Your CRM is missing opportunities                        

A common problem of CRM data input is that sales reps insert their deals into the CRM on a very late phase. This fact can make analysis like win ratio very wrong and misleading. Why is this happening?

First, as the system administrator, you need to look for the reasons in your particular environment. Run few reports, make few interviews with the key users and see if they are sharing the same concern regarding this phenomenon. It might be one of the below:

System Validations prevent entering a deal with missing information – Not good! A system must encourage the user to contribute information and can ask for additional information once going forward in the selling process. BUT it should never prevent a user to contribute.

The user inserts only "Almost" C/W opportunities – Obviously the sales rep is being monitored on his quotas over the CRM, but the pipeline is left behind. The manager must monitor the pipeline as well as the quota's status. Managers must consist reviewing a sales rep's entire pipeline over the CRM and not via emails/ excel or any other platform.

The user does not want to harm his win ratio – Another issue needs to be taken care of by the management. One of the benefits of the CRM is its ability to learn from negative experience (losing deals) as well as from positive ones (Winning). By sharing his losing information a user is contributing to the entire sales department and the management should encourage him and the rest of the sales team to share this information as well.

The user does not want the management to interfere in an early stage – CRM must project the full and entire pipeline in order to get more accurate forecasting. A sales rep that feels he is being too much monitored will eventually leave much more information behind the radar of the company. This kind of problem must be tackled as soon as possible.

CRM must project the real picture for the management to be able to use it as a strategic tool. A misleading CRM will not be accountable to the key users and eventually will be treated as any other NICE TO HAVE application on the market.