Imagine this. Your company invests in sales training, and while your employees’ performance improves for a short period of time, it doesn’t last. Sales reps dismiss their training and go back to old habits, eventually ending up right back where they started.
Why does this cycle occur, and how do you make new skills actually stick for the long run? Often, these failures are a result of underestimating the impact of properly using customer relationship management (CRM) tools to embed best practices into a seller’s regular flow of work.
Whether you are launching a new sales performance improvement initiative or trying to sustain the results of a current one, using the right CRM tools can mean the difference between success and failure.
The Problem With CRM Adoption
When CRM tools are built to align with a sales team’s preferred methodology and enable sellers to better demonstrate their capabilities, there is a significant impact on team adoption, efficiency and effectiveness. Essentially, the tools make it easier for sales reps to do their jobs, rather than adding unwanted friction. Here, we’ve outlined the key steps needed to align CRM tools with your team’s performance development initiatives to optimize the CRM experience for sellers and ensure sustainment.
Align CRM Tools to Methodology, Processes, Behaviors and Outcomes
To make CRM tools useful, the tools must abide by two key rules.
- The tools must align to the organization’s sales methodology, sales process stages, defined customer engagement activities and be able to track progress against desired outcomes.
- CRM tools must fit seamlessly into the seller’s flow of work by being easy to access, update and understand.
Make Progress Visible
To make real progress in the sales pursuit, sellers need to be able to truly understand where they are in that pursuit and which way they need to go to win the sale. The best way to help sellers understand this is by presenting the information visually within the CRM.
Visualizations of progress help sellers have an easier time navigating complex opportunities. In turn, sellers execute good sales behaviors more consistently. This real time visibility empowers users and managers to track their progress. It inspires participants to commit to executing new skills and applying best practices. For managers, it helps them have more effective coaching conversations.
Make CRM Tools More Accessible
Typically, sales professionals want to adopt new techniques and tools that will help them be more successful. However, the tools need to be easily accessible. Sellers should be able to access tools directly within the CRM.
Embedding tools in the CRM and combining those tools with supporting resources makes it easier for sellers to get the information they need when they really need it. This increases productivity and allows sellers to easily incorporate these tools into their daily workflow.
Keep Your CRM Flexible and Up to Date
In a rapidly changing sales environment, organizations need to continuously improve their sales processes. Maintaining alignment of your sales processes with buyer behaviors is key to making CRM tools useful. To keep up, your organization needs technology that supports rapid system changes and can easily embed new coaching techniques and opportunity pursuit tools. With the most up-to-date tools and techniques, your sales team increases their agility and flexibility, positioning them for success against any new challenge.
