·        Achieving CRM Success with Sales Enablement

Achieving CRM Success with Sales Enablement

By: Luke Russell 

Productive salespeople have a huge impact on a company's success or failure. But in terms of helping salespeople become more productive, sales force automation has had mixed results. Typically instituted from the perspective of sales management, the emphasis has been on sales pipeline management and forecast­ing. Now, a new approach to driving sales productivity is emerging which focuses on optimizing the productive interaction between salesperson and customer. This sales enablement approach addresses what is often a thin line between business success and failure—delivering consistent high-quality customer service.

Sometimes this means remembering as small a task as sending an e-mail to a prospec­tive customer, sometimes it is more significant, such as making sure a proposal is delivered on time.

Sales enablement is targeted to meet the needs of both senior management and sales­people. This article will outline how sales enablement is an important central compo­nent of successful customer relationship management (CRM) strategy, distinguishing it from traditional sales force automation.

An Industry of Transition

Historically, sales force automation was aimed at improving the efficiencies of sales management. It relied on features such as solid forecasting and tools which made the pipeline easy to see and administer. Less important features included a few usable screens for salespeople and automation of some processes to improve sales efficiency and productivity. From the perspective of senior management, the top enterprise leaders had the necessary transparent window into sales.

While there were notable successes in larger enterprises, salespeople universally resisted sales force automation, seeing it as not much more than allowing senior management visibility into what they were doing. The tools that sales force automation provided, while valuable to management, were not salesperson friendly. Acceptance by sales personnel was less universal than desired.

However, sales force automation has provided a valuable lesson: For CRM to succeed, salespeople must use it with enthusiasm. And that hinges on a system which delivers sales productivity benefits and a user-friendly interface.

Usability vs. Functionality: First Things First

There has been ongoing discussion about CRM usability versus functionality. Functionality is defined as the feature set of any given application. Yet, a function or feature itself has no real value for a user unless they put it to use. Inclusion of hundreds of functions without regard to their overall or individual value does not necessarily produce a better CRM experience.

What makes a CRM application viable is the usability of key features. This is far more important than the total possible functions in the application. Useless or little-used functions increase the price and complexity of an application and reduce the viability of the CRM project. However, the number of functions is often positioned as the signature

value for sales force automation applications. If the value of a function is relative to the user, how do you determine which are useful and which are useless?

The cardinal principle of salesperson acceptance is embedded in individual self-interest. That does not mean corporate interest, departmental interest, or sales force interest. It means that which makes a single person a supportive participant. If the individual receives value from the CRM system then they will use it. If not, they won't.

How do you please each individual in a sales environment? Simply put, there is no way every­one can immediately be satisfied with a sales automation system. That is reality. However, a good sales automation system will provide a benefit to the sales division and support the “greater good.”

User Acceptance and Usability

Productive salespeople understand success is more than a qualified lead or closing an important contract. There has been an increasingly sharp understanding that a customer relationship begins by nurturing a target account into an inquiry, then an opportunity. And, most organizations find relationships considerably more profitable after the initial sale.

This understanding is leading to a change in sales force automation and toward the sales enable­ment approach. Traditional sales force automation is targeted to the vice president of sales, sales directors, or others who are interested in pipeline management. Although substantial functional­ity has been aimed at the salesperson, it has frequently been rejected as difficult to use or not useful at all. CRM customers are demanding revamps to their applications to make them more useful for their sales personnel.

What changes make CRM more useful for salespeople? Here are some of the features most likely to be used regularly by the majority of sales people. In other words, those features which are in their self-interest to use:

• Clean, Easy-to-Use Interface
• Effective Account Management Tools
• Easy Integration with Familiar Desktop Applications Like Outlook and Word
• Seamless Integration with Back Office
• Adaptable and Flexible Business Process Capabilities
• Tools that Enhance Interactions with the Customers
• Personalization So That Individuals Can Have a System That is “Theirs”
• Mobility for the Mobile Sales Force

Automating the sales organization is almost always the first task of any CRM initiative for a small or mid-sized company. Nearly 90 percent of successful CRM implementations include sales automation. Over 90 percent of the CRM users are sales people—sales force enablement is a critical outcome for any CRM effort. The sales enablement value chain works like this: first salespeople accept the system, then sales force productivity increases. Finally, sales force pro­ductivity drives sustainable sales performance.

You can deliver a tool which provides your salespeople value and usability. In return, you will have a system people actively use and which benefits the entire organization. If a CRM solution is on the radar screen for your company, be sure emphasize sales enablement.