In selling your CRM program internally, develop your pitch like you would sell a lead. As with most sales, focus on the benefits and how you’re meeting the requirements you learned about while doing your internal research.
The objectives and benefits you choose to highlight differ based on the role of the person you’re pitching to, so be prepared to adjust your presentation to make it more convincing to the people you’re addressing.
If one of these roles is yours, take the time to remind yourself why you’re putting the energy into getting CRM working in your organization.
- Owner/investor: Owners and investors are most interested in sustainable, profitable growth. Building a business that is both sustainable and profitable requires discipline and planning. Sustainable growth requires a system in place that delivers excellent customer experience with trained personnel who care about what they do every day. A system that’s efficient is an added bonus, because it boosts productivity. When pitching to owners and investors, focus on profit, growth, and productivity.
- Manager: Managers are looking for solutions that simplify their jobs and improve the performance and productivity of the people they manage. When pitching CRM to managers, consider focusing on the easy-to-access and easy-to-use tools you plan to provide them to help monitor and coach their subordinates. Your CRM software should increase visibility into subordinates’ actions and provide insight into how those actions are impacting what the manager cares about (for example, sales, customer feedback, brand awareness).
- Salesperson: Information is power, something every salesperson wants more of. Insight into what leads are doing, what they’re interested in, and how they are reacting to your marketing helps your sales team sell better. Better information creates better conversions and focusing on leads that really matter. On one side, salespeople have the most to gain; on the other, poor performers will be most resistant to the insight their management will have, so focus on how this information will help them close more deals. One key mantra to remind your salespeople: “If it isn’t in the CRM, it didn’t happen.”
- Customer service representative: With a good CRM in place, when helping a customer, more information about that customer and his history is instantly available. Having more information at each representative’s fingertips makes it easier to help customers find what they’re looking for. This resolves problems more quickly, reducing frustration, which in turn makes customers happier, which helps customer retention, and then increases revenue and helps the entire organization.
- Account executive/Trainer: When bringing on new clients or managing existing clients and projects, it’s always easier to have defined processes in place. CRM defines and enforces those processes, so no one drops the ball at critical early stages of working with new customers. Automatically guided procedures for training new clients, managing projects, and resolving issues give account executives the structure and tools they need to effectively and efficiently provide an excellent customer experience.
- Marketer: With more visibility into what’s working (and what isn’t) and how leads and clients interact with sales, marketing is able to better segment your leads and clients. With segmentation comes improved capability to craft targeted messaging that appeals to your market. Marketers then measure what’s happening across all channels and automate messaging. With better personalization of content, leads and customers will feel more connected to your brand, which makes them more likely to buy more from you and become advocates for your organization.