Customer relationship management systems are very valuable tools. They grow more valuable the larger a business is. Getting a business team to adopt your CRM can still be a challenge. In many cases the challenge stems from their lack of awareness about the benefits it provides. The following are six ways to encourage business teams to use your CRM.
1. Promotion of Benefit
The simplest way to market CRM to business teams is to outline the benefits your CRM can offer them. Many are unaware of how they help; they may mistake a CRM platform for a training tool that they do not require. Explain how it can streamline their business operations and make them more efficient. If your CRM will enable them to perform unique operations, emphasize what new tasks they will be able to complete.
2. Emphasis of Specialized Value
Understanding the team at hand is important. Making a connection with the team you are marketing to is one of the most powerful tools for convincing them to adopt your CRM. Pick on the specifics of their daily operations and explain why your software will benefit them in ways it would not benefit other businesses; ideally, you should explain why it will give them an edge over a competing entity.
3. Evaluation Usage
Allowing business teams to use your CRM on an evaluation basis is sometimes the most decisive way to gain their support. Letting them try it for themselves and see how it benefits them will usually cast your CRM in a good light. However, this requires that you have an evaluation build on hand. This can often require maintaining two separate stable software builds. This may put this strategy out of the reach of smaller firms.
4. Gradual Implementation
Gradual implementation of a CRM can make it a much more viable possibility for many teams. Oftentimes what a business team is resistant to is not the adoption of a new CRM but the process of adopting it. Offering a solution of gradual implementation will take much of the pain out of the transition process by allowing them to adapt to each system individually.
5. Executive Support
In many cases getting a business team to adopt a CRM isn’t a matter of talking to them. It’s oftentimes a matter of talking to the executives that oversee them. If the corporate culture is appropriate you may wish to consider handing you CRM proposal over to the executives instead. In many cases the executives are the ones responsible for the decision to adopt a new CRM for business. In this case, all of the other individual tips apply: frame them in terms that executives will appreciate. Emphasizing decreases in the possible for human error and any bottom-line benefits are the best options on this front.
6. Reduction in Labor
The final point that nearly always applies is reduction of labor. CRM systems very frequently allow for the automation of tasks. Adoption of a robust CRM can effectively reclaim a number of man-hours every single day. This will translate to a direct increase in potential productivity. This will allow business teams a chance to distinguish themselves on other projects and will allow executives to reduce their budgets for overtime.
There are many advantages to CRM solutions. Convincing a business team to adopt them is all a matter of presenting this in such a way that they agree.
About the Author: Robert Cordray is a former business consultant and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience and a wide variety of knowledge in multiple areas of the industry. He currently resides in the Southern California area and spends his time helping consumers and business owners alike try to be successful. When he’s not reading or writing, he’s most likely with his beautiful wife and three children.
Photo credit: Gari Araolaza
