With CRM, 80% of us suffer from low adoption leading to poor ROI-itis. Fortunately, this condition is not terminal and can be fixed by following five easy steps.
Step 1:
Suffering from low user adoption and disappointing ROI? Around 65% of CRM projects fail due to low user adoption. Re-examine your key stakeholders and early adopters and make them part of the team. If your key salespeople won’t use the tool, then others will push back. To mitigate this, get key users involved in the CRM process early, and ask them which workflows are frustrating.
Determine what can be automated or simplified. Get them involved with the design, so they’ll take ownership in the execution processes. Hearing and implementing their suggestions will go a long way toward total user adoption. Another fix to this problem is gaming your CRM usage. Offer a skiff or incentive to reward using CRM. Everyone knows money talks.
Step 2:
Conduct a holistic audit – STAT! Now that you have examined key stakeholders, honestly access your current position, including where you are now and where you want to be. Where you want to be can be measured by any quantifiable front-end sales metric like order intake, new accounts captured, regional or individual performance, in any combination. On the back end we can measure quotes, back log, shipments, revenue and even corresponding ROI.
Step 3:
Stunted Growth? Your CRM should grow as your business grows. If not, growing pains will turn problematic and may require surgery. Never the preferred option. Build the layout for capturing non-PCAT items, like Engineering Specials, or capturing data from top 20 accounts from some future BU. When selecting the CRM that will work for you, plan for evolution. Even if you just need some basic functionalities right now, consider the next phases. Is there a higher tier you can move to as your business evolves? How does it integrate with other platforms you might be using?
Step 4:
Keep the data clean and avoid infection. Poor data quality can lead to frustrating results with your CRM. Usually haunts you around the end of the month when commission checks are being calculated and the arguments begin. Make sure that your data is clean and up-to-date. Everyone needs reliable data that is the “source of truth.”
Step 5:
Choosing the wrong vendor can make you ill. Working with the incorrect VAR or the CRM developer can lead to many issues down the line. Make sure you do your research before selecting your partners. Have a well thought out plan for vender comparisons. Do you need help writing or implementing the plan? What’s their experience? Do they have the technical CRM expertise along with the understanding of your sales and operations model?
What to Do Next
No need to stay home in bed, but you may want to hire an expert to help. Let SalesProcess360 guide you down this critical path. Platform-agnostic, SP360 can help no matter who’s CRM or what stage of your CRM journey you’re in. Let us be your CRM wingman. We work almost exclusively in the Industrial Automation space. Our reusable tools are designed specifically for this market’s unique set of challenges.
We focus in 3 core competencies:
- Design Assurance
- Project Execution Assurance
- Onboarding Excellence
Our audit and analysis include key stakeholder input, current systems capabilities, gap analysis and many other key metrics.
Once the assessment is complete and results shared, we create a detailed roadmap and phased approach for implementation.
This ensures success at the ground level with users and management aligned with common goals. For more information visit us at www.salesprocess360.com