Using CRM data to inform, counsel and instruct sales people to enhance their performance is useful, however using it to batter a sales individual is a fantastic method to get the sales group to selectively edit exactly what goes in CRM. When the most visible and remarkable results of using CRM are tongue-lashings from managers, use will suffer and the entire CRM investment will be threatened.
CRM technology typically gets blamed for the failure of customer efforts– and sometimes it’s been worthy of. In many cases, however, the technology works precisely as advertised– as far as technology can work.
Still, CRM is a discipline, not a technology– the technology merely assists business scale up the discipline. For that reason, individuals and the procedures around CRM are as important to its success as any software your company might purchase.
That human aspect always introduces a degree of uncertainty to the mix. I typically joke that CRM would be fail-proof if we might somehow take individuals out of it.
People Are the Point
Obviously, the whole point of CRM is the people– both on the buying side and the selling side. The selling side is where CRM has the tendency to come off the rails.
The blame commonly goes to people in the company– a sales vice head of state who fails to lead, sales people who are stuck in their methods, IT personnel who can not realize business problems, and so on. Naturally, failure is truly a group sport– it’s actions and responses from the entire sales and marketing team that trigger CRM efforts to collapse.
These can begin with the very culture of the company. I’m not discussing the superficial things– the advantages and idiosyncratic things about how a company works. I’m talking about ingrained mindsets that affect the way people view their jobs– the things that are truly tough to change.
Following are three examples of cultural concerns you have to solve if you desire your CRM efforts to prosper.
1. Grass Wars
CRM is often brought in to solve issues with sales. Because of that, sales people are the first to be trained and the first to put CRM to use. If the culture is wrong, that’s where it stops: The CRM application belongs to sales and sales alone. Of course, CRM has the possible to change the whole business– but that will never take place if it is jealously safeguarded by sales.
The exact same holds true for marketing automation applications: If the data is hoarded in the marketing department, it leaves sales and support in the dark.
Below’s a general rule: A department might be in charge of an application, but it does not have special ownership of the data the application collects. CRM is typically viewed as a campaign that breaks down information silos within businesses. That’s not right: It knocks those silos down if individuals within the company are willing to do so.
2. The Self-Punishment Paradox
Business with cultures that emphasize the stick rather than the carrot have a hard time with CRM in general. CRM problems are signs of greater issues in these cases, however the desire to penalize the workers manifests itself in dubious methods within CRM.
First, there are the unfavorable rewards connected to using the CRM application. Sales people are dented for not utilizing CRM in these environments; the punishment may be the loss of a couple of points of commission, or all the commission, or any credit for a sale toward their quarterly goal. The object is not to make sales people see CRM as an ally and a tool for greater success. The object seems to be making CRM something you make use of– or else.
As soon as the data is in the CRM application, these very same business have the tendency to make use of that data to batter the sales people around performance issues. Utilizing CRM data to educate, counsel and instruct sales people to enhance their performance is valuable, but using it to batter a sales person is a terrific method to get the sales team to selectively edit what enters CRM.
Think about it: Why would you give your manager ammo to fire at you? When the most noticeable and remarkable outcomes of using CRM are tongue-lashings from managers, use will suffer and the whole CRM financial investment will be threatened.
3. The Know-It-All Syndrome
CRM is profoundly beneficial in discovering sales trends. Initially, numerous of these discoveries will verify exactly what sales managers already feel is going on– it’s proof of the hunches that experienced sales pros get, based on their experience.
Regrettably, in some environments, that’s completion of the lesson: If CRM does not deliver a paradigm-shifting nugget of actionable information, it fades from attention and is utilized like an expensive Rolodex.
This is a genuine danger. Anybody who’s ever done surveys can inform you that despite the fact that the very first survey is useful, a series of studies over time is actually excellent, since it reveals not just exactly what’s going on today, however likewise exactly what the trend lines point at for tomorrow.
The exact same applies for sales data: More is much better. Frequent analysis of this data, while likely to validate your beliefs about what’s going on in sales, can disclose surprises– and surprises are what sales managers have to find out about.
CRM is never ever a set-and-forget enterprise; parameters change as your customers and sales team change. Utilizing your CRM application as a contact management solution indicates you don’t respect the understandings it offers– which you’re eager to handle modification after it takes place rather than to use CRM as a tool to prepare prior to modification occurs.
