CRM Adoption Doesn’t Matter
CRM is a big business. Gartner is on record saying that $20B of CRM software will be sold this year. Salesforce.com alone recorded $5B in sales in the past 12 months. There is so much money invested in these CRM platforms but do they really make a difference?
If you had to draw a graph of how big the market is versus how frustrated users are by it, CRM would sit in the upper right hand corner.
I can think of few other software products where people are so worried about “adoption”.
Seriously, when a new Gmail feature comes out, does Google hire a whole army of consultants to put together an “adoption plan”? Of course not, if the feature is good and designed well then people will use it. If not, they drop it. So why is everyone constantly push the adoption of CRMs?
What Do Companies Do To Achieve CRM Adoption?
Companies typically use some combination of the following three approaches to get their reps to adopt a CRM system:
1) The Hammer – Declare CRM the ‘system of truth’ for all meetings, reports, commissions, etc. Executives pound the CRM into the sales team over and over until they agree to use the system.
2) Add Tools – I am still waiting for the helmet I can wear that will auto-update Salesforce based on what I’m thinking. Meanwhile, tools like Spiro’s sales automation CRM can help remove some of the challenges caused by tedious data entry on the part of the sales rep.
3) Pretend The Problem Doesn’t Exist – Some companies just act like all is well while reps are really going guerrilla style and using their own organizational methods.
Yet CRM Adoption Is Still Poor
It’s hard to pin down exact numbers on this topic, but I have seen the problem hands-on while working with over 1,000 Salesforce.com customers. Adoption is something they almost all struggle with and spend way too much money on. It’s not uncommon for a company to have less than 20% of their sales team using their chosen CRM.
When A&N Media decided to implement Salesforce into their organization, they faced an extreme resistance. They launched the CRM across 225 users in the organization over a seven-week implementation plan, and after six months user adoption was only 14% for their trouble. Thank goodness they hired our friends at Cloud Sherpas to fix the problem.
Why is CRM Adoption So Poor?
If you were to ask sales leaders “Would you rather have higher CRM adoption or higher sales?” the answer would be a no brainer. The results might be like one of those Soviet-era elections with 99% of votes going to “higher sales”.
CRM adoption isn’t about increasing sales. It’s too often about forecasting, managing and trying to control the sales team.
Despite the jokes and lying statistics posted on LinkedIn, sales guys are hard workers seeking to help their companies (and themselves).
CRM can — along with so many other factors — bog down today’s sales reps and prevent them from actually doing the part of their job that counts, making sales.
Focus on Increasing Sales, not CRM adoption
As a sales leader, our focus needs to be on getting the team to beat their goals, not fill out more forms. But how do we do that?
In speaking with hundreds of reps and sales managers we believe focus on the fundamentals goes a long way.
- Know your product and service really well
- Be a person – not a robot. Don’t sound like a salesperson.
- Be professional, confirm your meetings and set agendas for your sales calls.
Focus on what’s important for your customers and you will get much higher returns than you will from worrying about your CRM.
