After reviewing and shortlisting CRM software for your team, you finally choose which one to implement. He hopes to have more information about what the team members are doing and, more importantly, good information about the pipeline. Of course, that will help with team accountability and, more importantly, a better customer experience.

But how simple will the implementation process be?

changing the culture

When sales managers implement CRM, it’s different than most other software installations. The manager is faced with changing the culture of the business. Software is not just a new way of doing business; creates a high level of transparency into what people are doing each day-week-month.

It doesn’t matter what brand of CRM you bring in: it’s new, it’s different, and it’s going to affect the culture, and sales find it particularly challenging. They live in a fluid world and dislike reports and administration by nature. By implementing CRM, it’s a major change in your world and resistance can be high. A simple training session will not be enough to change the culture; It’s just the beginning.

These are the challenges that sales managers must address as part of the implementation.

1. Vendors

If it wasn’t for salespeople, CRM would be easy. Salespeople like to be out there selling and in front of customers. They don’t want to bother updating data in their CRM, even if they have a mobile app on their phone.

If you’re doing a CRM implementation, you’ll hear from the passive-aggressive salesperson “oh, do you want me to update CRM instead of selling?”. The answer is yes”.

Salespeople need to understand that CRM is not just about their customers and their performance. There are others in the company who also rely on the information. Accounting is looking at potential sales for cash flow operations for supplying products or engaging people.

Accurate information is the key to running a business smoothly, and the people who take the first steps toward revenue are the salespeople. Imagine if the accounting suggested that they didn’t feel like doing commission calculations today or missed some sales; there would be a sales uproar.

Vendors must meet the same standards as everyone else in the organization.

Sales managers need to explain that data is an integral part of company operations and show how other people rely on it. When accepted, you’ll get the commitment you need.

2. Activity tracking

The implementation of CRM consists of creating a complete profile of the client. From targeting fields for marketing to all documentation, emails, notes and other customer communications. This information can be reviewed at any time, by anyone, and to provide good service to customers and understand past interactions. Another team member can update information from your customer interactions while maintaining a complete view of the service.

CRM means salespeople can no longer own all customer communications. The information is shared and what is most uncomfortable for sellers, it can be reviewed, measured and decisions made.

The Sales Manager needs to measure performance against a sales plan. They need to understand the type of activity, the amount of activity, and how the pipeline is being filled. Without this information, they are playing their part, hoping that everything will turn out well.

The information is also critical to discovering the training needs of salespeople. If there is a barrier that needs to be removed, a greater understanding of a product is required. The shift to looking at data and trends opens the door to better sales and management.

3. Goodbye spreadsheets

When you implement CRM, you should strive to have as few spreadsheets as possible. The system has its reporting functionality, which can be customized, providing consistent and easy to manage reports.

A well-customized system will give you the sales metrics you need to run the sales organization and compare the team individually or across regions.

If you need data beyond what’s in the CRM, then you ask yourself, “Why isn’t that data in the CRM if it’s important?”

4. Performance pipelines

As a sales manager, your world revolves around channeling. How many receipts will be signed in a particular month/quarter/year? The easy approach to management is to focus on how much you’ve earned.

The sales manager who excels is the one who drives the speed of the pipeline. How many deals are up for grabs? How often do they come to the presentation or closing? Where are the pain points where sales drop? It is the information that the entire sales department focuses on every day, every week.

This information is the source of training and analysis is essential. How sellers enter their information, how often they make adjustments to deal size, closing date, and all other parameters in their particular business.

5. Dirty data syndrome

If you implement a CRM, you will most likely share information with marketing. When you load the data for the first time or synchronize it with other systems, you find a lot of dirty data: incomplete records, duplicates and different types of errors.

Sellers should be responsible for keeping their data clean. The mantra should be no clean data, no commission. This is how serious sales managers need to take data. Again, it is trusted by others throughout the company, so each person is equally responsible for keeping it clean when using the records.

6. Change the dynamic of the sales meeting

With CRM in place and the sales team engaged, the dynamic of your sales meeting changes. The team no longer needs to email you notes of your activity, provide you with projections and spreadsheets. All information is now in the CRM ready to use in dashboards.

Sales managers can run great meetings because they have all the information at their fingertips, and can quickly dig into something if the need arises. Salespeople are freed from meeting preparation and the sales manager has time to prepare before the meeting at a time that suits them, instead of waiting for information to arrive.

The biggest challenge for CRM implementation is the sales manager. Without a dedicated focus on implementing and establishing non-negotiable usage standards, the software has no value to the users, the administrator, or the business.

CRM implementation is time consuming, but the best performing sales managers are those who follow through and are steadfast in their goal of total engagement. Good sales managers have clear metrics and hold their salespeople accountable to them.

For more information on CRM implementation, check out this information.