As a Sales leader, you likely know that a CRM can help your team reach its sales goals. CRMs provide much-needed tools to help sales teams obtain, nurture, and convert leads, resulting in 97% of businesses who use CRMs meeting or exceeding their sales goals, as opposed to 77% of those not using CRMs.
With these success rates, it might be surprising that over 60% of CRM implementations fail. Slow user adoption and incomplete CRM setups can lead to wasted money on CRM subscriptions that aren’t getting utilized to their full potential.
This is not to say that you should abandon CRMs completely. The numbers tell us that CRMs drive sales. Here’s how to create an implementation plan that supports your sales team, boosts user adoption rates, and fully utilizes the CRM features you're paying for.
CRMs can help create a more efficient and fruitful sales cycle through every step in the buyer journey. From developing sales pipelines, to booking meetings, to nurturing leads, to creating proposals and contracts, CRMs streamline sales reps’ most necessary resources into one tool. Automating manual processes and cutting down on repetitive tasks enable sales reps to place more on connecting with leads and closing deals. In 2024, CRM software was shown to increase conversion rates by up to 300% and revenue by up to 245%.
By centralizing customer data, sales reps can achieve more organized, strategic sales approaches and more personalized interactions with leads. Some of today’s top CRMs even provide AI-driven insights, using both customer and third party data, to develop ICPs (ideal customer profiles), buyer intent, sales pitches, and more.
It’s no wonder that 73% of businesses use CRM software, with that number only set to keep growing. So, how can you ensure that your CRM strategy opens doors to leveraging the full features of your CRM?
Failed CRM implementations often occur due to ineffective strategy, not because the CRM itself is inadequate.
A number of factors can contribute to failed implementation or low adoption rates, including:
It’s important to remember that with a proper course of action, many businesses successfully achieve a smooth CRM implementation with company-wide adoption. Considering the common roadblocks that come with adopting a CRM, here are a few useful approaches to ensure a successful CRM implementation from start to finish.
A roadmap is a useful way of breaking down your CRM implementation into manageable steps, and including your entire team in the plan will make it easier for everyone to onboard with clarity and consistency. Consider involving stakeholders, core members of your sales team, and any other key team members.
It’s crucial to prepare any data you plan on migrating to your CRM to fit the data conventions of the CRM itself. That means resolving missing fields, duplicate data entries, and matching up data properties from your existing sources to the properties used by your CRM. Ideally, you’ll be able to customize properties and contact records in your CRM so that all of the data fields that might be specific to your business are accurately reflected. This sort of setup is best done before data migration to avoid the need for data cleanup.
Next, it’s crucial to integrate any external data warehouses or software that need to be synced with your CRM to maintain accurate, comprehensive data. If you’re migrating from one CRM to another, you’ll also need to recreate or replace any previous workflows and automations you were using with the equivalent on your new platform.
Another important step to ensure widespread adoption of your new CRM is scheduling regular training sessions for your sales reps and any other team members that will be onboarding. Rather than leaving the training up to the individual, team training allows for everyone to talk through any points of confusion together, ultimately resolving any potential areas of confusion more efficiently and effectively.
CRM implementation isn’t a one and done process. After your sales reps are done with onboarding, training, and have time to explore the full functionality of the CRM, make sure to followup with regular checkins, gauging sales reps’ satisfaction with the software and noting any potential pain points that need to be addressed. If a sales rep is facing a frustration with your CRM’s functionality, it’s worth developing CRM solutions that adapt to the needs of your team, rather than expecting your team members to adapt to unideal processes.
Often, gaps in CRM functionality can be addressed with some level of customization, automation, or other digital infrastructure, making it possible to cater CRM software to the unique needs of your sales team.
If your team isn’t equipped with in-house CRM specialists, an agency specializing in CRM onboarding, implementation, and training can help.
Reliable agencies should have proven knowledge of your chosen CRM, such as certifications provided by the CRM software and client references. If you anticipate requiring any customization in your new CRM, ask your agency for case studies or demos that showcase their ability to develop custom solutions.
A CRM is most advantageous when used across your organization. Your sales, marketing, and service teams will all benefit from shared information within your CRM. Integrating any critical sales, marketing, and service apps will not only streamline processes for the team using it, but also drive better results from your campaigns.
So you’re ready to take the next step with a new CRM. If you’re looking for more guidance through the dos-and-don’ts of CRM adoption, we’re here to help. InboundAV is a certified Platinum HubSpot Solutions Partner, winner of a 2023 HubSpot Impact Award, and dedicated business development agency with a broad range of expertise when it comes to CRM onboarding, maintenance, and strategy. We’re here to walk you through every step of the process.