Last updated on August 3rd, 2023
Read this guide to learn CRM user adoption strategies so your team can be more consistent with CRM usage.
So you’ve finally implemented a CRM, yet there’s one problem…
Not enough employees are using it.
Which may be lowering CRM ROI and causing inefficiencies.
And even worse, wasting your capital.
A fix?
Create a roadmap to increase CRM adoption.
This article will outline 13 simple strategies for you to use. By the end, you’ll have a repeatable blueprint that’ll help boost CRM usage and critical revenue KPIs.
Table of Contents:
- Why is CRM Adoption Important?
- 13 Strategies To Help Small Businesses Increase CRM Adoption
- How Is CRM User Adoption Measured?
- Final Wrap-Up On Improving CRM Adoption
Automate All Your Communications With VipeCloud
VipeCloud is the only Automation tool your small business needs to
be the hero to your customers.
With Email, Texting, Social, Suites, Chat, Stories, Video Email & Sign Up Forms fully built-in, we provide you with the perfect platform to grow your business.
15 Day Free Trial – Get started risk free. No CC needed.
Why is CRM Adoption Important?
Between now and 2029, the number of businesses adopting a CRM system will have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12%.
But what about individual employee adoption within these companies?
Here are 3 reasons why boosting internal CRM adoption should be a priority.
1. It Makes Your Team(s) More Efficient
CRM increases efficiencies thanks to tools that make workflows easier.
You gain access to automations that can save time, CRM metrics to measure KPIs, and multiple ways of contacting customers, all from one suite.
For example, sales reps can use CRM tools like contact scoring, which qualify prospects quicker, so reps spend their precious time on high-value opportunities.
2. Upgrades Customer Relationships
CRM lets you track customer journies by using behavioral data.
This data helps you nurture prospects and customers with the information they care about.
CRM also comes with a full suite of tools for the customer lifecycle, including sales pipelines, where you can track sales deals and customer success.
Remember, it’s the customer’s experience that acts as a major contributing factor to lifetime value.
With CRM, more adoption means more opportunities to make the customer experience better.
3. More Accurate Reporting Of Activities
CRM comes with metrics that are more accurate at reporting team activity.
Which beats using spreadsheets to monitor the number of contacts a given rep communicates with.
Instead, you can use CRM metrics like “item count,” which automatically tracks how many contacts a user has engaged with, tasks completed, and more.
Accurate reporting is crucial because successful business leaders need data to base decisions on.
And without organization-wide adoption of CRM, tracking these numbers (accurately) may be like pulling teeth.
13 Strategies To Help Small Businesses Increase CRM Adoption
Want to reap the benefits just mentioned?
Use these 13 strategies to help boost CRM adoption.
1. Make CRM Adoption A Requirement
Start with making CRM a requirement.
Set a company-wide rule that internal and external communications, workflows, and data gathering should be done with your CRM.
Company leaders should lead by example by showcasing the use of CRM in meetings, video conferencing, and more.
2. Talk About The Benefits
Benefits are what motivate us to take action.
When you can articulate the vast benefits of CRM, your team will likely start using it consistently.
Here are some CRM benefits you can educate your team on that’ll make their job easier:
- More seamless customer segmentation, which leads to a more relevant customer experience
- Simplified and better team collaboration
- More nurtured leads
- Better forecasting (for upper management roles)
- Improved customer retention
- Better customer service
3. Focus On Easy-To-Use CRMs
Easy-to-use CRMs make adoption more seamless.
Think about it:
Would you rather use a CRM system that requires hours of going through the documentation to use?
Or one that takes a simple walkthrough to understand the most essential and fundamental features?
For that reason, implementing an easy-to-use CRM will make adoption from your team more likely.
It’ll also help them understand your training better, getting them up and running with the CRM system faster.
That’s why VipeCloud prides itself in providing a vast array of CRM features while keeping it simple for end-users with different levels of technological savviness.
4. Implement Routine CRM Training
Being more trained with CRM helps team members be more comfortable using it.
In addition, their training can help CRM workflows get done faster using automation.
Here’s how to create an effective CRM training curriculum:
- Offer CRM training resources (blogs, videos, help articles, etc.)
- Evaluate the most important features for team members to know
- Include CRM experts in your training (these could be reps from your CRM provider)
- Conduct live training
- Quiz on CRM understanding
- Require quarterly CRM lessons to be completed
- Use an LMS system for digital lessons and quizzing
5. Invest In A CRM Consultant
CRM consultants can help with increased adoption, training, and use-case tips and improve your CRM workflows.
Consultants are ideal when your business has a large number of employees.
They also fit larger companies better due to their price tag.
They can come with a hefty cost, but the ROI can be there, especially when they’re needed for a longer time frame in an organization.
However, keep in mind: You won’t need a CRM consultant if you invest in an easy-to-use CRM.
6. Appoint A CRM Specialist In Your Organization
Hiring a CRM consultant may be out of the question with your current operations.
But the next best thing almost ALL businesses can do is appoint a CRM specialist.
This is a designated employee within your company that understands your CRM and is constantly learning ways to improve how your organization uses CRM.
It can be a sales manager who already has lots of experience with it — or a team member that is well-versed with the ins and outs.
Your CRM specialist can be the one to manage the training materials, conduct live training and keep everyone accountable for adoption.
7. Reward CRM Usage
Consider rewarding CRM usage to motivate more usage.
Commend employees and staff on their effective use of it and showcase company improvements because of them doing so.
When others see that someone is rewarded for CRM use, they’ll be reminded of its importance.
8. Cut Out Inefficient Tasks
Next, make inefficient tasks a thing of the past by identifying them and optimizing them with your CRM.
For example, perhaps your sales team is doing too much manual entry when adding contacts.
Instead, you can show them how to automatically sync email contacts, so they don’t have to do it themselves.
Another thing could be implementing email templates for your sales cycle stages.
This can help reps save time creating entirely new emails for each prospect.
Of course, this doesn’t mean not to personalize. In fact, you can still personalize your email templates by using CRM custom fields.
When you make optimizing inefficient tasks a standard, more CRM adoption will be a natural by-product.
9. Improve Upon Training
After some time, CRM training will need to be improved.
There may be instances where you’ll need to expand on specific CRM topics and introduce new ones entirely.
(Especially as your CRM vendor introduces new features and company needs start to change.)
Consider having your CRM specialist improve the training and gain feedback on potential changes:
- What has helped team members the most (live training, topics, etc.)?
- What didn’t add much training value?
- How are top companies training their employees on CRM?
10. Tailor Your CRM To Your Organization
The more you can tailor CRM to your organization, the more familiar it’ll be.
This means opting for CRMs that excel in customizability (and taking full advantage of tailoring it to your business).
For example, VipeCloud lets you create customer pipelines, and you can name and label different aspects of your pipeline to reflect your company.
Custom fields can also be created to mirror your business terminology across your text, email automation, and forms.
Custom fields let you track and segment data to be later used in marketing messages, sales content, and more.
11. Make CRM The Center Of Operations
Making your CRM the focal point of your business will drive up its value and usage.
But what does this mean exactly?
It means you should use CRM for marketing, sales, customer service, and internal operations.
You can start by eliminating all unnecessary software and manually intensive tools related to your business.
And replace them with CRM and its various tools.
Remember, for this to work practically — you should use an all-in-one CRM.
This allows your techstack and team to all be connected, regardless of where they’re located.
12. Choose A Vendor With Great Support
CRM support is a major component of increased CRM adoption because it can save you time and waste.
Instead of looking through documentation constantly and having to learn every little detail, get help from your CRM vendor.
Schedule demos, contact their customer service, and contact account managers for insights into CRM.
CRM support can also help increase adoption by highlighting the various use-cases for your industry and team members.
13. Set CRM KPIs
Key performance indicators are the hallmark of company success and can be tracked using CRM.
Setting marketing and sales KPIs will be what you need for CRM adoption to increase since the metrics can tell end-users how they’re performing.
For instance, if you require your sales reps to contact 200 prospects a week, that’s the KPI they’ll be tracking themselves to ensure they’re meeting expectations.
In VipeCloud, there’s also the “Active Users” metric. Here managers can gauge CRM usage across a department and set goals for the number of users who should be active.
How Is CRM User Adoption Measured?
Here are 4 ways to measure CRM adoption success.
- Use a CRM reporting dashboard – You can track your sales team’s activities (item counts, opportunities, emails sent, number of completed tasks, etc.) If they’re using CRM tools, it’ll reflect in your reports.
- Monitor changes to your CRM suite – What changes are your team members making, and how consistent are they?
- Quality and quantity of data present – Note how much new information is being added to CRM (contact details, notes, deal information, templates, etc.). Also, consider the quality of your contact database (Accurate contact details, formating best practices, etc.)
- Training implementation – Note how well team members apply the information from your CRM training and vendor resources.
Final Wrap-Up On Improving CRM Adoption
CRM adoption is critical to optimal CRM ROI.
Most company leaders agree that easy-to-use CRMs get adopted the fastest.
That’s why VipeCloud created the ultimate all-in-one CRM for small and medium-sized businesses.
Want to see how it works? Request a demo, and one of our CRM experts will give you a walkthrough.
If you’d like to see it for yourself, you can do so with a free 15-day free trial (no card required).
Leave a Reply