CRM Adoption

By Niall

Sales’ Most Underutilized Resource

The success of CRM deployments is fundamentally down to how successful the CRM adoption is within the team or the wider organisation.

Recent research shows CRM utilization in organizations that are performing at world-class levels far exceeds that of the general population. So how can we ensue that our CRM adoption realises the same benefit to our organisation

More than 80 percent of the organizations we surveyed have a CRM system, but adoption rates vary widely. Almost 40 % have an adoption rate of less than 75 percent. While individual salespeople in these organizations may find value in using the CRM system, adoption at that level certainly doesn’t provide sales leadership with any kind of reliable funnel visibility or forecast predictability.

The Missing Link to Performance

Another intriguing finding is the link between cross-functional collaboration and CRM adoption. Most sales leaders recognize the importance of collaboration to sales success, however, the connection between CRM and collaboration often gets missed.

The research also uncovered a direct relationship between collaboration and CRM adoption. 54% of survey respondents with CRM adoption rates of 90 percent or higher reported that collaboration between sales and marketing met or exceeded expectations. Only 37.7 percent of organizations with 50 percent or lower CRM adoption could make that claim. Most notably, across all departmental combinations, the higher the rate of CRM adoption in the organization, the better the collaboration between departments.

The Rise of Collaborative Selling

The research also showed that the average number of buyers and sellers involved in an opportunity continues to grow. As decisions become more complex, more buyers with a specialized focus are pulled into the buying team. In turn, this requires the seller to tap additional subject matter experts with deep expertise in these same areas. As needs change, the makeup of the selling team can change dramatically over the course of the customer’s journey.

In world-class sales organizations, CRM is the glue that holds these diverse, constantly changing sales teams together. When opportunity details are available 24/7 in the CRM system of record, sales needs to spend less time bringing new selling team members up to speed. In turn, those contributing their expertise are better prepared for the customer interaction. “At the end of the day, it’s a win/win/win,” says the research “The customer receives more value from the selling team, stress is removed from the sales process, and sales leadership gets the funnel visibility and results they’re looking for”.

CRM should be considered a business critical tool for an organisation, not a nice to have. There are multiple benefits that CRM can bring to an organisation. these include:

Standardising your sales process
supporting your organisations sales methodology
providing greater insight in to your business
Aiding compliance, inline with GDPR and other governance requirements
Providing competitive advance
Enhancing the customer experience.
And much much more.

How ProAptivity with CRM adoption.

ProAptivity are an independent CRM solutions provider. We focus on the implementation, training, and support of highly customised CRM software solutions. Our CRM software supported by our sales training provide customers with the tools needed to deliver successful sales process management.

Fundamentally, we help organisations embed CRM best practice throughout their organisation. This helps organisations become more competitive, customer focused and ultimately more profitable.

If you need help in understanding why my business needs CRM, maybe some of our eBooks could help! Alternatively visit Maximizer CRM for more information. Contact us today in Belfast on 028 9099 6388 or at our Bedford office on 01234 214004. Alternatively email us on info@proaptivity.com. Contact us today for a free CRM consultation that will assess if your business is CRM ready.