Joe The Salesrep and CRM User Adoption

2 minute read

Lee Allgood, a colleague from my days consulting with ERP provider MAPICS, sent me an email referencing a March 2008 survey performed by Sand Hill Group and Neochange.

Although the survey looked at enterprise software success from the software company’s perspective, some of the findings resonate with what we know about process alignment and user adoption related to CRM and Sales 2.0 tools implementations.

This is from the press release:

When asked how to best define “enterprise software success,” both providers and buyers agreed that the top indication is value realization for the company. 70% of buyers and providers believe that “effective user adoption” is the primary driver to realize the full business value.

 

This is not really a surprise. One of the reasons that CRM software hasn’t reached its full potential is the lack of effective user adoption. The software designers didn’t put themselves in the position of the Joe the Salesrep.

Another point. Accprding to this survey, process alignment is another factor in realizing value. CRM is not a replacement for a sales process. Here are the basic steps: Build your sales process. Test it. Train your team on its use. Run it for a while. Adjust where needed. Then look at a CRM solution that can be adapted to your process. CRM should help salespeople sell more, not waste their time.

My advice on the adoption issue? Before investing in any Sales 2.0 or sales-enablement technology, get your Joes and Janes to be part of the evaluation team and please, answer the question, what’s in it for them?

 

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