Won Opportunity – CRM celebration

                               

Salesman just closed an opportunity in the CRM as a win. What was CRM's reaction for that update? How the management would react to this info if it was a phone call or a text message?

CRM is all about winning deals. Actually, any organization main target is winning deals. When a deal is being closed in the system, it should be clear that an amazing thing just happened. Does your system give that feeling to its sales team?

CRM gives you the ability to react immediately and to be very focus on the message you deliver. Not like adding new contact or update a task, closing a deal in the system should be treated like the best thing that can happen within the system borders.

Use the CRM to increase the influence of a win. When it is still fresh, ask the sales rep to share his winning experience.  Try to allocate the main reasons for this particular win. Leverage this win in order to win similar opportunities that are stuck in the pipeline.

Make all the organization part of this win. Notify the rest of team with this event. Mark this opportunity and post it on the company's dashboard for the rest of the week. With the help of the management, give the salesman the recognition he deserves and by doing so, motivate the rest of the team to close their deals as well.

Closed Won... How did you do it?
Closed Won... Show the rest of the team how they should work.
Closed Won... We are happy to have you on our team!

Celebrate a win! This is what it's all about and with CRM, it was never so easy

Ignore a win and you are missing a huge advantage of this system

Email alert keeps you out                                                              

Email alert informs the user on processes inside CRM. Is the alert making the user seek for more information inside the system or does it keep him out?

Sales regional manager just got an email, into his outlook, with the pipeline status, showing the summary of all open deals within his team.  Will he login to the CRM to look on the deals which are close to winning, or maybe the ones that are stuck in the beginning? It depends on the manager reaction to the email and also on his belief in the CRM reliability when it comes to the pipeline picture.

As part of the adoption process, we ask the users to login in order to add new deal, to update an existing one, to view the pipeline and plan the forecast for the next period.  It is important to establish the CRM as his headquarter and decrease the usage of other applications when it comes to sales management.

At least in the beginning, CRM users must act inside the system, in order to make traffic of information and increase the login time. Many email alerts, reflecting the information inside the CRM, make the user passive and out of the system, with no reason to login. In this way, the CRM is missing his knowledge and experience to the selling process.

Email alert, made in the right way and in the right phase of the process, can arouse the interest of a user to login. But in the same time, it can damage the system attraction and become a reason for low usage.

Adoption starts earlier                                      

You built the Rolls Royce of a CRM. You created the process exactly according to the design document and based on the needs of the management. After three months, you stand in front of an angry VP Sales who doesn't see a full pipeline, low usage and an IT manager who doesn't understand what went wrong.

Why did this happen? Did you really get prepared for the adoption phase as you did for the design or the implementation? Did the management take part in the adoption effort?

To get a salesman to trust a new system is a process that needs to be taken under consideration already when deciding to switch into a new system. There are many approaches how to make the future end user part of the process and part of the solution. The end user must be aware of the project and its targets, and the sooner - the better. A salesman in a training session, hearing the first time about a new CRM system, has a hard nut to crack…

This is not a secret.

Share! Collaborate!

Here are some head start pointers:

1.       Arrange a breakfast announcement and celebrate the beginning of the project

2.       Send a survey and ask for feedback during the design

3.      Send a weekly email notification with the project's progress

4.       Just finished the first milestone?  Good time for another breakfast announcement

Like in a good movie trailer, you are building the expectation for the new system and at the same time you are making the sales team part of the effort. It will be harder for a salesman to avoid using a system that he was a part of its creation from day one.