Love CRM? Probably Not. Here are 3 Easy Ways To Improve CRM

“Oh, I just love CRM!”

I’m guessing as a sales manager, you don’t hear that very often.

Salespeople typically are really good as sales, but really bad at data entry. Instead of forcing them to work on their data skills, why not find easy ways for them to fall in love with their CRM?

Here are three suggestions on getting your sales team to swoon when you mention the word “database”:

1. Make Adjustments to Your Current CRM

I’ve worked at sales jobs where it took me 1 minute to call a lead, 15 minutes to do a demo, and 45 minutes to enter it all into our CRM. I saw the data entry as wasted time when I could be selling. But, the information you can get out is only as good as the data you put in. Which means my manager was on top of us to get our notes into the database.

One day, a light bulb went off in someone’s head and they realized that by making slight changes to our current system it would not only get us to use it more, but also make us (GULP), like it!

Here’s what they did:

• less required fields – like gender, height, things that didn’t really matter
• more pre-populated fields we could easily tab over
• hiding all the unnecessary fields that were always the same
• utilizing all the available features, like personalize dashboards to show how we were doing against our goal
• and of course… start providing proper (and continual) training

2. Utilize Available Add-ons to Your CRM

If your current CRM is fine, but your sales reps want more out of it, maybe it’s time to start searching for additional add-ons to enhance their CRM experience. A desktop database is great if all of your sales reps sit at their desks in the office all day long. Unfortunately the reality for most salespeople is that they are on the go and need a CRM that travels with them. Find an app they can use on their phone to connect to all their contacts and deals.

Here’s are a few available add-ons to help your team love their CRM:

• Ebsta – A tool that automatically updates Salesforce with emails, contacts and events. It can also help with scheduling email campaigns and meetings.
• Tact – An AI-powered sales assistant that works by voice commands, making data entry simple for salespeople.
• LevelEleven – A sales activity management system that positively reinforces behaviors that lead to more sales. Basically awesome reports that keep your team focused.

3. Ditch Your CRM and Move to Spiro

After spending 15 years of my adult life deploying CRM systems to hundred of thousands of salespeople, I learned that sales reps almost always hated it.

Now, imagine having a CRM that is so easy to use it automatically updates itself and reminds your sales reps about the prospects and customers they need to call. Well, that’s Spiro.

Spiro uses artificial intelligence to provide benefits never seen before in CRM, including:

• automatic creation of a salesperson’s pipeline from information in their email & calendar appointments
• a self-writing follow-up list of prospects that need to be called or emailed
• a virtual sales assistant you can email to set reminders, create contacts, and mark tasks as completed

Salespeople using Spiro sell more because they can focus their time where it belongs: on their prospects and customers.

Our customers report that they’re closing 20% more deals, increasing the size of the deals they’re closing and talking to more prospects per week since they started using Spiro. All in an easy, fun and engaging way. Maybe it’s time for you to switch too!