Drive CRM User Adoption by Creating Paybacks
Talk for a few minutes with the executive or business owner responsible for the Customer Relationship Management System and inevitable, the conversation will turn to user adoption.
While it seems like an “old hat” topic, user adoption remains one of the biggest causes of CRM implementation setbacks and failures because user adoption is at the core of CRM success. You can’t increase transparency, effectively drive sales, hone campaigns, improve processes or do anything else to improve ROI if people won’t use the platform.
CRM success needs C-level backing, but it also helps when users understand the CRM and see how it makes their work easier and more rewarding.
Here’s how some Sugar users have driven user adoption.
Agfa Healthcare, which supplies hospitals and other healthcare organizations with diagnostic imaging products and systems, built its pitch on creating more opportunities from within its client base. That mean sellers could quickly see where doctors worked and the technology the institutions had. The Agfa result: high user adoption, a $1M annual benefit and a 139 percent ROI.
American Specialties, a washroom accessories manufacturer, had a more complex challenge because much of its sales force were manufacturers reps who had their own spreadsheet approach or were more familiar with other CRMs.
National Sales Manager Avi Bar invested a year in teaching sellers and developing peer consultants. ASI has 100 percent adoption in sales.
Nothing drives user adoption more than tangible results, whether it is time saved or a sales bonus. Especially when there is a payoff for users.
Elaine Odell of the Hilco Group won back her Friday nights.
Her last task each week was to prepare executive reports for a Monday meeting. She’d work late into the night distilling information from sales, operations and business development. Today, she runs all the reports in under an hour. Small wonder why she is a Sugar evangelist at Hilco.
One insurance company saved its independent agents an entire day each week by using the CRM to create a portal for registering new customers and resolving claims.
A CRM platform helps keep knowledge in-house when someone leaves and spreads customer knowledge throughout the company.
Of course, nothing motivates CRM adoption in sales more than exceeding plan and increasing commissions.
Take it from Tom Han at Red Glaze, a construction and engineering company. He’s been selling for 30 years.
“Coming from the time when everything was on paper, I have to say the difference with Sugar is night and day. I’m more productive. I do better work and close more sales.”
Whether you have an existing CRM implementation and you’d like to get adoption in line, or you’d like to set a solid adoption strategy for a new deployment, you can get a wellspring of free tips regarding adoption best practices at Sugar University.