Sharing a articulation by Dave Stein (CEO, ES Research Group, Inc) at Expert Access.
Unless you're careful, you may just automate chaos
Sales vice presidents, managers and team leaders have always been on the lookout for shortcuts—streamlined ways to get to the end game and close more deals. That makes sense, after all, since closing more deals is the name of the game. And that's why, over the years, technology has seemed like such a godsend.
First, PC-based contact-management software like Outlook replaced the old Rolodex and paper tickler file. Products like Goldmine and Act added more capabilities, tracking sales leads, automating callbacks and even producing sales letters. Sales-force automation systems came along next, adding more features and enterprise-wide reporting and analysis.
About a decade ago, customer relationship management (CRM) systems emerged, to give companies the ability, as the name implies, to manage customer relationships "holistically" and more efficiently. CRM systems opened everyone's eyes to the value of a sustained relationship with a customer and helped everyone understand that it costs four times more to win a new customer than to keep a current one happy.
CRM systems weren't designed with sales in mind
The problem is that CRM systems were designed for and marketed to people not in sales. They were managers in post-sale functions, meaning customer service, customer care, marketing and especially top management.
Sales managers wanted to use a CRM system to track deals in their pipeline. But salespeople on the street had no real incentive to use the CRM system or to keep it up-to-date. Field salespeople got fuzzy answers to the question, "What's in it for me?" And of course, that's deadly for acceptance or compliance with anything, much less something that takes time away from the selling process.
Many of the advantages and benefits of the original sales automation software were actually lost as CRM took over, because salespeople were asked to use tools that had no inherent benefit for them, only for their management. Thus, CRM tools became sales prevention devices.
Although millions have been spent by sales vice presidents and others who thought CRM would be a panacea, ES Research Group estimates only around 50 percent of the CRM software seats sold in the last 10 years are still in use.
OUCH –
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