Member Article

Persuading your board to buy-in to CRM

Your board may be reluctant to buy-in to a new CRM system. Our ready made presentation will help you to combat this challenge and encourage them to see the benefits.

If you already have a CRM system which isn’t delivering, past failures will have affected your directors’ confidence. These CRM failures can vary from leads going cold to customer complaints being mishandled.

More often than not, these issues go unresolved and you can’t pinpoint the cause of the problem. It makes business sense for you to adopt a new CRM, but your board may not be convinced. With news that 63% of CRM systems fail to deliver the expected business value, it’s no wonder some boards are reluctant to invest in new software.

It’s time to schedule a meeting where you convince your board to buy-in to a new CRM project.

5 objections from your board and how to tackle them

1. Our business can cope fine without a CRM.

Whether it’s concerns about the cost or time needed for implementing a new CRM system, your board may prefer to continue working without one, believing that the business is running smoothly.

Your response: A good CRM system will simplify and organise the business’ data. It will keep all records in one place and alert people to critical tasks, enabling everyone to keep on top of workflows.

Muddling along is an option, but with a good CRM system others can step in if there’s a problem, or if someone’s away. Improving your business processes will keep your business competitive.

2. CRM takes too long to adopt across the business.

Your board may be concerned that unless everyone accepts the idea of CRM, it won’t work. After all, this was the case for 49% of respondents of a recent Gartner study.

Your response:

Employees will be more likely to see the benefits of a CRM system when they receive personal training. This will encourage staff to adopt the system more quickly and successfully.

3. The sales team won’t use it.

The board will of course be interested in attracting new customers, so will want to keep their Sales team happy. If they think Sales won’t adopt the CRM, the board will not buy-in.

Your response: Training, processes and management can be tailored to suit the Sales team – if they see that the system will help them, rather than just allow management to spy on them, they’ll be much more likely to adopt it.

4. We’ll lose sales time.

Your board may opt against a CRM system as they’ve heard it can cause a loss in sales time.

Your response: A customised sales CRM can minimise the data-collection, “time-wasting” elements of CRM and only ask for the most necessary elements.

5. Management won’t support it.

Your board might demonstrate concerns that management won’t care for the CRM system and so the rest of the team will fail to see why they should adopt it. Adoption will seem generally futile.

Your response: Demonstrate that management support is one of the biggest factors of successful CRM adoption. Paul Pitman at Collier Pickard led the way for his team by using a CRM system himself. Setting an example for the rest of his team, they soon discovered the benefits of CRM and the ROI it provides.

Takeaways: Don’t be beaten by the board, deliver reasons why the board ought to buy-in and strategies to prevent CRM failures. A customised CRM can:

• Improve business processes and highlight critical tasks.
• Be implemented and adopted quickly.
• Maximise sales time.

Learn more about getting everyone on your side with the eguide: The ultimate guide to: winning board support. http://bit.ly/redspire1

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Billy Lyle .