Design the CRM around your sales and business process.
Roll out your CRM in phases. Utilize groups or teams to iron out the kinks before rolling it out to the entire organization.
Keep your sales teams informed. Ongoing communication about feature updates is important. Written policies on what is expected of users regarding their day to day use of your CRM is critical.
Use the “Carrot and Stick” approach to enforce policies.
Collect data in fields that add meaningful insight into your prospects, customers or partners. Do not unnecessarily over complicate your screens.
Run your sales meetings from Reports and Dashboards in the CRM. In other words, if the data is not in your CRM, it doesn’t exist.
Make your sales people self-sufficient. Utilize reports and dashboards and give them the training so they can develop their own.
Roll out new features in a phased approach. Be sure that your users understand why it is being implemented and the process to utilize it.
Training on your CRM (or any sales tool) is an ongoing process. Keep training on a short cycle like every quarter. Also, pick a “Power-User” to help initiate and facilitate learning.
Lastly, implementation and utilization of CRM needs to be about your sales people–not just management. Salespeople respond well when they recognize that CRM can benefit them, in the same way that it is a useful tool for management.
These are just some of the important elements to driving your CRM adoption. For more sales training and tips, please contact us here