My company has implemented hundreds of powerful customer relationship management (CRM) systems over the years and, without question, the number one obstacle that our clients have faced has been getting people, especially their salespeople, to use their system. Some companies don’t consider CRM systems to be “mission critical” like accounting, inventory or payroll systems so the level of urgency is not the same. Those are the companies that generally fail with CRM. The ones that succeed adopt CRM as culture and know that having a great CRM database will improve their company’s value and profitability.
But the reality is that a CRM system is just a database and to have a great database you have to do the work – more work then maybe before. The benefits are substantial, but it takes a while before some people see them. So you have to figure out a way to get your sales and service people using the system, particularly during the first few months, or things can quickly derail. So how do you get them doing this? Here are three simple, yet powerful tricks I learned from smart clients. They all worked.
The Voicemail Trick
Not all salespeople are technical. But that doesn’t mean they’re not good salespeople. The last thing you want to happen is your CRM system getting in the way of them making sales. One of my clients, a distributor of delicatessen meats, had this problem. Their salespeople were old school and tech-averse. But management needed to know their activities. The solution? A compromise. Management set up a company voicemail and told their salespeople who didn’t like doing data entry to “call-in” their activities every day and…just leave a message. A high school kid was hired to listen to the messages each evening and update the database. That way the salespeople could focus more on selling and management still got the information they needed in their CRM system.
The Lead Trick
Ask any salesperson what’s most important to their livelihood and they’ll tell you it’s leads. “Give me a lead and I’ll close the deal,” a salesperson at one client told me. OK, that’s a little over-optimistic. But the truth is that a good marketing person will generate leads and a good salesperson will take those leads and sell. A good manager? She’ll make sure those leads only get distributed through her company’s CRM system. That way salespeople are forced to go into the CRM system to get those leads and provide the necessary data to get credit for the sale. The way to any good salesperson’s stomach is through his wallet – so start putting leads into your CRM system and watch him go there to get his meals.
The Alert Trick
All good CRM systems, like Insightly, enable their users to setup alerts and reminders so that appointments and tasks aren’t forgotten and nothing falls through the cracks. But alerts can do much more. Alerts can ensure that your salespeople are fully using your CRM system. Say you’re a sales manager and you’re getting alerts sent to you every hour because one of your salespersons isn’t following up on a lead, completing an activity or returning phone calls on time? What if you’re getting an alert because that same salesperson isn’t updating crucial status fields on a timely basis or even logged into the system in 24 hours? You’re trying to run a sales group, you’ve invested in a CRM system, and this clown isn’t even using it? Kind of annoying, isn’t it? Yes it is. It’s also kind of career-limiting for your salesperson, if you get my drift.
Will either of these three tricks solve the problem of getting your people using your CRM system? Yes…as long as their complemented by one other thing: you. As the executive, manager or business owner in charge of the system you’ve got to be the one to put your foot down and stand behind it. You’ve got to be the person who declares that your CRM system is every bit as important as your accounting or inventory system and that, in the words of one client of mine “if it’s not in the system it doesn’t exist!” In the end, it’s your system and your investment. You’ll only get out of it what you put into it.
At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.
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About the Author: About the Author: Gene Marks is a small business owner, technology expert, author and columnist. He writes regularly for leading US media outlets such as The Washington Post, Forbes, Inc. Magazine and Entrepreneur. He has authored five books on business management and appears regularly on Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC and CNBC. Gene runs a ten-person CRM and technology consulting firm outside of Philadelphia. Learn more at genemarks.com
