04 May 2009 | brian

In the 2009 Miller Heiman Sales Best Practices Study 82% of World-Class Sales Organizations agreed that their CRM implementation provides data that their sales management team consistently uses to make decisions. At the end of the dot com boom, when the promises of early digital tools seemed to be a pipe dream, it might have been fashionable to denigrate the relevance of CRM to “real” sales performance. The reality, however, is that rather than robotic automation that replaces sales professionals, CRM is another tool, an especially powerful one, that can improve the performance of sales teams who already have effective processes. By itself, CRM won’t take a poor team and make them good, but it can take a good team and make them great.

In the world of computers, the first rule is still GIGO: garbage in, garbage out. The CRM facilitates collecting data and working with it. This means that every member of your sales team is going to need to learn how to use the CRM and keep it up to date. This might look like time taken away from actually interacting with clients, but many of the World-Class Sales Organizations reported that their CRM system actually allowed them to spend more time with their customers. This is likely because, properly utilized, CRM takes a lot of the guesswork out of dealing with customers. CRM improves an organization’s sales reporting, which in turn improves sales planning and forecasting.

Those World-Class Sales Organizations that found CRM usage allowed them to spend more time with their customers, and who reported that the system provided data that management used consistently to make decisions, were two to three times more likely to jointly set long-term objectives with their strategic accounts and regularly engage them in their product and service planning process. They had better access to key decision makers in large deals and the highest levels of management among their strategic accounts. They were, in short, more able to perform those functions that generate world-class results.

Unlike adding a new printer, CRM adoption isn’t plug-and-play. Your team will have to be trained in its use, both for inputting data and getting what they need from the system. Having standardized terminologies and common processes are vital to getting the most out of CRM. Bill Golder, executive vice president of business development at Miller Heiman, addressed this issue in a “Chronicles of a Sales Leader” column:

I was recently on a client visit, and the sales vice president there is responsible for multiple selling organizations. He had one organization that had great process and rigor in place and they were seeing solid data coming in and out of their CRM application—thus, it was a valuable tool for everyone.

Then he explained how his CRM application was nearly useless for the other group he managed. They had yet to implement common process for how that group would consistently engage with customers, so there was much more inconsistency around approach.

CRM is a force multiplier, a tool that can magnify the good habits your sales team already practices. Those good habits must be in place before the benefits of a CRM application will manifest. In short, it’s not a quick-fix or a silver bullet for poor performance. The positive results from CRM adoption can be dramatic, but only for a team that is already comfortable with the sorts of standardized processes and effective discipline that produce results.

Photo credits: Benjamin Rossen.