Is user- friendly CRM an oxymoron?

As the sales director, what's your pressing problem? It is not about your team meeting quotas or improving the organization's revenue. I would call them objectives and to meet them we need something that needs to be done every single day. And that is making your sales team update CRM on a daily basis. You will find out why soon.

CRM is one of the fastest growing enterprise software categories and is bound to be the leader by 2020. Companies around the world have collectively spent $36 Billion this year alone on CRM. Despite all the feel-good statistics, the adoption rates are dismally low among the sales people. In one study, 49% of companies that have adopted CRM use less than half of the features of their organization's CRM. And importantly, most salespeople agree that manual data entry is the biggest challenge in their existing CRM. This is due to varied reasons, the top one being the amount of time one has to spend every day for data entry conveniently accelerated by a lousy UX and a feeling that CRM usage needs technical expertise. All this boil down to one thing and that is - your CRM is not able to engage its users and give them the value add that's is originally supposed to. Instead it turns into a monitoring tool making them worry if they are not able to fulfil their quotas. So, what can be done to make the salesperson change this attitude towards CRM.

Align with User Goals

User engagement begins with aligning to user's goals. What are your user's goals? Is it updating their day to day task or selling more? Once you are able to understand this, you'll realize the need to create an engaging experience in your organization's CRM that aligns with what the user wants to achieve. And here it is about increasing sales effectiveness. Remove the drudgery of filling in data manually. Identify processes that can be automated so that users can complete a task within a few clicks.

Make the UX Clutter Free

I bet you have noticed the home page of Google. It's blank for most part except a search bar. It is for a reason that it's kept that way and not because Google doesn't have many features. CRM software comes with a lot of features. The question is, how many will your users need? Retaining the barrage of features on your CRM just because they came with it can seriously put off your users. They can be confusing and time consuming. Customize your CRM, keep only those features that really matters and provide quick links for easy toggle. Additional features if needed can be introduced on a timely basis.

Allow for Mobility

Mobile work-styles are on the rise. 65% sales reps who use mobile CRM meet their quota while only 22% who do not use mobile CRM achieve the same results. Let alone that, even when it comes to the leadership, more than two-thirds of decision makers read mails and send approvals on their handhelds. It is indeed time for your organization's CRM to go mobile. Imagine updating leads, taking meeting notes, approving workflows and downloading reports on the go. It is sure to reduce the time spent on making daily updates by 50% and most importantly, allow CRM to be used that way it is supposed to be.

If you want the organization's CRM to be used more effectively, think for a minute as the end user. You will be appreciated by your sales team for this and they will definitely come back for more.