Customer relations management software, or CRM, allows you to track super specific information about your customers in a single database, and is designed to streamline the sales process, making your small business more efficient and profitable. Want to make notes about a conversation you had with a prospect? Done. It’s a total system for helping you to track every stage of the sale. But what if it’s actually driving your customers away?
Set It Up Right
Thomas Bianco is the CEO and founder of RoadTrip Marketing, which includes a team of 10 salespeople and a rotating cast of freelancers. He believes that CRMs are a great way to manage sales, streamlining an otherwise unwieldy process, allowing you to provide your customers with greater coverage. “The problem is that when [some people] first start to use it, they set it up before they realize how much more it can do,” says Bianco, adding that “a lot of companies have no end game in mind.”
Get Your Information Straight
Another problem is calling a customer multiple times a day, or by the wrong name, because you have duplicate or incorrect information in your CRM database. “You can have salespeople following up with someone and mentioning the wrong way they got into the sales funnel,” says Bianco.
It goes beyond such simple mistakes, which are hard enough obstacles to overcome once you start selling. “Who are your customers? What do they do? Most importantly, what are their needs?” Your salespeople need the answers to these questions to make the right pitch, and to be prepared to overcome objections and make the sale.
Finally, you need to make sure your sales team is effectively logging calls. “I had a salesperson call me four times in one day and call me by three different names,” says Bianco. This underscores not just the need to log calls, but also to merge and purge phone numbers on a regular basis.
Make Connections the Right Way
Jordan Harbinger is a former Wall Street lawyer and co-founder of The Art of Charm, a men’s social dynamics company based in Los Angeles. He also heads the company’s sales team. “Really, CRM is a godsend,” says Harbinger. “I don’t know how I’d run my business without it.”
However, he also adds that in the hands of an inexperienced salesperson, the information can be a bit overwhelming. “It’s great to be able to keep notes about interactions you have with customers,” says Harbinger, “but sometimes you can come across as intimidating.”
It’s best to say something like, “The last time we talked, weren’t you on your way to a ball game,” rather than, “How’s your son Tim’s Little League team doing?” which is a little more befitting a police interrogator.
Harbinger says this can become especially problematic when social media integration coverage is involved, a technique used by many salesmen in the digital age. For example, referencing what a lead had for breakfast or that they just finished playing a round of golf. He believes this information can be useful, but again, it needs to be integrated organically into the conversation.
“Don’t say ‘I notice you went golfing this weekend,’ say, ‘I just finished 18 holes.’ Let the lead take the interaction from there.”
“The person knows you’re a salesman,” says Harbinger. “If your details are too specific, it can seem fake or even creepy.” When it comes to customers at your small business, imagine what you look for in a positive customer service interaction, and go from there.
At the end of the day, it’s all about data management. You’ve got this incredible tool at your disposal. Now you just need to make sure that you employees are trained in how to use it properly.