Different Lenses, a regular feature we are launching this month, is a series of blog posts that presents two different perspectives on how to tackle various sales challenges.  By looking at a different problem each month, first through the lens of a sales manager (Brian Geery) and then through the lens of a sales operations professional (Tom Barrieau), we hope to enlighten sales leaders with solutions they can put to use to improve their organization’s sales productivity.

This month’s challenge:  Getting accurate and timely data into your CRM system.

As any sales operations professional knows, a CRM system is only as useful as the data in it is accurate.  Unfortunately, any sales manager can tell you how difficult it is to get busy salespeople to take time out from selling for data-entry.  As such, establishing good CRM data-entry practices is a challenge whose solution is of tremendous value to both parties.  With this in mind, let’s look at this month’s challenge through two different lenses…

The Sales Manager’s Lens

A sales manager, particularly a first-line sales manager (FLSM), is going to tackle this problem by trying to directly influence sales rep behavior.  Specific approaches include…

• Ensure the onboarding process includes reviewing the salesperson’s position description, with emphasis on the importance of this responsibility:

Maintain up-to-date CRM pipeline and sales forecast information; enter all contact and company information

• Reinforce good data-entry at sales team meetings
  • Provide verbal recognition to those team members who enter data accurately and timely
  • Review CRM reports during the meeting, leading discussions about how the information helps improve the selling process
• Meet individually with habitual offenders to provide coaching on this issue
• Use only data that has been entered into the CRM system to monitor progress against team member’s goals – set the precedent that, if it’s not in the CRM system, in didn’t happen
• Publish CRM data for all employees to see
• Develop a reward program for those who enter data accurately and timely

The Sales Operations Professional’s Lens

Conversely, a sales operations professional is going to tackle the problem by optimizing the CRM system itself and making sure it provides value to the sales team.  Specific strategies include…

• Recognize the importance of the user experience and make sure your CRM system has a good one
  • Identify the most important data – that which must be entered – and make those fields mandatory and easily accessible (on the home screen or no more than one click away)
  • Inform salespeople how and why the information will be used, providing reassurance that if it wasn’t needed, they wouldn’t be asked to enter it
  • Avoid information overload by only showing as much information as is necessary on each screen
  • Review the data entry process with a number of sales professionals; it should be as intuitive and simple as possible with limited key strokes – use drop downs, check boxes, and auto-fill fields where ever possible
• Reward data-entry by having it return value to the user.  Think “the more they put in, the more they get out.”
  • Deliver customer intelligence – information about companies and people that can help the sales process – based on what data is entered (Note: there are a variety of data subscription services that plug into popular CRM systems – for a list, see our Sales 2.0 solutions guide)
  • Offer links to relevant vertical-market customer deliverables (e.g., collateral, presentations, best practices, etc.) in response to entering a prospect’s industry
  • Make buyer persona information (i.e., customer needs by roles and how your solutions meet those needs) available as soon as job titles are entered
• Make it easy for salespeople to enter data as close to the point it is gathered as possible. Requiring them to get back to office before entering data will reduce its timeliness and accuracy.
  • Deploy smartphones or tablets to facilitate data-entry and make good use of what would otherwise be dead time (e.g., waiting in a lobby before a call)
  • Subscribe to a phone-based, data-entry service that will transcribe information into your CRM system for reps while they’re on the road
• Train FLSMs how to pull CRM reports and use them to increase accountability with their teams and improve coaching practices. 
  • Get FLSMs to use CRM-based reports during team meetings to review performance and account activity
  • Empower them with reports they can use to discuss individual performance during one-on-ones, particularly time-in-stage and conversion rate information, to coach improved sales behavior (for a further discussion of these metrics, see our post on key sales pipeline metrics).

The important take-away from viewing this challenge through these two lenses is that CRM data integrity must be owned by both sales managers, particularly FLSMs, and sales operations professionals.  Working together to show salespeople the value of accurate CRM data, they can make good data-entry practices something to count on.

A request for feedback… 

If you like our new Different Lenses approach to discussing how to tackle various sales challenges, please let us know in the comments section.  We’d also be happy to hear any suggestions you might have for sales challenges that you’d like to see us discuss using this format.  Thanks!