Getting CRM Features to Work for You

A customer relationship management (CRM) tool can help your company launch a sales team into a period of growth. CRM features can be designed to help you identify key measures that you would like to manipulate and develop a reproducible sales process.

However, many sales teams aren’t fully utilizing their CRM. Here are several reasons why your time choosing the right CRM features and investing in a CRM tool might be wasted:

It requires too much time. Sales management needs to be choosy when deciding on a CRM tool. Noncompliance is often rooted in the amount of time necessary to enter data. Sales reps need to be out selling to make their plan, so when they feel bogged down by sales reporting software, they will ignore it to focus on the activities that they know will drive their success.

There are CRM tools available now that allow sales reps to enter data quickly on a mobile device within minutes of leaving a sales meeting. In under 30 seconds, they can enter customer information, including potential opportunities and reminders for follow-ups. The sales manager can receive a sales report based on this data within 60 seconds following entry.

The sales team isn’t on board with the CRM concept. If your sales reps don’t understand how CRM features can drive their sales, they won’t be excited to use it. If you set up your CRM to track meaningful activity, your sales reps will quickly be able to see how time spent on CRM can translate to more sales.

There’s a lack of training. If you haven’t invested in enough training, your sales reps may not be able to maneuver well enough in the system to create useful data. Again, be careful which CRM system you choose. A good system will have your sales reps up and running with just a few hours of instruction. It should also be user-friendly, with fewer than three clicks necessary for any entry.

Your CRM features aren’t tied to marketing. If your marketing department is feeding your sales team leads, your CRM should be able to identify which leads are potential clients and which are dead-end leads. If your CRM features produce quality leads, you will not have to urge your sales reps to utilize CRM. They will be motivated to track quality leads.

The CRM features aren’t leading to increased sales. Many sales reps believe that CRM is for sales managers to track sales and the sales process. However, the whole point of using CRM is to drive sales. If your CRM features aren’t leading to increased sales in a measurable way, you need to make some changes. If you aren’t sure, develop a few ways to measure the impact of your CRM on sales numbers and see if your tool is positively impacting your sales reps’ territories.

Companies like Front Row Solutions provide CRM tools that allow sales reps to enter data while out in the field through a mobile application.