The main problem with classic CRM solutions is that they have been developed only partially with salespeople in mind. Yet it has been the salespeople on the front lines interacting with customers and prospects that really need automated support. They need to quickly be able to discover which sales are wherein various stages of their pipelines. They need to rapidly analyze how they stand for the month, quarter or year. They need to be able to provide reports to sales management and others in the company that requires them fast—and get right back to selling.
CRM (customer resource management) software has been around for many years. CRM solutions were originally invented for the purpose of contact management, and coordinating activities between sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support. One could access a record for a given customer or prospect, and discover the various actions that had been taken with that entity over time by various departments and personnel in the company.
The Partial Solution
Unfortunately, however, salesperson needs have not been met. The actuality is that most sales reps if asked, have negative reactions to CRM simply because it doesn’t support them but they must support it. While the CRM solution in place at the company might partially give them the information they require, they must rely on other methods—such as their own notes, documents, spreadsheets and such—for actually keeping track of their sales and making sure they’ve recorded enough information about them. This vital data is then never recorded in a way that it can also be utilized by marketing, finance, sales management and other key areas in the enterprise.
At the same time, salespeople are required to input data into CRM that may or may not be useful to them later and are additionally weighed down with cumbersome reporting that is likely due to CRM’s shortcomings. Those above them or in other departments cannot readily analyze data from CRM and so need to obtain it directly from sales reps.
The Ideal CRM Solution
Conversely, what would ideal CRM look like?
First, it would be designed with salespeople in mind, since they are the ones who it will assist the most. It would follow the company’s sales process or pipeline exactly and logically so that the various steps of the sales process could readily be viewed. It would allow recording and easy retrieval of data salespeople truly need about each sale or potential sale. Reporting and analysis would be accomplished with a minimum of effort so that the rep could get back out and sell.
A flexible, intuitive design would mean that the CRM solution would be easy to understand and use, allowing not only salespeople but others such as sales management, marketing, finance and tech support to interact and fully utilize the program as well. Because vital data is all provided and accessible, salesperson time spent reporting would be greatly reduced, and others that need data can easily get at it.
While we’re supporting salespeople, we must remember that they are often not in the office, but out visiting clients and prospects. Hence CRM should be accessible for interaction through the cloud, through any device whether it be Android, iPhone, iPad or any other method a salesperson might use, wherever they might be located at that moment.
It’s For Everyone Else, Too
This “bottom-up” approach does not mean supporting sales reps to the exclusion of executives and other departments that rely on CRM—but it does mean that since it is being made it easy for the salesperson to enter accurate data in the right places, that others will be able to utilize it too, and far more readily.
It also means having a much happier sales team. What will that mean for sales management and the rest of the company? They’ll be far more willing to do their jobs, much easier to manage—and then be able to take sales through the roof.
Watch for more articles in our series on CRM solutions.
