When sales team won't use CRM system

I am in charge of implementing CRM at my company. Currently we have integrated all of our databases into one system and have implemented sales automation portion of CRM.

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Unfortunately the sales staff is not keeping their sales opportunities up-to-date and management believes it's a training issue.

I have asked for management to put together the vision and sales policies and procedures for using the system as well as enforcing use of the system by doing away with their old manual processes, however they have been reluctant to implement my recommendations.

To date the sales managers themselves are not using the system and the salesreps know this and so they are not using the system effectively.

My question to you is what are your recommendations to my management to ensure the CRM implementation is successful?
You describe a CRM project that's in a death spiral. If sales management will not use the system to record, track, manage, and analyze sales opportunities, then the project has essentially failed. Senior management has obviously not bought into this project and they show little sign of doing so. Unfortunately, some managers see CRM as a silver bullet. As you know, it's not. Rather, process design and integration is the only "silver bullet" that will yield positive results. The CRM application is simply the vehicle that carries the process design and enables workflow automation. Once again, we have seen that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

My recommendation? Your firm needs a wakeup call. Without knowing more about your company, it's difficult to know just what it might take to get senior management's attention. But, you can always start by presenting the financials. A summary of CRM costs will usually grab attention. Total all CRM related costs, including license, training, development, and hardware expenses. Demonstrate that the business is failing to reap any returns on this investment, and you should be well on your way to shaking things up a bit. Just be prepared for the fallout, as the "blame game" will likely begin.

This was first published in October 2001

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