Customer relationship management platforms, known as CRM, are at the top of the list of the most outstanding and innovative technologies available to companies today. However, there are still certain resistances when it comes to sales teams adopting this technology.
If you haven't stopped to analyze the impact that implementing a CRM can have on your company, in this article we will not only explain how to encourage salespeople to use CRM, but we will also share the best techniques to improve CRM adoption in sales teams.
More than a mere platform, a CRM covers the processes carried out by any SME or startup to analyze in detail and make the best use of interactions with customers. In other words, it is a platform capable of anticipating desires, increasing sales, and optimizing lead generation campaigns.
Next, we will explain what resistances prevent the rapid adoption of this technology, techniques you can use to promote its adoption, and a tool that will take your CRM (and your company) to the next level. Join us!!
Why is it important to use a CRM and what benefits does its adoption bring?
In an era where technology is making a new leap with Artificial Intelligence, a CRM is the lever that allows your company to dispense with manual processes, which are otherwise obsolete, so that your business can grow faster. If the success of every company is related to its customers, the CRM organizes them in real-time.
The idea of encouraging salespeople to use CRM, in principle, has to do with something basic: overcoming the reliance on paper reminders stuck to a computer screen, as well as stopping wasting time analyzing complicated spreadsheets with disorganized customer data.
By using the CRM, sending leads to the sales managers is a matter of a couple of clicks. In real-time, they can work with hot information about the customers and their behavior with the company. Such accessibility to data improves interaction, collaboration, and productivity.
If your company has managed to survive despite not having implemented a CRM system, don't worry; it is completely normal. The resistances to adoption are understandable, but you need to know that improving CRM adoption in sales translates to more profitability and, therefore, growth for your company.
What factors can hinder its adoption by companies?
Despite the obvious advantages that CRMs offer to companies, there are factors that hinder or slow down their adoption. Let's look at the most important ones:
- Resistance to adaptation. This is the classic resistance to change, to new things. This happens because the heads of the affected areas are not sure they can handle the new technology. It is an elementary problem of unease with the new, when it is not due to lack of attention.
- Lack of training. If the necessary training dynamics are not provided, the sales team is unlikely to understand the scope of the CRM's capabilities. Much less will they understand the possibilities that open up with its implementation. Result: low adoption of the technology.
- Failure in integrations. Integrating other platforms with the CRM can eventually become complicated. Sometimes they don't work according to expectations either, all of which can be annoying for the team. This often leads to abandoning the CRM to return to the old software.
- High cost of the CRM. In a company with a low budget, acquiring the software can be allowed, but its implementation requires more funds in terms of development and training, which ultimately translates into low adoption by the sales departments.
Other factors affecting CRM implementation are the introduction of inaccurate data, which can happen in other systems, and issues related to information security and confidential data. Now let's look at strategies that can encourage salespeople to use CRM.
Strategies to encourage salespeople to use CRM
Now let's look at some strategies that allow us to ensure that it is indeed possible to improve CRM adoption in sales.
- Make the benefits of implementing a CRM clear. Clearly explaining the benefits of a system always yields results. It's simple: explain how the CRM can enhance the daily activities of the sales team. Emphasize that it can streamline processes, simplify data entry, provide any information from a single site, etc.
- Adapt the CRM to the current state of business processes. If you ensure that the CRM's capabilities perfectly align with your company's business processes, with the automation of the most mechanical or repetitive tasks, adoption will occur naturally and smoothly.
- Take advantage of access from mobile devices. Make things even easier and use mobile-web access so that team members can use the CRM from wherever they are. They will feel more motivated and will see that they can maintain communication with clients and manage tasks from their phone.
- Involve the team from the beginning. Perhaps this is the best way to encourage salespeople to use CRM. By involving them from the early stages of implementation, you can seek their input and thus commit them to its use.
Now, let's take a step further and talk about different techniques to improve CRM adoption in sales teams.
Techniques to improve CRM adoption in sales teams
As we have seen, implementing CRM systems in sales teams that would greatly benefit is no easy task. Next, let's look at some techniques to encourage salespeople to use CRMs.
Offer the necessary training
Is the problem related to the sales team's training? Then, design a training program so that sales managers develop the necessary skills to make the most of the CRM's capabilities.
Try to combine modalities and formats, such as in-person activities and digital support materials like ebooks or video tutorials. The first few months are crucial for training and adoption, so it is advisable to hire an assistant to help you during the process.
Don't tire of verifying that integrations work
Your team has been working with a series of tools that they will probably continue to use along with the CRM. Therefore, you must ensure that the integration of the new system with those tools is carried out correctly so that it does not become an obstacle to adoption.
By ensuring that there are no interruptions, you will guarantee interest in adopting the new software. And it would be no surprise, as integrations allow for streamlining and facilitating the workflow. That's the idea!
Highlight and take advantage of automations
The automation of non-commercial and administrative tasks is one of the great advantages of implementing a CRM in the sales team. Automations free up valuable time that will allow sales managers to focus on what they do best: selling and optimizing their relationships with customers!
Improving CRM adoption in sales with the power of AI
Talking about automation and simplification of work today is talking about AI. If CRM adoption already guarantees a significant streamlining of processes, now imagine that software enhanced with all the power of artificial intelligence.
And in reality, there is a powerful alternative that can not only improve CRM adoption in sales but can elevate the dynamics of customer interaction to a higher level. AI can chat with the prospect via WhatsApp, fill in fields in the CRM, and characterize it precisely.
It can also qualify the prospect and escalate them to the salesperson with all the necessary information, so they can focus solely on their specialty, which is closing new sales. By being able to delegate interaction with potential customers to an AI assistant, staff can focus on more strategic tasks.
To get an idea of what this means, imagine your CRM with all the advantages that its use already entails, but on steroids in digital format. In summary, an assistant with marketing and research skills, with a great memory and a great capacity for analysis..
CRM with AI, a powerful combination
An early conclusion: combining your Customer Relationship Management with the power of AI is a powerful way to encourage salespeople to use CRM. With this combination, you will have cutting-edge technologies such as natural language processing and machine learning to improve your internal processes.
It is not the same to interact with your customers after receiving valuable insights from a tool capable of analyzing large amounts of data. A powerful ally that stands out in several ways:
- Analyzing interactions. It is capable of evaluating conversations held with customers to optimize that interaction and the service in general.
- Analyzing sales. It is capable of analyzing which factors have contributed to sales. By identifying patterns, it can identify the paths for further growth.
- Behavior on social networks. Imagine an ally that monitors social networks to better understand the desires and needs of potential customers.
You don't need to be a cyber genius to see the great difference it can make for your company to incorporate an assistant that enhances your CRM and allows you to delegate at least 50% of the conversations with your customers.
It is time to take advantage of real-time analytics, anticipation of needs, and the automation benefits offered by AI, a technology that is already transforming the global labor and business world..
Conclusion: CRM with AI is the future, it is the present
As you have seen, using a CRM, especially if you enhance it with the magic of AI, is choosing the path of total transformation in customer interaction and putting your business on par with the times we live in.
Enjoy the multiple benefits of automation, allow your customers to marvel at an impressive personalization experience, make well-informed decisions, sell more, sell better, and delight your followers and customers with premium-level support.
