[Guest Writer] Sales people don't use CRM... and rightly so

Sunny Paris, co-founder and CEO of noCRM.io, looks at the use of CRM and the importance of choosing a tool that is tailored to the needs and priorities of the business.

Sunny Paris:

How many times have I heard company directors or sales managers complain that their CRM wasn't up to date, that the information was patchy and that the sales people weren't using it? How many times have I heard salespeople complaining about the additional administrative tasks imposed on them by CRM?

Yet on closer examination, there are objective reasons for this confrontation. All parties have legitimate arguments. The problem stems more from mistaken expectations about the type of solutions being put in place.

See all software Customer relationship management

What is a CRM?

As its name suggests, CRM is a customer relationship management tool. In other words, a means of organising the information that a company has on its customers. CRMs are above all structured databases containing all customer information: current contracts, invoices, history of interactions, etc.

These tools are used by many people in different departments of the company: managers, marketing teams, customer support, administration, sales and sometimes even logistics. In general, a CRM is put in place to meet a need for organisation, business visibility, to support the company's growth or to increase the efficiency of processes. Implementing a CRM is often a major investment that will have a structural impact on the company. The people who commission it, usually management, want as many people as possible to use the tool, so as to get the most out of its deployment.

But in practice...

For the sales force, a CRM is above all a reporting tool and therefore a constraint. Sales people are forced to fill in information so that management or marketing can build reports or create segments. In their day-to-day work, sales people make little use of CRM, and all too often they fill it in quickly before their sales meeting. As a result, the CRM is updated after the fact rather than being the trigger for sales activity.

But salespeople are not judged on the quality of the information they enter into a database. Salespeople are judged on their performance: number of calls, appointments, signatures, etc. They therefore need to be equipped with a tool that will improve their performance on these indicators. A tool that will help them make more calls, get more appointments and win more business, but above all not a tool that will cannibalise their time dedicated to prospecting by imposing additional administrative tasks.

See all software Customer relationship management

So what should you do before implementing a CRM?

The first question to ask is: what is its purpose, who is going to use it first - the back office, the marketing team or the sales team?

If the aim is to increase B2B sales, then before embarking on the choice of a tool you need to start by observing the work of your sales staff: look at the tasks they perform over and over again and see how they can be improved by IT. Trying to change the way sales people work because it's important for the rest of the company is a losing battle. You can improve the work of sales people on specific points, but you can't change the way they work if the change doesn't directly benefit them.

That's why, for sales teams, software specialising in prospecting (Lead Management Software) often brings more benefits than general CRMs. They have a number of advantages: they provide a simple overview of the progress of current deals, they focus on the next follow-up, on how to move prospects forward in the sales process. They can be connected to VOIP, email and calendar applications. But most importantly, they are simple to use. The salesperson arrives in the morning, knows immediately what he or she has to do and knows exactly how each deal is progressing.

However, choosing Lead Management software does not necessarily mean giving up on implementing a CRM. You just need to know what your company's priority is. If the priority is managing the customer base, then the first step is to set up a CRM. If the priority is the sales team, then the first step is certainly to use a Lead Management solution.
Once one or other of these solutions has been implemented and adopted, it will be possible - if the need arises - to implement the second and connect it to the first. The great strength of modern SaaS software is that it is relatively easy to interconnect.

In conclusion, you need to be careful when equipping your sales staff with software, because the aim is for them to use the chosen application, not because they have to, but because it's useful.
After observing the way they work on a day-to-day basis, identifying problem areas, selecting software that can potentially solve these problems, it is important to involve several sales people in a test under real conditions - modern SaaS tools make this possible at low cost. It is the reality of use and not the supposed benefits that will then enable you to make a definitive and informed choice. It's important to remember that, even beyond the sales force, it's always vital to align the benefits of the tools deployed with the needs of the users, if usage is to be successful.