their life easier too, not just yours.
Choose a CRM that can be Customized
There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of CRM products out there, some great and some best left to go the route of Pets.com. Of course, juggernauts like Salesforce have a lot to offer businesses but it may make more sense to find a product that’s specifically designed for your industry and for the type of sales team you employ. The more simple customization your CRM product offers at a user-level, the higher your usage rates are going to be.
Analyze the Data Often and Openly
Think fast: what’s the point of CRM software? If you said, “to keep my lazy employees on track,” then you are a terrible, terrible boss. The real reason CRM is valuable is cold, hard data. Whoever “owns” CRM in your office should regularly offer insights based on the data it provides and also make that data available to the sales team. Not only will this give everyone a little more ownership, it will prove the point that your fancy new CRM setup isn’t going anywhere.
You can’t force employees to use your CRM, but you can give them a lot of incentives. The more attractive you make a CRM-driven workplace the higher your adoption rates are going to be. Every. Single. Time.
This article was originally posted to the Mindmulch blog by Ryan Currie (guest blogger) on November 18, 2013.
Ryan Currie is a product manager at BizShark.com, with 5 years experience in online marketing and product development. In addition to web related businesses, he also enjoys the latest news and information on emerging technologies and open source projects.
