CRMs are supposed to be the key to success for sales teams. So, why is user adoption such a challenge for organizations?
By Sofia Guzman on November 17, 2022
When it comes to building a sales tech-stack, CRMs are usually ranked among the top three tools every sales team news to succeed.
CRMs are implemented by businesses every day in hopes to modernize their sales processes and improve customer experiences. By enabling salespeople to accelerate the sales cycle and be more in control of their opportunities, the right CRM tool can completely transform a business’ sales process and increase productivity, which is why so many organizations either have one or are on their way to implement one.
Unfortunately, paying for something does not mean your team is actually going to use it. And when it comes to CRMs, user adoption seems to be one of the biggest challenges organizations face.
So, why are salespeople so resistant to something that should be key to their success and bring such great results?
CRMs are not user centric
When it comes to reviewing and buying solutions for their teams, it’s sales managers and leaders who are the key decision-makers, so most CRM platforms are tailored for them and not the actual sellers.
Most managers are not really spending a lot of time of their day in the CRM, which means that the main features they value are focused on things like reporting, pipeline visibility, or sales forecasting and pay little to no attention to other important things that affect the day to day usability of the platform and do not consider how sales reps actually work or like to execute the sales process. So, what do they get? A complex tool that is meant to show results but provides zero guidance, is the opposite of user friendly and does not have an intuitive process made for them.
Fear of change and uncertainty
If managers are not really the ones using the CRM on a daily basis, how can they really understand its value? More importantly, how are they supposed to transmit this value to their team? Unfortunately, it’s very common that, after implementing a CRM, almost no effort is made to inform reps of the logic behind the decision to buy it or to even tell them how it can actually help them.
Some reps may even feel a loss of control. They’ve been doing their jobs a particular way for a long time, so “why fix what’s not broken” comes to mind fast. As a result, it’s easy for them to fall back to the traditional methods of getting things done.
Lack of personalization and training
Rather than working on building a customized sales process and training reps to use CRM properly and thoroughly, most companies just purchase the software and expect them to figure it out themselves.
So, now reps are faced with a new difficult task to add to their already long to-do list, which is to manually update a complex CRM on a daily basis. They don’t see the value in it, they don’t understand it, they just know they have to do it. And of course, when something feels like a forced chore, chances are people are not happy about it, which means the chances of adoption are even lower.
How can companies increase CRM adoption?
A CRM is only as good as the data it stores. So, if companies don’t want to end up with just an expensive and highly inaccurate data base, they must make user adoption their number one priority.
Involving users from the beginning of the implementation process will contribute to demonstrating the software value and also get the adoption process started off on the right foot.
Also, tailoring the CRM to the actual users’ needs goes a long way. In the end, they’re the ones who are going to be using the tool on a daily basis, so it might as well make their work easier and not create additional admin tasks for them.
Last but not least, use technology to facilitate the adoption process. Platforms like Bloobirds simplify the CRM user experience and ensure proficiency. By turning data collection into an intuitive conversation, it transforms what’s become a dreaded chore into a positive experience, making sales reps -finally-use the CRM and actually enjoy it.
