10 Ways To Make Your Sales Team Love Your CRM

If you want your shiny new CRM to actually work for your business, then you have to get your employees onboard.

But sales teams traditionally enjoy dealing with actual humans – not technology. So, what if they’re not interested?

The truth is that motivating employees to embrace your new CRM can be a tricky endeavour for many businesses, but it can be done.

The key is to show them that the new software will make their working day easier and not harder. Once your team can see the benefits of the new system, they’ll be happy to embrace it.

So how do you make your employees fall in love with your CRM?

1. Involve The Whole Team From Day One

If your employees feel like they’ve been involved in the decision making process, they’ll be far more willing to accept this new development.

It’s essential to gain their input right from the beginning, to ensure that your choose the best CRM option for your business. After all, they’re the people who will be using it everyday.

2. What’s In It For Them?

You need to portray the new CRM system as the solution to their problems, and not a problem in itself.

You can do this by arranging demo’s and Q&A’s to run through the benefits of the software. Once your team can see how the CRM system will help them to streamline their working day, they’ll be much more receptive to the idea.

3.Provide Sufficient Training

Depending on how complex your new CRM system is, you may need to dedicate a few training sessions to ensure your staff are up to scratch.

It’s important that you commit to proper training or your team will get frustrated and lose interest pretty quickly.

4. Consider A Trial Period

Even if you’re convinced that you’ve chosen the right CRM system, your staff may not agree.

If possible, consider trying it out on a trial basis to ensure that they’re comfortable using it.

5. Don’t Bombard Them With Features

Give your team some time to get to grips with the basic features of the CRM first, otherwise you risk scaring them off completely.

This phased implementation approach will allow them to gradually get on board with the new system and also identify any issues that crop up in advance.

6. Celebrate Successes

If your initial users share their experiences and success metrics with the rest of the team, this will show them that the CRM does actually work – rather than simply telling them that it does.

Additionally, when certain milestones are passed, be sure that the whole team knows about it.

7. Incentivize Employees To Use The CRM

Everyone loves an incentive, and your sales team definitely will. Whether it’s a free vacation day, a cash bonus, or a mystery prize – providing an incentive will definitely get your team motivated to start using your CRM properly.

Some CRM systems also use gamification to boost sales performance and morale.

8. Spring Clean Your Data

Your employees definitely aren’t going to want to use your new CRM if it’s jampacked with incorrect and duplicate data; it’s no fun trawling through 5 listings for one customer, and they won’t do it twice.

Simply assign someone to keep your data up-to-date and this won’t be an issue.

9. Integrate Your Systems

Your employees probably already use a number of applications on a daily basis, and by integrating these with your CRM you can avoid creating extra work for your team.

This can really be a massive time-saver and your employees will thank you for it.

10. Stick To Your Guns

Whilst it’s important to listen to input from your team, it’s also important not to pander to one or two individuals refuse to adapt to the new CRM.

As soon as you give one person special treatment, the rest will follow suit and no-one will be using it.

I once had a manager who refused to acknowledge any sales unless they were logged in the CRM, so reps had no choice other than to use it. Something like that may seem a bit sneaky, but it worked for him.

By adopting a company-wide ‘no exception’ rule, you can ensure that everyone gets on board and gives the CRM system a chance.

Give And Take

Once you work with your employees, rather than against them, you should have no problem winning them over. Remember, they just want to get their work done in the most efficient way possible – so it’s your job to prove that your new CRM will help them with that.

Have you recently implemented a new CRM in your business? Why not use the comments section below to let us know what worked for you.