“Why won’t my sales team use our CRM?” Admit it – you’ve been tempted to Google it. Or maybe you have Googled it. Or maybe you haven’t, but can we still agree it’s a fair assumption?
Regardless, the answer is simple: Your team just doesn’t see the value the CRM offers your company as a whole and each of them as individuals.
Of course, all kinds of tips can get them to see that value. (Insert shameless gamification plug.) But it also helps to understand where that CRM resistance comes from. In fact, we say that’s the place to start. So let’s do that. Here are the three mentalities that we see most often in salespeople who won’t use their CRM:
1. “Time is money; time spent on our CRM is not.”
This one –- the group that correlates time not spent in the field with time not spent making money — may be most common. Nobody disagrees that salespeople shouldn’t spend all the time they can selling; however, if they don’t organize sales data efficiently while out of the field, they won’t get the most from being in the field, either. This group needs to understand that.
Show them how a CRM can literally act as a personal assistant. It has the potential to save time they’d spend sorting through the multiple mediums — from phones, to spreadsheets and notebooks — where they currently house data; keep them in good standings, as they won’t forget information discussed with contacts; send them reminders to keep their schedule on track; and the list goes on.
2. “They’re always watching.”
Ever feel like you’re being watched? So does this bucket of employees. Especially popular among the older generations of CRM resisters, this type of mentality typically coincides with a myopic view of CRMs — one that sees them as simply a place for logging data so the company has indefinite access to it. Adopting the CRM represents a loss of power, as these employees fear that exposing prospect/client information makes them easily replaceable.
This group needs to learn that the data they share actually offers value. One way to accomplish this includes building reports of the team’s daily activities for their sales leader. After reviewing the reports, the leader should offer any insight on useful connections they have, ideas for negotiation or other advice that can help progress deals. In addition, leaders should use any data that shows success in the reports — or the CRM itself — to offer recognition for good work.
3. “Maybe I’d give it a shot…if it weren’t for the technology.”
It’s amazing that 23 years after the birth of the internet technophobes still exist. But they do, and they fall into this group, which represents anyone from the most vocal technology haters to those who simply stand against certain technology — like that which supports CRM platforms. These salespeople may find your CRM overwhelming, or think by the time they learn it they’ll just be asked to learn new technology that will replace it.
Incorporating diverse CRM training solutions on a continuous basis should offer a fix here. Once these users grow confident in relying on the platform, they’ll understand it’s an asset, not an inconvenience.
It’s important to remember that just because someone may not fall into one of these categories doesn’t mean they couldn’t benefit from some CRM support. Even those using your CRM may be doing so with intentions of just using it enough to keep leadership happy. They need to understand the value in it, too.
If you’d like to learn more about getting your salespeople to that point, check out the 15-minute video recap of LevelEleven’s “Got the Salesforce.com Adoption Blues?” webinar. In the meantime, we’d love to open conversation about the above mentalities, along with any additional ones that may be prevalent on your team, in the comments section below.
What a well-written and thoughtful article Kirsty. You’ve really nailed the reasons for low adoption down, and when looking at them like this, they don’t even seem all that impossible to overcome.