Don’t blame the sales team, it’s the CRM
When we’re consulting, we see a lot of conflicts between sales, IT and marketing teams. The centre of the frustration seems to be that sales people won’t readily follow processes and enter data the way marketing and IT want them to. That is, broadly, they won’t put the right piece of information, in the right field and do so conscientiously.
However, this underlines a fundamental and essential flaw to CRM. It’s not the technology per se, it’s a problem with what sales teams actually do. Sales is not about detail, it’s about pushing, shoving, driving and focusing on the money. These skills are very valuable in a business and largely incompatible with following processes, entering data and generally doing the things that makes CRM work well for marketing and management.
It’s therefore great that there are newer tools around which we would call “sales force automation” tools. These focus on sales productivity and what sales teams themselves need from their contact management software. Such software helps sales teams: remember what they said to who and when; know which prospect or client needs a callback; answer a call and keep a sale moving when someone in the team is absent; and much more besides. This sort of software enhances sales productivity and it can directly impact the bottom line.
When businesses try to make sales people use systems that undermine rather than support their productivity, conflicts arise. It is an imperfect world and when there are conflicting objectives for sales and the business, compromises are necessary. However it is important to recognise that this is not the fault of the sales team and respecting what they have to do in their jobs might make that compromise more palatable to all parties.
So if you’re one of those people that finds sales teams infuriating just bear in mind that you would probably hate to pick up a phone and badger someone into buying something. Be glad that they are doing it for you.
