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The real CRM adoption conundrum: What do you do when your best sales person(s) won't use your CRM?
Best Answer
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- Nik Kellingley
How about we step back and think a little - why do we want the top salespeople to use a CRM?? Bec we want to capture deal data so they dont take it with them? Or bec we want to help them become even more productive/effective and consistent. If its primarily for data reporting, I think its unfair and unwise to force salespeople to spend time doing record keeping. Get them an assistant (check out the Personal Assistants you get with Landslide's CRM www.landslide.com) who will be a much cheaper data entry clerk. If the reason you want them to use a CRM is to help support them, make sure your CRM is more than just a data entry tool and actually provides meaningful help in 'closing' deals. Behavior change requires a clear motive for changing. Tying commisions to data entry will only get you garbage in your system - good data for deals that clsoed, garbage for everything else. Time to think different
Easy.
Tie the CRM system directly into the system that tracks commissions. New account information needs be entered in order to create a proposal, proposals need to be created so that a sold order can be processed in the CRM system and the order system tracks directly into the commission system.
The direct line of consequence is that if the CRM system is not used the customer will not get the order and the sales person will not get paid.
There is no surprise that the best salesperson is also the one who is not completing the CRM information. In every “personality test” or “profile test” top salespeople always score low in paperwork detail. The reverse is also true (as a general statement); people who score high in paperwork completion are not the best salespeople.
Keep the CRM input to a minimum, but make it essential to complete the important information.
This is a common phenomenon that I have come across in change management programmes across many such projects. CRM systems will fail if people don't follow the laid down process. The following principles are adopted to ensure that work practices are changed to suit the CRM flow :
1. Make it Simple!
Make the CRM process simple and remove physical hurdles, like system accessibility etc. Many times unnecessary security paranoia makes system access painful and that has been the largest contributor to lack of compliance
2. Make it Inclusive!
Include field sales & other personnel customer contact personnel, in product walk through and product training programmes so that these personnel can market the CRM process to their peers and also train them in using the systems
3. Make it Uniform!
CRM system should be made the only front end system for all customer inputs irrespective of such input being sales or service related. Most failed CRM projects met with their end because the CRM was created as a customer service tool and not an organisation wide customer management tool.
4. Make it worthwhile!
Incentives and performance commissions need to be linked to the behavior change. This will help the organisation to effectively implement the change agenda
5. Make it Strategic!
Senior management team should continuously reinforce the need for adopting the CRM process across the organisation. This will broad-base ownership of the CRM process across the organisation.
These principles have helped me in rolling out CRM projects with greater success!
I would make every effort to make it a win - win situation. If she is your best seller ask for her input about the CRM and how she would change it so it was workable for her to use it. It is possible her way is the better way and you could make simple modifications that will work for the system and work for her. As long as her sales are good, and ethical, there is no reason not to solicit her help in improving everyone's sales!
I go with the tie incentives and commission payments to entry into CRM.
Unless the Opportunity is registered in CRM, and closed off in CRM accurately Commission will not become payable.
It's the only way to force a change in behaviour.
WOW! This could really hurt. How does it look to your boss if you can't get your team under control.
First, I would try to enlist his/her help with the rest of the team. By trying to engage him/her they may come around. Ask him/her to help with the training of the junior reps. If that doesn't work, it's partially your fault, because you should always be looking for replacements. There's always someone bettter out there. Get off your butt and find them. I'm always interviewing, even if we're not hiring. It serves various purposes. One, you may replace your lowest producer if you find one that may be better. Two, you always have a ready supply of new blood should the unthinkable happen. Three, you can get great intellegence about your competitors and/or prospects. Etc, etc, etc!!!
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This is a very tough question, and a situation that is very common, but in my opinion, bottom line is that if they refuse without justification, you replace.
Ignoring the fact that in this senario the sales rep is holding the company hostage which is a bad precendent to allow in and of itself, data about its prospects and customers is absolutely critical to a company, and extremely expensive to obtain, so why accept non-adherance to this company policy? Given the high unemployment out there today, this should be a big stick.....
That said, I agree with Eric that the key is to tie it to commission earnings and keep the data entry as simple as possible (I recently saw one system that used text-messaging as a way to update the CRM system - a cool concept).
A few other alternatives I've seen used:
- quarterly spiff earnings tied to timely data entry, but I'm not a huge fan of paying additional for what is really covered by the base salary
- assigning the updating to an admin, who collects the data from the rep and does the entry (obviously has own issues, but can be an improvement)
I also think that sales management plays a big role in this and sets the bar. If the VP doesn't use the system either, and show the value that is being gained by both the rep and the company, then it is very difficult to enforce.