CRM Needs: Hold My Hand

Do you have a CRM system that is tough to use? Do people know how to use it?

An article in CRMMastery illustrates one of the main reasons salespeople do not use CRM systems — they are not built like a sales person sells. At the end of the article is a bullet list of needed functions for sales people:

Eliminate Data Entry,
Increase High-Touch Selling,
Provide Step-by-Step Guidance During the Selling Process,
Maximize Productivity and Profit, and
Maximize Productivity and Profit

The two most difficult and important are eliminating data entry and step by step guidance. I’m not sure how one would eliminate data entry solely through software. One could only offload this to another person — an assistant, for example.

If the CRM system, or any very important software could offer guidance during each step, it would be great. Quicken, MSMoney, and QuickBooks do this for their users. Why don’t other firms?

The simple reason is that is expensive and hard to do in applications like a CRM system. The mid-market is a tough place to operate. Software buyers are big enough to want/need customization, but too small to afford the six-figure consulting to build customized and business situation- dependent help files.

If the guidance existed…

Think of the time saver it would be to help new sales reps (or any other employee) entering new opportunity data in a CRM system;

The avoided frustration from not remembering the new pricing rules;

You’d have to understand your business in order to make the guidance files (this mapping could be worth a separate project!)

Proposals could go out faster since they would likely be correct.

The guidance can exist, but one needs scale to make the most of it. If you have less than one hundred people using a software system, the investment is probably not worth it. If you have more than one hundred users, you should seriously consider it.

Wait, didn’t I just say the mid-market could not afford to build a system like this?

I did.

If one were to outsource this, it would be expensive. A mid-market firm can now buy software allowing it to create Flash video files that an existing employee can build and annotate. The cost of the software is under $1000 and the only other cost is employee time.

What are you waiting for?