Everyone Hates CRM, but Don’t Let That Stop You

So if you’ve already bought a CRM tool and are unsure as to how to use it, start with this piece of wisdom: nothing kills CRMs faster than big expectations and lofty goals that are implemented all at once.

If you go in expecting your CRM tool to instantly solve all your problems, you’re not managing your expectations and will end up disappointed. Your CRM tool isn’t going to solve all your business problems, but it should solve a defined set of problems. If you try to use your CRM tool for activities or data it is not intended for, it simply won’t serve its purpose. Here are some of the common mistakes companies make when it comes to introducing a CRM tool:

• Buying a CRM tool without understanding the system
• Thinking employees will learn how to use the tool themselves
• Expecting the tool to be ready to use or run itself
• Not having clear goals and expectations of what you want to get out of it
• Trying to cram too many fields and processes into the CRM tool when you first set it up

The reality of the matter is that there are only 9 hours or 540 minutes in a typical workday. So how many of those minutes can your salespeople spare to enter their data into the tool? The quicker it is for them to input their information, the better. Nobody loves CRM, and you aren’t magically going to make people fall in love with it either. But what you can do is make it as easy and efficient as possible for people to use.

“CRM tools are like gym memberships – they’re all more or less the same, but they’ll only work if you actually put in the effort.”

The ultimate goal of CRM is to use the tool in order to simplify the business processes that are important to you and provide sales related reporting. For example, if you need seven sets of data in order to make a forecast, this should form your core CRM system so stick to that. Don’t simply add fields that you believe would be “nice to have”. I would go further and say do not include fields or processes that are not going to be reported on or analysed today.

Hello, CRM System

The first step in getting the most out of your CRM system is to understand what it can actually do. In the beginning, it might be useful to work with an expert. They’ll be able to listen to your needs and vision. They can also guide you on how to use the tool, what it can and cannot do, the best way to set it up for your users, and how to build your reports.

If you’re going to invest money in a tool while also expecting your people to invest time into it, you should employ a designated CRM administrator. This person would help you understand the tool: its features, benefits, and limitations. They will also configure the tool to work the best it can be. A CRM administrator helps you determine and prioritize your expectations based on the complexity for the users, and impact to the business. They’d then make a plan on how to phase in the implementation of fields and processes into your CRM system over the next 6 to 18 months. Implement the most simple data entry that has the greatest business impact first.

The administrator would also play a role in making the tool as quick and intuitive as possible for your users to input their data. As a result, they’d play a key role in helping you see your vision for the CRM system through while also simplifying it enough for users to actually use it.

You also should evaluate your mindset towards the CRM system. If you start off trying to do everything with it, in a year you might find that you end up doing nothing. So if your CRM tool is being set up to solve a series of problems, start by implementing it at 20%, and incrementally increase this percentage. Every three months, for instance, you could introduce a new feature or field for data entry. Eventually, it will become part of daily life for all your employees because they’ve had time to get used to it. When your users adopt your tool, it becomes easier for you to slip in a new requirement for them to fulfill which further enhances your transparency and reporting.

Simplicity For Success

How you set up your CRM tool can eliminate data entry mistakes, or even the perennial problem of blank fields. Think about the information you want to receive, and the most efficient way for you to get that information from an employee who has only a few minutes a day to devote to your CRM tool.

It is best to reverse-engineer your CRM tool. Consider the information you need for your sales forecast and the report you need to create. From here, define field types and methods of data entry, then create the fields and processes in the CRM tool to fulfill this report. Nothing more.

One good tip is to use pick lists rather than free text fields wherever possible. Not only do pick lists save time, they also eliminate human errors such as spelling mistakes. You may start off thinking that your pick lists should include 50 choices, for instance. At this point, stop and ask yourself if you really need this level of granularity. Historically, of all the opportunities, what are the choices that are used 80% of the time? This will give you a much smaller list to work with, and you can add an “other” section to capture what you have missed.

Indeed the 80-20 rule is a useful one to apply to get most of the data you need without complicating things for the user.

Formatting Woes

A company wanted to track ‘competitors per opportunity’. At first, it was simple: if an opportunity was closed, a text field had to be filled in. Being a mandatory field, the data entry was at 100%. However, there were spelling mistakes, some people entered the word ‘none’, and other small issues.

So the company came up with a brilliant idea to make data entry perfect. The field was replaced with a custom tool. First, you’d have to search for the competitor’s name in the database. Your selection was then linked to the opportunity, allowing multiple selections of real companies. However, the process was so complicated, it took almost as long to search for and select the competitor than it took to fill in the rest of the opportunity! This method also didn’t make the field mandatory. The company went from 100% filled pretty good and usable data, to 1% filled perfect data.

Another example of overburdening your employees would be naming conventions for opportunities. If you give employees very specific ways in which to name their opportunities (date-initials-company name-product), you’ll find that people will be put off from data entry in general. Or, they won’t do it at all, or do it improperly so your system does not work. It ends with both you and your people feeling frustrated.

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Don’t Waste Time

A good CRM system that has been optimally configured for its users shouldn’t take more than a few minutes of their time. For example, if your tool requires more than twenty pieces of data from its users, it runs the risk of being too time consuming, and therefore less likely to be properly adopted. The goal is to simplify the data entry fields so that the user spends the least amount of time on it, but management gets the most data out of it.

I always said “one country, one division, one manager, one spreadsheet”. Even if you are not using CRM, typically every manager has some version of a master spreadsheet that they expect their employees to fill in. At the end of the day, if they have 20 people working under them, they will end up with 20 versions of the same spreadsheet. As a result, creating a pipeline or funnel by consolidating data across the team becomes a challenge and is hugely time consuming.

As suggested, it is relatively easy to reverse engineer and map the spread sheet fields to your CRM system. Once you show the manager how easy it is to run their live up-to-date report, they gladly become your ally. The same manager will then take responsibility to remind their 20 people to use the tool. While employees fill in a set of fields for this manager, don’t forget that the same fields can be used in countless reports across the organisation. The data collected can therefore be used repeatedly!

Reign ‘Em In

One of the most common errors that people make when setting up their CRM system is that they try to fit in their most complex and layered sales processes into the CRM. While it may make sense to concurrently evaluate ERP data and CRM figures, it’s better to keep them separate and not integrate your ERP data directly into the CRM system.

Instead, I would advocate that you adopt a “less is more” approach with your CRM systems. If you think you want to have 100 fields, for instance, go through each of them one by one, and by the process of elimination arrive at 20. You want the most concise, consolidated information. That happens when you don’t collect data you don’t need, and choose to work with a very specific set of goals for your CRM tool.

Now that you’ve set up your CRM system, how do you get people to adopt it in the long term without completely hating it? Importantly, how do you get them to put their data in consistently so that accurate reports can be generated?

In my years of experience working closely with CRM, I’ve found that a handful of people in every company can really make or break CRM implementation. If your top management hasn’t fully bought into the concept and therefore is half-hearted about implementing it, the likelihood that the CRM tool will actually be adopted by people on the ground is low. I have seen successful running systems grind to a halt with the change of one manager. On the other hand, systems that were producing nothing came to life with a new person driving it from the top.

One key aspect of making senior management happy is accurate reporting.

I cannot stress enough that reliable reports are critical when it comes to CRM tools. If a manager is called out for inaccurate figures because of inaccurate data or poorly made reports, you will lose them forever. People should be able to rely on the data that comes out of the CRM system and be able to explain each figure based on the rules applied.

“For CRM to work, reports need to be both reliable and relied upon.”

That is, once standardised reports are introduced, there can be no going back to Excel or other methods of discussing opportunities. If it does not exist in the CRM tool, then it does not exist to be discussed, or even get credit for.

Accuracy in data happens when the CRM system is kept updated consistently by everyone using it and there’s an administrator monitoring it. In a perfect world, everyone loves CRM and sets aside some time every week on their calendar to update their opportunities. Yet the reality is that salespeople have packed schedules, and CRMs unfortunately rank low on their list of priorities.

As an administrator, my way of assuring that people actually update the CRM system on a consistent basis was to manually send them emails every second Tuesday. I didn’t use auto-generated emails from the system itself, which would invariably find their way to people’s ‘Junk’ folders. I sent what appeared to be personalized emails to everyone who hadn’t updated their opportunities.

This was done using an email merge tool, but it came directly from me and was perceived to be a personal reminder, which made it more likely to be acted upon. The results were astounding. If you have a dedicated CRM administrator, you can seek their help in making sure people are reminded to take time to input their data regularly such that accuracy is always maintained. Common oversights such as overdue opportunities, blank key fields, or inactive users, can be reduced by data checking reports and regular reminders.

For people who are travelling constantly, updating the CRM system can feel like a chore, or may even just slip their minds. You could consider getting iPads for your employees, with the CRM system downloaded on it. If you can get people to update the CRM system right away by empowering them with mobile technology, that’s something you should do. If not, just schedule some me-time with your CRM tool on a weekly meeting. Put it on your calendar as you would a meeting, and make a habit out of it.

Getting Down to It

Often, salespeople think, “I have the information on my phone, it’s there when I need it.”. I argue that there’s a point where you have to sit down and organise all of this information. It’s a manual process. You can’t just email the team assistant and ask them to update your information for you. The same assistant might be receiving ten other such emails, and as a result, accuracy and accountability both take a hit.

Users must be held accountable for their own opportunities and therefore they must perform their own data entry. And in the end, it is much faster to just open the tool and change the field, vs. typing an email asking someone else to change the close date of your opportunity.

So we have all this data, now what? Beyond normal reporting, the new capabilities of machine learning and AI offer even greater possibilities. Imagine taking multiple years’ worth of opportunities and performing predictive analyses. You could then look for patterns in terms of projects you won or lost as compared to your open opportunities. Can processes be optimised? That is, which opportunities are you more statistically likely to win? CRM data can help you unlock these invaluable insights.

For example, by analysing CRM data, you could look at the average phases and cycle of an opportunity based on deal size, product and other criteria. This could help a salesperson evaluate whether they’re falling behind, or whether they should abandon the opportunity and focus on more promising prospects.

Do you appear to consistently lose an opportunity of a certain size and revenue to the same competitor? Which customers do you spend the most time for the least return, or the least time with the most return? All of these insights help people do their jobs more effectively. Yet none of it will actually happen unless people hold themselves accountable to putting their data into the system consistently and accurately.

Visibility

Some companies don’t want their salespeople to be able to view each other’s data. As a result, they try to segregate data and administrate at the individual level. Yet, if you look at the big picture, is this really the most effective way to go about it? If salespeople are able to view each other’s data, they’d be able to avoid wasting time pursuing opportunities that a colleague has already contacted, or even leverage on contacts and synergies in opportunities if possible.

I strongly recommend that everyone in the organisation should be able to see all the data that goes into the CRM system. That’s by far the most effective way to go. Simply put, data becomes a great deal less messy and reporting more accurate. Of course, there are exceptions to this. For companies who operate on a global scale, individual countries may not want their data shared with other countries, which is understandable.

As with a gym membership, CRM tools only work if you use them, no matter what tool you use. I have consulted on some systems which were not expensive or feature rich; I described it as driving a Hyundai that could only turn left. But as I pointed out to the customer, you can still get where you want to go in a Hyundai that can only turn left, albeit not as quickly as you may expect. Any tool when used to the fullest will become a useful tool and source of data for the company.

I have also walked into organisations which use top of the line CRM tools, with all the bells and whistles: the Ferrari of CRM tools, if you will. But it was so poorly configured, its processes so complex, and was time consuming to fulfill that it was basically unusable. I described this as a Ferrari with no steering wheel; it could not get you anywhere.

1. Assign a CRM Administrator

This person will help you make the most of your CRM tool by understanding what it can and cannot do, setting it up efficiently, and then getting the kind of data you want out of it. This person should like data (and ideally CRM), already uses or has used CRM, and knows its benefits. While it’s best to have a person working on this full-time, smaller companies should give the administrator enough time to do the job right. This is an important investment you’ll need to make in your CRM system.

2. Define Your Expectations and Reports

Don’t set out to use your CRM tool to solve all of your business problems at once. Focus on some key problem areas you can solve with CRM and how your organisation could benefit from additional data transparency. This could include sales forecasts, win-loss reporting, account management, appointment scheduling and management, sales processes, and measurable KPIs. Define those clearly by priority and a timeline, and incrementally work towards those goals over 6 to 18 months.

3. Schedule It In

For users, make it a part of your weekly routine. Put it down in your calendar, two days a week Tuesday and Thursday, sit down, and get to your data entry. This way, you won’t be overwhelmed when your management needs to generate reports, and your data will be as accurate as possible. For managers, start looking at the data and let your staff know you are now relying only on this data to get things done.