The widespread adoption of a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system in the last 20 years has revolutionised the ways salespeople operate. The Rolodex is gone, the tapping of the side of a head saying “all information is up here” (thankfully) is resigned to the history books and it is never more critical to have a robust CRM system than now.
According to data from Nucleus Research, the ROI from installing an effective CRM system is $8.71 so perhaps worth considering if you don’t yet have one and you are still running your sales activities off Google Sheets/Excel.
It used to be considered that the CRM or the company deal management system was the domain of just sales. Whilst Sales live there 90% of the time, Marketing, Customer Success, Finance, and C-Level all access it to understand why buyers buy, how long it takes them to buy, and how much of the company’s stuff they buy.
If you’re facing some resistance internally about the investment required into a CRM system, because let’s face it, it is an investment, consider these reasons why:
- It gives you a complete picture of the customer
- It gives you insight into buyer habits
- Insight into how buyers communicate
- An understanding of the original source type of the deal i.e., where it came from
- An appreciation of how many sales activities it took to convert
- An appreciation of how many days it took to convert (your sales cycle)
- It fosters a culture of cohesion and productivity
And if those reasons aren’t enough, the major reason for purchasing a CRM: it improves your overall Customer Service and these stakeholders, your customers, are why you are in business so best to take care of them. Consider this interesting paper that our Partner HubSpot co-authored, found here, which outlines the key goal for any sales organisation in 2021 is putting the customer first. And this only comes with a robust CRM that behaves as the single source of truth for the business.