Industry surveys have shown that up to two-thirds of installed CRM (customer relationship management) systems underperform the objectives initially set out by the organization. Although it may be an unfortunate situation, it also creates plenty of room for improvement to get the most out of these highly beneficial platforms that organize sales activity, customer data, financial information and critical business documents.
To best improve, it is essential to root out underlying problems to useful adoption of these systems. The old saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out.” How can you best get your users to input useful data in a consistent fashion so that it can be best synthesized by the platform?
First, you need to position the system as the sales team’s best friend instead of a burdensome drag, where data input is hardly used and instead left to rot. If the sales team can see the data in action, it is far easier to have them on board to enter the right kind of data on a regular basis.
Also, you need the data to flow wherever the users are. Since sales folks are often on the road and limited to connectivity on just their phone or tablet, the CRM must be easily accessed and updated from mobile devices. Be sure that your community of users is carrying the CRM’s native apps as they tend to be far easier to use than web pages on small screens.
Take advantage of the high level of configurability today’s leading CRM systems allow. If the screens and reports do not match the sales cycle or customer management procedures in place on your organization, it becomes a real strain on adoption. A small number of tweaks to things as simple as form field labels can go a long way.
Finally, get constant feedback from your user community (they typically have no problem telling you what they do not like about your implementation), but be sure to ask for their suggestions when gathering this feedback. The best enhancements typically come from the folks who spend the most time in the system.
Superior’s team of seasoned business and technology experts are here to help you implement and maximize use of your CRM system., If you have any questions or want to learn more, Contact Superior Technology online at www.superiortechnology.com or via phone at (845) 735-3555.
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