How To Get The Most From CRM

By E.M. Godsman, ELAvate Global

CRM software has now been with us for a very long time but many organisations are failing to get the full potential out of it. A recent article by the CEO of the Miller Heiman group, highlights that far too many companies only use CRM as a giant database, which is there to store data.That’s only half the job it is there to do; once the data has been collected it needs to be analysed, then acted upon. This is the true benefit of CRM.

Notably, this has lead to a change in the hiring practices of sales managers. In addition to hiring individual that have high utilitarian motivation, sales managers are now recruiting individuals with backgrounds in STEM. These individuals are highly trained to work with large volumes of data and provide useable information for other members of the sales team. Each individual brings their own skills to the table and a sales team is just like any other team; they work best when they work together.This allows the sales people to focus on the sale as they have the right people giving them the best support.

When building any team, its important to have a balance of capabilities but more importantly, to have the right people in the right place. The late basket ball coach John Wooden knew each one of his players inside out and that allowed him to create plays that allowed them to shoot from were they where most likely to score from. That’s what a sales manager has to do too. They need to be aware of the skills and capabilities of their sales team to put them in the right place so it maximise the efficiency of the whole team. So when working with large amounts of data collected in CRM software, it’s best to have someone with the requisite skills to conduct an analysis of it. Then pass on that information to another member of the sales team who can act upon it.