How can CRM help you manage your team and which pitfalls to avoid?

Organizations use CRM technology to improve customer service, boost customer satisfaction and attract more customers.

There are two components to every CRM strategy, software and human resources. Companies can adopt CRM strategies through the use of various software and systems, and management in turn can monitor and evaluate its human resource capability and productivity levels. An effective implementation of CRM allows the company to compete successfully in today’s fast moving and competitive business environment.

To grow and maintain an effective direct sales team, hiring competent sales people is important. However, getting them to reach full productivity levels and building a reliable sales model and process is even more essential.

Gartner Analysts recommend building for the long term: “If you cut staff you will likely lose the knowledge of best practices, lower morale, and harm productivity.”

With CRM software, your company can easily assess how your new hires are doing in terms of meeting sales quotas and closing deals. It can also carefully manage the productivity levels of your sales team.

Here are some ways.

Assessing employee productivity with CRM activity reporting.

CRM activity reporting allows you to assess your employees productivity levels. You can get a clear picture of who is making or who isn’t making sales when your team logs sales meeting on your CRM software. You’ll be able to discover unproductive sales meetings and any stuck deals. With that you’ll have the power to take action sooner to save money and increase productivity through improved training, better coaching or just simply finding a better hire.

Quickly detect customer and Market Trends

By adding a question or two to your users’ activity reports you can begin to identify market trends. Knowing this information, you can build reliable sales model that direct marketing and sales efforts towards the path of the highest success rate. This can result in shorter sales cycles and improved sales productivity.

Evaluate your Enterprise Needs

Before you jump into purchasing a CRM software, you must properly evaluate your enterprise needs and how it matches up with the properties and performance of various systems. A good tip is to ask the vendors to provide a demo of the CRM system before you fully commit to one system.

Gartner Analysts provide a nice primer: “The first step is to inventory the application portfolio and keeping a bright red line under the components that could be considered of lower value and what bits are missing. Get someone in Marketing to work with someone on your team to scout out the leading edge new technologies that could help the company differentiate products and services, and map out how to shift a small bit of investment over to these innovative technologies.”

When evaluating your CRM software system, you should be mindful of one that can identify and realize real benefits for the enterprise. Get one that is simple to use so that excessive training isn’t needed for your sales team to adequately understand how to use the software. The interface should be user friendly and customization process should be simple. An effective CRM system is one that allows a low level of system integration.