Failure to adopt is a real and common issue for businesses attempting to adopt CRM. Agents often ignore the new system and continue to do things the old way, with paper and pen, because they are comfortable with that and uncomfortable with change.

This isn’t a new idea unfortunately. It’s a well known issue that many businesses have dealt with and many more will have to deal with. How well made the CRM system is won’t matter if  no one in the company actually uses it.

Creating accounts and changing settings may be easy enough but after all that comes the battle to win your employees over.

There are some ways to help ease your company’s transition from your old methods to a new CRM system.

The most important aspect may be to ensure the system is fully operational before going live with it.

It’s important to train and prepare  your agents who will be using the new system. Understanding how the tools work will also benefit your agents, as they will work faster and more efficiently if they fully understand the software tools they are to use.

When switching to a new system it’s important (if it applies to your business) that compensation aspects are clearly understood. If there are targets to be hit or other special compensation to be doled out, the new system should accommodate such aspects.

Data entry is another potential landmin. Your front line CRM users are sales and marketing staff, not data entry clerks, but typically they will have to do much of the task of getting data into your CRM system.

It’s important to keep the data load as light as you can on your sales and marketing types. When designing the system, decide what information you need and make sure you only collect it once. As much as possible, use check boxes, radio buttons and similar tools to collect information rather than requiring the data to be entered by typing.

It’s also important that the data be as clean as possible so it won’t have to be re-entered. Establish a standard or common practices, so that all records created by differing agents can be easily understood by anyone.

The best ways to push CRM adoption are education and encouragement but at some point you may have to put your foot down. Make it clear that reports and other documents not prepared with the CRM system are not acceptable. Your users will either have to do the work in the CRM system to start or copy it over into the CRM system before handing it in.

If you want all the benefits of a shiny new CRM system you have to make sure your employees will actually use it first.

79 percent of leads never convert to sales.

This can be largely attributed to failing to attract the right kind of leads, not identifying your best leads and most significant of all, failing to nurture your leads. With marketing automation tools you can ensure a much higher rate of success while never missing an opportunity to convert a lead to a closed sale.

Get the Right Kind of Leads

Simply acquiring a large amount of leads doesn’t mean you get a corresponding large amount of sales. Getting a bunch of phone numbers into your CRM is nice but it’s far better (and more efficient) to attract high quality leads instead. You should have a complete profile of your target customers and how your product services their needs. Going after leads who are already interested in your product or are in need of something like your product will be far more likely to make a purchase while wasting less of your company’s time on leads with no interest or need of your product. With marketing automation software you can use a form that captures contact information in exchange for a white paper, a worthwhile video, pricing information, etc.

Figure Out Your Best Leads

Once you have leads in your sales pipeline you need to identify which leads gives your company the best chance to close sales. Regular communication with your leads will give your company a better idea of the interest level your leads have. Marketing automation can “email drip” your leads and adjust the number of mass emails sent depending on the prospect’s response. With an integrated CRM you can automatically modify the records of leads who express more (or less) interest in your product. For leads with more interest you can start sending little gifts such as helpful articles or free trial offers to up their interest level high enough to make a conversion.

Ensure you are Nurturing Leads

Possibly the easiest step to overlook in the customer acquisition process. A lack of lead nurturing is one of the most common reasons for 79% of leads failing to convert to sales. This area of the sales process is where marketing automation can really shine. It’s easy to for agents to forget to follow up strong leads or send emails to weaker leads. With automation you can make sure that all of these repetitive but necessary tasks get done in a timely fashion. Additionally, integrated marketing tools can schedule follow-up calls, ensuring that you never lose a sale to a missed call or appointment.

Always Refine Your Company’s Sales Pipeline

Good marketing automation tools will have detailed reporting options available to you. There is no “one-size-fits-all” when it comes to sales pipelines so it’s important to continuously work and evaluate your process. As you find leads exiting your pipeline your reporting tools should be able to pinpoint which part of your process needs improvement. Marketing automation can help automate tasks for your agents but that doesn’t preclude the importance of monitoring and improving your sales process at all time.