In this article you will find a summary of a comprehensive survey on how CRM tools are implemented, how they are used and the obstacles identified, the benefits experienced and our recommendations for reconciling sales people with the tools they are given.
Sales functions often suffer from the CRM tools available to them, even though their objective is to help them improve their sales performance. sales performance. Indeed, while a large majority of the companies interviewed (80%) recognise that CRM tools enable better customer knowledge, nearly 75% of them observe resistance to their use for reasons that are independent of the tool implemented (ergonomics, availability of information, etc.).
In many CRM projects, difficulties related to the deployment to end users are added to the problems of designing and configuring solutions(more than 73% of the companies interviewed acknowledged that the CRM tool in place in their company was not sufficiently mastered by users and adopted by managers). As a result, users refuse to use the tool or only partially use it, and sales managers continue to use their old systems to manage the business, etc.
In this case, the entire sustainability of the project is called into question due to the lack of operational results. However, everyone knows that the tool is not an end in itself and cannot overcome the obstacles and reluctance of users, but that very often the solution lies in the managerial approach.
This study shows us two major trends:
1. The collective interest, i.e. that of the company, of CRM tools is not questioned by users and their managers: practically all of them recognise that the tool enables progress to be made in terms of knowledge and sharing of information about the customer. However, these contributions remain fundamental to all CRM tools (including free solutions!)
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2. However, when it comes to personal involvement in the implementation and use of a CRM tool, a great deal of resistance emerges and makes its deployment to operational staff complex - if not impossible. The tool becomes ill-informed, criticised, not used, etc.
In conclusion, the collective stake of this type of project is in most cases shared, but conflicts with the individual interest of the targeted users, the salespeople.
Our vision: it must be recognised that CRM tools are not essential to the individual performance of salespeople: many salespeople continue to perform well without using a global CRM solution. However, the growth of sales and marketing organisations and the pressure of competition are forcing customer relations managers to refine their knowledge of their targets and therefore the sharing of information.
In summary, the question to be asked is the following: How can we combine the individual interests and benefits of salespeople with the global and collective challenges of the company?
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