Why does your sales team refuse to use the CRM

1. Why Your Sales Team Refuses to Use the CRM Wakeupsales Blog After hours of research, discussions & negotiations… you finally have a CRM in place. What may shock you after a few days is when you still find your employees hesitant to take the plunge. They are still on the age-old methods of using spreadsheets & sticky notes. Can be really frustrating! Well, change is difficult. Not everyone embraces change quickly. Matter of fact, research says that nearly 40% of employees prefer to stick with traditional methods when a CRM is implemented at their workplace. That’s a lot to slow down your productivity & efficiency, don’t you think. The hesitation might be due to various reasons such as difficulty in use, technology phobia, lack of willingness or motivation, lack of knowing the benefits it has in store etc. As a manager, it’s your responsibility to figure out the possible reasons & their solutions. Here are a few, that might be of help:

2. People Don’t Like ‘Change’ Everybody likes to be in their comfort zone. And sales folks are no different. Key is to make the change easier for them, by making them involved from the very beginning. Ask them what they need or what they expect from a CRM, what are their current pain-points, or you can also take their vote on which CRM would likely be best for them. By feeling involved, many from the hesitant group may well feel confident or even like the idea of moving to a CRM. And chances are that they may even convince their colleagues to come on board too. Don’t Realise the Benefits of Using a CRM One of the most common reasons behind employees not using a CRM is that they aren’t well aware of the benefits it’s likely to give. Best thing to do is to sit down with them & helping them realize the numerous benefits that a CRM has to offer, from saving loads of time to increasing efficiency & customer satisfaction. Sharing some real-life case studies may go a long way in helping your cause. Lack of Technical Expertise in Using the CRM There can be two major reasons behind this; either your employees are not tech-savvy enough or they are just familiar with some other app. Best way to deal with this is by extensive training, simple on-boarding & regular feedback sessions. It will be even more effective if you enlighten your employees about the industry best practices & how the use of CRM is on top of everyone’s list. Any added motivation always helps! Your CRM isn’t User-Friendly Chances are that your team decided to give the CRM a try, but got confused or got lost in navigation. First impression lasts long & it’s true in this case as well. If the first few mins of using the CRM fail to impress your employees or if it’s unclear how they can organize their data… they will shut the door there itself. Leadership plays a very important part in such cases. Choose a CRM that’s easy to get started with & then guide the employees through the initial phase until the ice breaks. Once everybody realizes how a CRM can help boost their efficiency, they will come on board in no time. Keep it a point not to hurry! Cluttered Data Everywhere in Your CRM No matter how advanced your CRM is, it’s practically impossible to keep an account totally free from duplicate or outdated data. And with time, it only gets worse. Unorganized data is a huge

3. turn-off for employees for whom, every minute counts. It takes away a lot of their time to dive into a pile of unorganized data looking for what they need. Having a strict usage policy in place from the beginning & conducting frequent audits can be of great help in such cases. The sooner you buckle up, the better for your company. If used in the right way, a CRM can provide endless benefits to a company from improving productivity to customer satisfaction & conversion rates. Always remember that it’s not the first nor the last time your employees will hesitate to embrace new technology. But with proper guidance & the above steps… it will really be easier for a manager to adopt a CRM for their day- to-day work Looking for a CRM that will literally make things easier for you? Give Wakeupsales CRM a try. It comes with a 30 day FREE Trial.