According to Gartner (the world's leading research and advisory company), over 40% of CRM projects fail because of poor user adoption. Of course, the project is bound to fall on its feet when your sales reps are just not ready to embrace the CRM technology.
While sales managers appreciate the concept of a CRM as it allows storage of critical customer information and its presentation in an easy-to-follow format to monitor staff performance and optimize selling, the average sales rep often considers their CRM as just another tool used to micromanage their day. Additionally, many sales reps often see the CRM as a time-wasting tool keeping them from their core task - selling. Interestingly, this is just not true! And here's why.
Here are 10 reasons that your sales reps need CRM:
1. Selling innovation
Innovative and out-of-the-box market strategies are critical to the success of a business, especially during the breakout sales seasons. With a CRM, sales reps can achieve a far better output and make more money while saving countless hours. CRM solutions can help sales reps navigate every interaction and adapt to make it their strongest asset used to capitalize on the emergent market trends.
2. Plan and manage time like a pro
A CRM helps sales reps prioritize tasks and optimize their daily schedules to make sure key prospects are contacted on time and not a single customer who is interested or who can be won is ignored. In fact, CRM solutions empower sales people to focus more on productivity and spend more time with customers that, in turn, results in a stronger customer base and an increased in closed deals.
3. Unmatched data accessibility and security
One of the biggest advantages of CRM solutions is that they allow storage and retrieval of contacts, scheduled plans, sales opportunities, leads, and activities in a safe and secured place. This critical data can be accessed from any geographical location at any time and from multiple locations.
4. Stay up-to-date and current
A CRM keeps everyone in the sales team together and engaged with document templates, email integration, calendars, and more. Sharing selling processes and patterns allows sales reps to identify what works best for them and their customers. Moreover, CRM solutions also improve communications and interactions between the sales management and sales force.
5. Stop surfing, start targeting
A CRM is one of the most value-driven and purposeful tools when it comes to segmenting data and identifying valuable opportunities through criteria-based selections. This helps sales reps save countless hours of data entry tasks or surfing endlessly and unproductively with disorganized data lists.
6. Social Media Insights
Leveraging seamless CRM integration with a wide range of social media tools helps sales reps gain invaluable and detailed insights about the customers in the context of their buying behavior, preferences, expectations, wants, demographics, etc. This helps reps know more about their customers, what they exactly want, and how they expect to be treated. It also proves beneficial to identify the leads that have the highest probability of converting into a sale.
7. Email Tracking
Spending countless hours creating email campaigns and presentations to be sent to customers can be tedious and demoralizing if there is no way to tracking system in place. With the CRM email tracking features, sales reps can gain a complete understanding of who opened their emails and when, the response rate of the email and promotional campaigns, and whether any links were clicked. With access to this customer information on a real-time basis, reps can act proactively while the leads are still hot.
8. Rationalize the sales moves
The CRM helps sales teams streamline the entire concept of sales cycles helping everyone in the team to reach targets faster and convert more deals within the sales pipeline. Teams can increase sales revenue and minimize production costs as preparing quotes and order processing are automated in the CRM.
9. Cut down on admin tasks
Having a CRM helps reps drastically cut down on unproductive time spent by removing some of the most common, repetitive actions so they can concentrate more on their core activities. CRM software can be leveraged to trigger reminders for activities, store price and product details, and guide sales reps step-by-step through the sales pipeline.
10. Saves efforts with Mobile CRM
Sales reps are empowered by Mobile CRM that lets them access critical customer data and accounts on their smartphones and tablets, even while remaining on the move. By having instant, real-time access to important information such as price lists, quotes, product information, and account history, reps are better positioned to quickly respond to leads and make well-informed decisions, leading to improved conversion rates.
To go the extra mile, Cloud Journey Consulting Group can help your sales reps follow-up systematically on sales opportunities and better search, sort, and qualify leads through CRM-empowered solutions. Our experienced teams of CRM integration and CRM Consultants can also guide you on your journey of increasing target reach rates faster and prioritizing and rationalizing follow-up activities. Call us now to know more, we will be happy to assist you!