In my free time, one of my hobbies is landscape photography. My camera of choice is a Nikon DSLR. I have used Nikons for my entire adult life. There are other very good cameras in the market; Canon, Sony, Pentax, etc. I just have chosen to stay with Nikon. That is not to say that the other cameras would not do a good job for me – it is just my personal preference. My pictures would be no better or worse using anyone of those other cameras.
So it is with CRM’s. They all do a good job – basic information capture, retrieval and manipulation to produce analyzed summaries to see where a business is at or could be going if you are forecasting. The differentiator is who is managing the CRM. Just like with my Nikon – in the hands of a skilled professional photographer those pictures would put mine to shame. The key is the skill level of the user.
It has been my experience as a sales manager that when we have a prospect that is dissatisfied with their current CRM – the issue that is voiced most often is that the CRM does not do what they want it to do. On first glance it would appear that their perception is right. But as we dig down into their dissatisfaction we learn that there is more than just a simple “the CRM does not do what we want it to do” issue. What we find is that they don’t understand how to use it and they don’t know how to maximize its effectiveness because the capabilities don’t exist. Also, many fail to realize that CRM maintenance is a critical aspect of maximizing the capabilities. CRM success revolves around continuous evaluation and constant improvement of identified gaps.
In my work with Salesforce as a CRM – its power is unmatched by any competitor. The scope of what it can do for a business is incredible. This is no longer a simple Sales tool – this encompasses everything that a business does and captures, manipulates and displays results in real time. To fully maximize the power of what Salesforce can do for your business; one must be able to understand how to make it work.
From managing the sales process, coordinating marketing efforts, handling billing, customer service, inventory management, deliveries, and etc. Salesforce delivers in each critical area of a company. Each department is synched with all the other departments monitoring performance on a real time basis. Management no longer has to wait for results to be generated. Dashboards give them all the necessary info they demand.
So when you are considering a switch to Salesforce as your CRM or if you need to customize your current Salesforce CRM – be sure you have a partner that does the work up front. The old adage of ‘garbage in – garbage out’ still holds true these days. To maximize the effectiveness of the Salesforce CRM – how you implement it, customize it, integrate applications and migrate data in will determine if you reach max optimization.
Once you have it set-up the way you want it – the next step is to make sure everyone that needs to use it is trained properly. Training is the most overlooked necessity when it comes to creating a CRM that delivers on what it is capable. Training can be done on-site or via the Internet. But what is most important is that the trainer makes sure the users master their tasks and understand how to maximize the CRM and generate the results expected.
AppShark has grown its reputation to be one of the top Salesforce Consultation companies. Our due diligence in understanding what you want your CRM to do and then providing the right on-boarding training as well as follow-up training ensures our clients maximize the power of Salesforce as their CRM. If you believe your CRM is not functioning to the maximum, feel free to email me at sales@appshark.com for a free consulting session!
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