Brandee Fantini – Principal and Strategy Activator Digital transformation is disrupting markets at an alarming rate, but it’s not the technology that drives competitive advantage—it’s the people driving the technology. Achieving total systems adoption can be intimidating, especially in the sales and marketing arena. There are unique challenges to driving adoption of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. Too often, organizations lack consistent processes, culture, and practices, which makes it difficult to reinforce trust and the appropriate usage of a CRM.
Successful CRM adoption is critical to not just keep up with competitors, but to leverage as a competitive advantage. And no matter how good your CRM system is, it’s only as good as everyone’s ability and willingness to use it.
We have seen many companies struggle with adoption of their existing CRM system, and we often get the call to help drive adoption. When we start digging into the situation, we often learn that people know how and when to use the system. However, in nearly every “rescue” operation we lead, the critical issue is that people don’t understand why they need to use the CRM in a consistent and disciplined way.
In interviews with end users, we’ve heard phrases like:
“Using the system takes too much time.” “I’ve been successful at selling and servicing customers up until now without a CRM—why should I change my process?” “Using it takes away from my time with customers.” “I don’t need ‘Big Brother’ checking up on my activities.” “It’s too cumbersome.”
We have found that helping sales and customer service teams understand the benefits of adopting a robust CRM as it relates to their personal development is half the battle. The other half of the battle lies within the system design and user experience. The system must be perceived as a useful and valuable tool that enhances workflow. In essence, it must help sales and customer service users do their job better and more effectively deliver value to the customer. If the system’s design fails in this endeavor and is only regarded as a burdensome distraction, or it lacks a user-centered configuration or design approach, adoption will not happen.
Here are a few ways that we have helped companies drive successful CRM adoption to achieve ROI and deliver real business results.
1. Create a compelling narrative about “the why” and equip leaders to tell that story to their teams easily and authentically. Reinforce “the why” again and again.
2. Articulate the value of usage to the sales and customer service teams and spend a lot of time talking about “what’s in it for us” as an organization. Sometimes systems do take individuals more time to use them than not using them, but that’s not the only measure of a system’s success. The communications plan should clearly connect the sales team to the quality of the data they are inputting and its impact on data analytics, key insights, and ultimately, business outcomes.
3. Understand stakeholders: who are they, what can they gain from system usage and data analytics, and what tradeoffs are required for adoption to be successful. Have a solid plan to ensure all stakeholders are aligned on the desired outcomes and the path to get there.
4. Understand the intended users of the system and customize your change plan to drive adoption for people who are motivated differently. Adoption occurs at varying intervals and speeds within most organizations, which is why the messaging must be consistent, delivered in different formats (often several times), and created to address multiple value points or motivating factors.
5. Spend time and energy working with leaders and managers to define their usage best practices. If the leadership team does not use reports to drive decision-making, then there is no incentive for others to use the system. Leader attitudes, mindsets, and behaviors have a significant impact on motivation and attitude within the sales and customer service teams.
6. Identify influential salespeople in various regions and business units who will spend a portion of their time becoming expert CRM users and advocates for system usage. Position these experts as the go-to people not just for fingers-on-the-keyboard help, but for coaching other reps on best ways to succeed (including, of course, using the CRM).
7. Create dashboards and success metrics that reflect system usage. Talk about the data, reflect on insights, use the data for coaching and development conversations – make the data central to the role of selling, and visualize that data whenever possible.
8. Identify and remove barriers to adoption. If salespeople have outdated phones and clunky laptops, they don’t have the tools they needed for success in a digital world.
9. Think about rewards and recognition programs. If you reward salespeople for time spent with customers and not for capturing data and reflections about that time spent, you’re creating your own adoption issues.
10. Update job descriptions and performance metrics to include consistent, disciplined usage of your CRM. It’s a critical tool for high performance, so reflect that in your people development and leadership practices.
11. Gather and tell success stories about sellers who drive positive outcomes through CRM usage. Celebrate those wins and explicitly connect the win with usage of the CRM.
12. Revisit the narrative about “the why” often. Continue to connect usage to positive business outcomes, both in operational conversations as well as corporate strategic conversations.
While all the components of an effective change solution are needed, those mentioned above are specific to driving adoption of CRM systems. If you’re implementing a new CRM or want to supercharge your business results by driving greater CRM adoption of your current system, we would love to be your thought partner.
Like these insights and want to read more? Check out the following insights on:
If you’d like to connect with our team to learn more about driving CRM adoption, give us a call at 859-415-1000 or drop us a line below.