There is no doubt that a well implemented CRM is an asset to any company, and according to this Gartner report more and more companies are realizing this. It shows a market very driven by SAAS providers such as Salesforce. There’s also a big rise for Microsoft’s traditional client server based CRM as well. What a report like this does not show is the successful or unsuccessful implementations. It doesn’t show companies who get it right and put in the time before hand to get their processes and data in place.
A lot of these companies will have taken on a CRM after reading the blurb about “Sales Force Automation” and “increasing sales”. The emphasis is on new sales and reducing the work taken to make those sales. This is all great stuff and true to a degree. But in our rush to automate any process and especially one which concerns the interaction of people to benefit the company, you need to be very mindful of those people interactions and their ongoing value to your customers and your ongoing sales.
Part of the trick to CRM is that it should allow and encourage communication about customers within your organization (not just the sales people). But all too often what happens is that the sales people guard their leads and don’t put everything in the CRM. Sales then end up in a totally different system and silo within the organization. This happens because the old methods of working are continued and the true nature of the system is not utilized by improved processes. A business is a team and CRM works best with a team approach.
The team can be damaged by too much automation. It happens in any process, automation is only as good as the people involved. It’s all well and good setting up great work flow which pushes the lead or document along the process to the anticipated outcome but, if you do not design for people to be a major part of that system it will hit a big snag. So before you implement a CRM take time to find out how your people work and how they don’t. Find out where they can improve then work to make that happen.
Look at your sales team, are they a team? Or a group of individuals? Do they all chase individual bonuses or team bonuses? If it’s individual you may as well forget CRM unless you are willing to change that first. What are their strengths and weaknesses? How do you assign leads and customers? How do they work together to overcome obstacles?
In a recent post on AllBizAnswers Bradford Shimp posed the analogy that going after “that sale” was never a straight line, rather you needed to craft a good arc to get over the obstacles. Read the post here for a better understanding- it’s worth it! The thrust of this post is about overcoming obstacles in your sales process, obstacles you cannot barrel your way through, but have to work out how to go around or over them. Automation does not do this, it cannot even provide answers for how you should do it. Because all too often these obstacles are human in nature and they need human solutions.
An individual sales person could easily give up at this point and move to an easier lead. This happens all too often. But in a team this obstacle could be looked at with fresh or experienced eyes. Tossed around in the group until a solution is found or another team member takes it on board or shares the effort. In this team approach with shared benefits it is in the interest of the more experienced staff to support the less so. Do this by having regular meetings where each member brings news and issues they need help with. Think of it as sales training and team building all rolled into one. Encourage constant sharing, If you are not doing this now start before you implement a CRM.
When I was reading Bradford’s post and his analogy of a basketball court I started thinking about how it’s not just that final curve ball which needs to over come the obstacles. First you need to get across the court to get yourself set up for that final curve ball. Again this means team work. But this time it’s a team of different players. This team is made up of all the other people about whom you record information in your CRM. And this is the other potential pitfall of the whole automation approach. Especially for a small, mostly local, business. If you classify everyone as a “lead” or an “opportunity” you miss those who are potentially part of your team but not a sale. CRM is not just about your sales it’s about all your customers and all your interactions. Treat everyone as a customer and one day they will be or they will bring you others. So use your CRM not just as a sales tool but as a repository of customer and contact knowledge.
You need to be able to see who you can pass the ball to get around an obstacle. You don’t have to do all the dribbling. Let contacts help you get set up for that final shot. This may sound like affiliation, but not necessarily. This is networking and it can work both ways. You become part of their team and vice versa. This has always been part of business. But if you do this with CRM then all your staff are able to play the game, they can see which of their colleagues is in contact with a person who can carry the ball for you on this occasion and can pass the ball for you. You can build a shareable map of the court on which you are playing and learn how best to move that ball around.
Remember it takes a team effort to move the ball, it is not going to move itself.
photo credit: quinn.anya
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Andrew Nimick is a projects director through his company, Point Concept. Read Andrew’s blog at blog.pointconcept.info.
