5 Best Practices for Maximizing Your CRM Capabilities
Having the right tools is essential for any job. What if you have all the right tools, but don’t know how to use them? Or worse, you didn’t even know you had the tools to use. This is what happens to businesses who do not see the full potential and resources that customer relationship management (CRM) systems provide. Being able to fully analyze your CRM data will help your business immensely. Thanks to the cloud, data can be updated and reported in real time, so people expect information to be accurate at all times. Your CRM needs to do this well. That starts with knowing your CRM’s capabilities.
Mark sales expert and president of Sales Xceleration, shares an article on Destination CRM highlighting five best practices to to optimize your CRM’s capabilities.
- Include a Salesperson in the CRM Selection Process. “By involving your sales team, you ensure that your CRM elevates their current operations rather than impedes them. Plus, you’ll automatically get more buy-in when the most relevant people—those who will work most directly with the CRM—are involved in the process. They’ll feel a sense of ownership and know that their input is valued.”
- Balance Sales Reps’ Time With Getting the Data You Want. “Considering leadership has invested resources in the CRM, they will want to see key data from the technology. That said, you need to strike a balance when asking sales reps to gather and enter that data; you don’t want your sales team entering information at the expense of business development.”
- Set Clear Expectations Surrounding Data Entry. “Optimizing your CRM starts with timely data. If your sales team is responsible for maintaining prospect and customer records, they need to use only the most up-to-date and relevant data. Data can’t be accurate if it isn’t updated regularly, and leaders can’t rely on any data that doesn’t reflect the most current reality.”
- Customize Your CRM to Fit Your Company. “An off-the-shelf CRM is easy to set up, but it’s not truly effective until you’ve updated it to match your company’s processes. Without CRM optimization to fit your company’s precise terminology and process, your sales team will view the CRM as obsolete and default to their own systems that are consistent with the proper terminology and tracking methods.”
- Build Custom CRM Dashboards That Reflect How You Do Business. “Create reports and dashboards that match the way you do business and deliver the style of reporting your leadership team expects. The CRM contains information, but you need to harness that information correctly for it to be actionable. The right dashboards will provide critical business insights, allowing your sales and management teams to understand where they are on forecasting and goals. Once the right data is in the tool and represented the right way, it becomes a valuable resource to understand pipeline status while seeing whether your team is on track to meet goals, overcome roadblocks, and solve sales challenges.”
