To Increase CRM Adoption: Connect All the Dots

By Walter Rogers
President and CEO
Baker Communications, Inc.

 

In previous articles in this series on CRM adoption, we have focused on ways to boost support and participation from sales makers because, arguably, they are the single most important constituency to bring on board in order to convert CRM from a sales accounting tool into a high-performing revenue engine. However, as important as it is to accomplish that mission, you must also connect a few more dots in order to fully realize the benefits that an outstanding CRM system can provide for your entire organization.

Be sure to include non sales facing functions. Finance, HR, Support, Operations and other functions all impact customer experience. Not connecting other functions into a CRM decreases the opportunity to eliminate redundant work processes and ultimately the customer’s experience. If an organization is leveraging a CRM for a subset of its customer interactions but asking non-sales groups to use different tools that contain redundant or potentially conflicting information, then a disconnect on where, when and how to leverage a CRM to drive improved customer experiences will persist.

It is absolutely essential to integrate sales and marketing work streams. Sales and Marketing are often at odds with each other. Even though both Sales and Marketing are ultimately responsible for driving revenue, they often report to different executives with conflicting measurement objectives. As a result, 75% of leads generated by Marketing for Sales never receive a phone call, wasting time and energy of both groups. A properly configured CRM supporting a highly coordinated and unified strategy can eliminate cross-departmental competition and significantly enhance planning and execution of sales activities. Both Sales and Marketing processes should come to “life” inside integrated work streams enabled by the CRM, and finally deliver...

For the full article, click here

New! LinkedIn Focus Group for Negotiation Professionals.

Read, share and respond to ideas from other business professionals on some of the most important negotiation topics today. Each group is closely monitored to ensure an open best practices forum free of unwanted solicitations.

Join iNegotiate

Baker Communications Success Series...