When adopting CRM into your business, you are implementing it because of your business objectives. Therefore, we can say: “CRM objectives are the same as your business objectives regarding customer relationship.”
Keep in mind you are adopting CRM for the same objectives as you are running your business. Anything that is not directly linked to these objectives should be placed out of scope of your CRM adoption plans.
There are general principles to follow when you need to define objectives to your CRM:
- Sales CRM tool only makes sense when the enterprise acknowledges that selling is a process and not art.
- Sales force automation should provide guidelines for sales to win deals and not to record data for management scorecards!
- Sales effectiveness tools must reduce administration overhead such as data entry or individual reporting. The ultimate goal is to increase selling time and decrease overhead time.
- Reporting to management is an automated byproduct of the sales tools usage and not a goal of a sales process.
- There is only one goal of the sales process: larger commissions for the sales people.
- Best practices: build your sales process around the practices of your “rainmakers” and gold customers.
- When defining the most important CRM tools, the requests from the sales management should be placed in the forefront.
- Sales CRM tools need to guide and mentor the sales person through the sales cycle. Even more, the tools should make the sales person think and plan prior to any execution.
- The CRM adoption should be pushed through the sales department. Using the CRM initially for the most lucrative opportunities, the won deals will significantly reinforce the adoption process in the whole company.
- Sales process is a culture for everyone – without exceptions. The sales process is a vehicle for common sales language, opportunity review and best practices transition across the entire organisation.
Do not forget set KPIs for each objective to measure how the objective is reached and how it contributes to your business.