Summary: International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management

Scientific proof on key success determinants of sales tools and CRM implementation.

Effective Implementation of Sales Based CRM Systems and Tools

Stages of a CRM implementation process

Determinants of system success

Determinants of organizational success

Determinants of sales team success

Assessing the impact of CRM on the sales force

KPI’s for managerial decision making

Scientific proof on key success determinants of sales tools and CRM implementation.*

* International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, Vol 1/1 (2010))

A

D

B

E

C

F

Stages of a CRM implementation process

* International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, Vol 1/1 (2010))

A Stage 1Organizational CRM

system adoption

• Selection of CRM system. • Internal communication.

• Reactions of sales team.• Decision of sales team on

adoption.

• Fully integration in the sales team’s daily work flow.

• First daily usage.Stage 3

CRM frequency of usage

Stage 2CRM system acceptance

(adoption)

Stage 4CRM infusion

Main objective sales team = facilitate own work activities and improve performance.

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S P

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Organizations base their decision to accept a CRM technology on different factors than salespersons do (Parthasarathy & Sohi, 1997)*

Determinants of system success

* International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, Vol 1/1 (2010))

B

• System ease-of-use: sales people expect the technology to be free of effort.

• System usefulness: sales people expect the technology to increase his/her job performance.

“Sales executives should strive to assess what benefits salespeople seek from a CRM system and then try to match these needs to the specific CRM features.”*

Sales executives aiming at increasing the acceptance rate among members of the sales force should work towards making tasks easy and purchasing CRM systems that are user-friendly (Avlonitis, Panagopoulos (2010)*

Determinants of organizational success

* International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, Vol 1/1 (2010))

C

• Set realistic, specific, relevant, and measurable objectives for CRM usage.

• Actively seek for feedback from the sales force.• Communicate the CRM objectives and benefits.• Set goals and metrics to continuously evaluate

the project and its outcomes.• Foster an entrepreneurial climate, customer

centricity and willingness to learn.• Install a formalized training process and technical

support.• Develop a change process to reduce resistance.• Supervisors and managers play an important role

in leading by example.

“Integrate CRM usage in salespersons’ compensation, however watch out for salespeople that might manipulate usage in order to gain their bonus ”*

“The first step that managers should take is to define specific and measurable goals and a clearly communicated purpose for CRM implementation (Honeycutt, Thelen, Thelen & Hodge, 2005)*

Determinants of sales team success

* International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, Vol 1/1 (2010))

D

• Salesperson age, educational level and previous IT knowledge impact willingness to adopt.

• Sales experience: less experienced salespeople have a more positive attitude toward CRM systems.

• Perceptions and attitudes toward the CRM system might impact adoption (big brother/loss of control).

• Demanded effort needs to be managed.

“One way to reduce this type of reluctance is to provide salespersons with technical support (24/7 online support) and training classes.”*

“One shouldn’t overestimate the power of information; more is not always better when it comes to CRM implementation. It’s always better to rely on a few selected bytes of information rather than to overwhelm the sales force with an inordinate amount of data that they just cannot handle”*

Assessing the impact of CRM on the sales force

* International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, Vol 1/1 (2010))

E

Main gains come from:

• Increase in the ability to enhance communication with customers.

• Increase in selling time.• Faster access to relevant and timely information.

Two major categories to assess effectiveness/efficiency gains from CRM systems: “outcomes of sales performance and outcomes of sales force skills, knowledge and abilities… ”*

Companies implement CRM systems with the aim to increase salesperson performance, enhance customer satisfaction and leverage customer relationships.*

KPI’s for managerial decision making

* International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, Vol 1/1 (2010))

F

Three steps:

• Outline the business objectives of a sales management dashboard.

• Collect the raw data that will provide the input for developing the relevant KPI’s.

• Extract and consolidate data from various sources in a single database.

“During the final stage, executives should decide on the KPI’s needed for achieving the overall business objective.”*

An important module of a CRM system should be a ‘sales management dashboard’ that contains relevant KPI’s.*

Friedrich Pétré

friedrich@petreconsultants.com02 503 10 81www.petreconsultants.com

PetreConsultants houses a team of management consultants who believe in pragmatism, niche methodologies and positive energy

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