Want to grow your business and improve your customer relationship strategy through CRM software but having trouble getting your team to adopt it? You’re not alone. While cloud CRM usage has risen from 12% to 87% over the last six years, it seems like up to 69% of CRM projects fail eventually.
If you want to reap the rewards that CRM software can add to your business, you’ll need to approach the process with due diligence to make sure your team uses the CRM software effectively.
Here are five smart strategies to speed up end-users CRM adoption so that your team actually uses the CRM software you buy and leverages all the benefits. Let’s take a look!
Create a CRM adoption guide
CRM adoption is not rocket science, but you definitely need to craft a general guideline to lead your team through the process. It’s a starting point that contains basic rules and procedures to make sure they’re using it accurately and effectively.
Gloria Holmes, a CRM officer at Careers Booster, says the guide must include both the technical procedures and CRM essentials: “First of all, you need to keep employees informed about the specific stages of adoption and tell them who is in charge of which part. Secondly, they need to understand how the software works and what kind of activities they need to undertake to make the project successful.”
However, keep in mind that the CRM adoption guide is prone to changes. Conditions may vary, so you have to take it into account and upgrade the guide accordingly. The ultimate goal is to keep the process as efficient and accurate as possible.
If you’re implementing Daylite as your CRM, you can actually build your guide within the CRM so if people have questions, they can check your CRM. Using Daylite notes you can document your procedures and apply the category “Procedure”. Then Filter your notes with that category and save them as a shared Smart List so everyone in your company can access all the notes that document various procedures – not just for CRM but within your whole company.
Appoint a project manager
While CRM adoption sounds easy, it can actually be a big project. We already discussed the failure rate in this field, so you better approach it carefully and appoint a project manager to coordinate all activities. This position is necessary because you want the project manager to do several things:
- Accumulate and filter information to ensure maximal data accuracy
- Design the CRM adoption guide and follow the implementation progress
- Get all users acquainted with the project and explain the basic CRM procedures
- Organize meetings to make sure all of the relevant stakeholders are taking part in the process
Needless to say, a project manager should be a well-experienced individual who is already familiar with the current version of the CRM software. Additionally, this person must have a fair share of professional credibility to lead the group of employees, or else you might put the whole project at risk.
Train your employees
This tip might sound like a cliché, but you would be surprised to learn that so many projects fail due to ignorance and poor training. CRM software can provide your team with a plethora of valuable features to improve your business, but you need to hire a coach who is able to pass the knowledge to the employees.
The trainer is not only supposed to know everything about the CRM tool. On the contrary, it is also critical for him or her to understand how your company works and learn about typical situations you are dealing with in everyday customer interactions. That way, the training will have both the theoretical and the practical value.
For this reason, it is crucial to choose the right CRM adoption partner. For instance, Daylite will not only offer you top-notch CRM solutions but also a worldwide network of experts that can provide you with customized training. It’s a big bonus that can really kick start your customer relationship efforts, so make sure to consider this option as well.
Involve your team immediately
Team members can often be resistant to changes, so they don’t enjoy being surprised by sudden shifts in customer relationship mechanisms. You should try to keep them actively involved in the process, listen to their suggestions, and act accordingly.
Don’t wait for the first stages of the adoption to end before you get to meet end-users with the new CRM tool. Do it immediately to start collecting feedback from day one, involving representatives of all departments and teams. In fact you may even want to include key people that will be using the CRM in the process of finding the right tool to make sure it’s a good fit for the people that will be using it on a daily basis.
After you’ve got it all covered, it is time to start analyzing feedback from your team. A project manager should meet with your team regularly to hear their impressions about the new CRM and identify their pain points. With this kind of information at your disposal, it will be much easier to speed up the project.
Measure the results of CRM adoption
Don’t think that the process is over once the CRM tool is in place. This is the period of observation and monitoring since you need to learn how the system works in the real-life environment.
The results are usually performance-related and include metrics such as sales calls, close rate, and length of sales cycle. These are all very clear and precisely defined indicators that allow you to make statistically proven conclusions.
As soon as you notice the first weak spots in CRM performance, make the necessary adaptations to improve customer service and notify your team about the changes. It might take you a while before everything starts running smoothly, but the final outcome is definitely worth your time and efforts.
Conclusion
Improving customer relationships is a surefire way to increase sales and the overall profitability of your business. CRM tools give you a great opportunity to achieve this goal, but you need to formulate a proper adoption strategy before launching the process.
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About the author:
Eugene is an Australian-based blogger for Careers Booster, who is into stand-up comedy. His favorite comedians are Louis CK and George Carlin. A good morning laugh is what keeps Eugene upbeat and motivated through the harsh day.
