Considering another attempt at adding CRM to your business? Start by getting your people on board.  

If your team has a bad taste in their mouth from the last CRM attempt, you’re not alone. Depending on the survey, as many as 80% of businesses have reported dissatisfaction with their CRM solutions. Their teams are justifiably hesitant to try again.  

Before you throw in the towel on your underperforming CRM, you can ensure a successful reboot simply by changing your approach.  

Change Your Approach, Change Your Outcome 

Many business leaders reboot their CRM thinking the process will be the same the second time around. My response to that? Not exactly.  

In my experience, businesses fail at CRM when they view it as a technology project and don’t account for its many complexities.  

• They failed to emphasize process and culture change. 
• They tried to do too much at once, instead of a phased approach. 
• They didn’t know CRM implementation was ongoing, and not one and done.   
• They failed to invest time to “Set – Train – Monitor” team expectations. 
• They didn’t promote or sell the WIIFM (What is in it for me?) factor to their team. 
• They didn’t have the right people in the right roles. 

In many ways, the second attempt will be like the first. A successful implementation should be built on the foundation of a detailed audit to identify gaps in the sales process (evaluating people, processes and technologies) and a dedicated point person in charge of the project (CEO for CRM) followed up with team training. If you’re looking to evaluate other systems, it will include vendor demos. But you can relaunch with the same platform – just better configured to your people and processes. 

Here’s where the process differs from a first attempt: 

This time you’re doing damage control.  

Change management is hard even on good days much less if you are on your second (or third) try of CRM. You must change long-lived habits around sales processes and CRM usage – not to mention, sell the idea to a team of professionals who may have hard feelings about the process. Your team may be disenchanted with the process and resistant to change.  

Before you can move forward with CRM, you must quiet your team’s fears and concerns. Explain how CRM is going to be different this time, and then follow through.  

Here are a few recommendations:  

1. Sell the “Why” of CRM: Spend time with the key people who will be using CRM and reinforce the benefits of a successful CRM program. Discuss best practices and expectations and use their insights to develop standard operating procedures that make sense for your business.

2. Explain how CRM is a team-selling solution: Include the whole team in a roundtable event to discuss efficiency gaps and possible improvements. Discuss the benefits of a well-executed CRM, one that allows users to share and leverage information across departments to create better customer experiences – and ultimately more profit for everyone. 

3. Consider coaching services: Coaching has proven effective in maximizing user adoption and ROI. To align your key players with the why of the CRM investment, it may be necessary to consider coaching before, during and after launch. Coaching could include: 

1. Weekly/monthly monitoring, including summary reports of CRM input 
2. Team adoption progress based on expectations and KPIs 
3. Weekly/monthly coaching calls with the team 
4. Review SOPs, discuss best practices and drive greater utilization 
5. Encouraging feedback from sales managers on their team’s CRM input

4. Evaluate your CRM partner: Your implementation provider is one of the most important keys to CRM success or failure. Did your current CRM provider sit down with your team, ask questions and evaluate processes? Did they perform a thorough audit of internal and external processes? If not, look for a partner who understands your business and sales process and identifies ways CRM can bring value to both.  

Hope is not lost. I’ve worked with many businesses who have succeeded with CRM after multiple tries. You can make good when you look beyond the technology to the people and processes inside and outside your business.

Brian Gardner

Brian Gardner, the founder of SalesProcess360, is the author of ROI from CRM: It’s About Sales Process, Not Just Technology, a compilation of 25 years of experience in sales management and CRM. Brian served as a sales manager for a major regional industrial distribution rep company for 15 years before building Selltis, an industrial sales team CRM solution with roots in process improvement. He took his passion for sales process improvement to the speaking and coaching world with SalesProcess360. He is also a Subject Matter Expert in CRM at Texas A&M University. Reach him at brian.gardner@salesprocess360.com.