News: October 2011

Tips to successfully implement a customer relationship
management system

Get your team on board – Like any new process or procedure in a business, you need to sell the benefits of CRM to your team. Not only should you explain what the system does, you should focus on how the CRM system will make life easier for the sales team. Focus on benefits like lead tracking, having all customer information in one place, fast and easy access to client and prospect information, etc.

Training – People fear what they do not understand. This is no different in business. Your staff will resist a change over to a new system if they don’t understand how to use it. You can avoid this issue by investing in good quality training (if necessary, one-on-one training) in order to make the transition to a new system as easy as possible for your staff. You should also run regular refresher training sessions in order to keep staff up to date on how they should be using the CRM system.

Paint The Big Picture – A good CRM system will assist your sales team in successfully achieving targets. Take the time to explain the firm’s strategy in terms of utilizing CRM to generate more sales and retain more customers. Once your sales team connects the dots between CRM system, actual sales and the relationship with the success of the firm and ultimately how this effects their pay packet / personal success, they will buy-in to the idea of CRM as a positive, effective tool designed to help them to do their job.

Acknowledge – Use the reporting capabilities of your CRM system to highlight the achievements of your sales team. During management and / or sales meetings, reports from the CRM system can highlight positive trends such as an increase in new customers, etc. Point out that the CRM system allows you to identify that goals / targets have been reached and acknowledge those who have achieved those goals/targets. This will result in your team having a more positive attitude towards the system.