Upgrade in High Gear

Here’s the dream: Your reps hit or exceed quota every month, achieve high margins on every sale, and report all aspects of their pipeline through your CRM system. Dream on. You want good CRM data? Better get a crowbar, because prying any information from sales reps can be a real issue. “Many of the best sales people don’t want to share their data, and the worst ones often don’t have much data to share,” says Josh Ovett, president of Extremely Productive, Inc., a CRM integrator. “We call it ‘the battle of the Rolodex.’” The sad truth is that, even inside firms that have used CRM for years, user adoption remains a major issue, draining away productivity gains that otherwise might be truly spectacular. But take heart. As you upgrade and change your CRM system, you have the perfect opportunity to get the reps – and their managers — more fully on board. Here’s how.

DURING THE DESIGN PHASE
Rule #1 Think before you upgrade.
Too many times, companies buy or upgrade a CRM product because they heard it was good, or because the CRM vendor had a lot of slick advertising. But too often companies don’t really do a thorough job to see if their potential CRM system really fits their needs. Ideally, you want your CRM system to be like a healthy but habit-forming drug. To get your sales team “hooked” and make them want more, your CRM system must be implemented so that it pulls the reps in, rather than making them feel as if management is pushing it onto them. To achieve sustained benefits, CRM cannot be perceived as a tool that controls people, but instead must provide reps with real value. Therefore, the best way to implement or upgrade a CRM system is to think through the issues, gradually introduce usage requirements, and then, when the system comes up, hold regular training sessions. Hint: while you want reps to adopt the system, be sure to have a reasonable grace period for compliance. A little bit of patience goes a long way when you’re asking people to do something new.
Tim Vertz, director of business development, Oncontact Software

Rule #2 Focus on helping reps to sell.
Sales reps will only want to use a CRM system if it saves them time and helps them make more money. If the sales teams can’t easily see what’s in it for them, then the CRM initiative will fail. You can have an ultra-fancy CRM system that reflects all the wonderful methods and business processes that management loves, but if you make the CRM system too difficult, too cumbersome, and unfriendly for the sales rep, you will end up spending a lot of money for a system that nobody will ever use. So make sure that the upgrade adds real value to the sales team, if you want to be certain that they’ll continue to use the system.
Tim Vertz, director of business development, Oncontact Software

Rule #3 Take a gradual approach to change.
The most successful CRM upgrades begin with pilot projects or in-house evaluations. These periods serve to get users into the process while allowing those who implement the system the time to tailor features to how the team and its individuals actually want to work. Taking this gradual approach also helps to eliminate unnecessary complexity from the viewpoint of the end user. This is important because user adoption problems frequently stem from inaccurate requirements that ignore the day-to-day concerns of the salesforce. Hint: For small and medium-sized businesses, a large “enterprise” system vendor isn’t necessarily the best choice. The big vendors often can’t offer the flexibility and migration paths that allow sales teams to begin with a simple configured system and then advance through customizations as they mature.
Anthony Wooten, vice president,
Sage Software

Rule #4 Articulate the benefits.
All too often, a company will bring CRM into a sales organization without bothering to explain to the sales reps why CRM is a good idea in the first place. Whether you’re implementing a CRM system for the first time, or simply upgrading an existing system, you must carefully and believably explain the benefits of the system – to both the sales rep and to the company at large. Explain how the requirements evolved, how the system helps solve problems and create opportunities, how it will be measured, and – most important – how it will help sales reps to sell. Nothing frustrates sales reps more than asking them to enter a lot of data that seems to be falling into a black hole. Make certain that sales reps understand how important the CRM system is to the company’s ongoing success, and you’ll find that most are more than willing to do what they can to help.
Pat Bakey, senior vice president,
SAP North America

Rule #5 Hide the complexity.
With CRM, the goal is to manage the cultural issues with simplicity while hiding all of their complexity under the hood. After all, when you turn the key in your new car, you do not care that there are umpteen silicon chips controlling every aspect of your car’s handling and performance. You just care that it starts and gets you where you are going. A well-implemented CRM system makes sales processes simple and hides complexity, thereby increasing user adoption. Be forewarned, though. Making a computer application appear simple is always more effort than leaving it in its natural complex state. But remember, building in simplicity, though expensive, will in the long run cost less than simply applying a quick fix and hoping for the best. When done right, your investment in simplicity will be recovered many times over.
Josh Ovett, president, Extremely Productive, Inc., a Sage Software business partner 

DURING THE ROLLOUT
Rule #6 Require managers to use the system.
The most important thing that sales managers can do to ensure that their sales team actually uses the CRM system is to use the system themselves. At a leading payroll services company, for example, reps were obliged to meet with their sales managers every other week to review accounts. Unless the sales rep logged all opportunities in the forecast module of the CRM system on a regular basis, the sales manager could not properly prepare for the meeting, and so would cancel the meeting. However, this never happened because the reps knew that their sales managers were actively using the CRM system themselves to prepare for the sales meeting. The reps also knew that they would have to meet with their manager every other week or they would be fired. As a result, all the reps used the CRM system 100 percent of the time.
Barton Goldenberg, president, ISM, Inc.

Rule #7 Have managers train the sales reps.
A good way to ensure that sales reps embrace CRM is to make their managers responsible for training the reps to use the system. This approach not only guarantees that the sales managers themselves learn the ins and outs of the system, but it also makes the sales managers into the sales team’s first line of support. Companies that implement this “train the trainers” approach find that sales managers and sales reps work more closely together to ensure that the system functions smoothly. Upgrades also go more smoothly because both the sales management and the sales staff are on the same page when it comes to figuring out what needs to be upgraded. Hint: If you want to be certain that sales managers really understand what it’s like to use the CRM system on an ongoing basis, make sure that each manager takes on one major account, and uses the CRM system to manage it.
Barton Goldenberg, president, ISM, Inc.

Rule #8 Give three times more than you expect to get.
The best way to ensure adoption is to implement a “3x factor,” which provides at least three valuable pieces of information to the user each time the user enters a new piece of information. For example, sales reps who use the CRM system to enter pipeline data might be provided with access to a comprehensive profile of the customer, or have new leads sent to them electronically. If done consistently, the “3x factor” always leads toward almost total user adoption. When it’s neglected, adoption is iffy at best.
Barton Goldenberg, president, ISM, Inc.

AFTER THE ROLLOUT
Rule #9 Forbid under-the-table reporting.
Many companies have two reporting methods: the “official” one (consisting of the CRM application) and the “unofficial” one (consisting of spreadsheets, emails, and handwritten notes.) These unofficial reporting methods are often justified by statements such as: “that’s the way we’ve always done things” or “that CRM system is just too much bother to learn.” Unfortunately, allowing the unofficial reporting method to survive guarantees that nobody will use the official one. The best way to expunge the unofficial reporting method is for top management to refuse to accept any report that’s not generated through the use of the CRM system. That forces recalcitrant reps and managers to laboriously re-enter the data from their unofficial files into the CRM system. Pretty soon, they’ll figure out that it’s a lot less work simply to use the official system in the first place.
Barton Goldenberg, president, ISM, Inc. 

Rule #10 Create and publicize an
object lesson.
When it comes to getting reps to use CRM, you’ll generally have better success offering carrots than brandishing sticks. However, if you feel that you must use the stick, make sure it’s the proverbial big one. If you want your sales teams to take CRM very seriously, find a marginal sales rep (preferably one who you were going to fire anyway) who isn’t using the CRM system, and then terminate that rep. Then make a public announcement that the termination was because the rep didn’t use the CRM system. This kind of highly dramatic action makes it clear to everyone in your organization that you simply will not tolerate a lack of professionalism when it comes to CRM. Remember: When you decided to implement CRM, you were committing the future of your company to the success of the system. Under the circumstances, there’s no reason for you to mollycoddle the sales force. Refusing to use the system is serious because it threatens both the investment that you’ve made in CRM and, ultimately, the ability of your company to compete.
Barton Goldenberg, president, ISM, Inc.