Business Performance Delivered. 10 Steps to Achieving Success with Salesforce.com SHIFTING FROM CRM ADOPTION TO CRM ADDICTION

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1 Business Performance Delivered 10 Steps to Achieving Success with Salesforce.com SHIFTING FROM CRM ADOPTION TO CRM ADDICTION

2 Revenue 10 Steps to Achieving Success with Salesforce.com Shifting from CRM Adoption to CRM Addiction To truly maximise revenue growth, it is important to have engaged sales teams, operating at their highest potential that are completely aligned to corporate objectives. For most of us that means investing in worldclass productivity tools such as salesforce.com for our sales and marketing teams. In addition, in order to support informed sales and marketing investment decisions, a growing reliance is placed on the accuracy of the data maintained within the CRM system. It is therefore imperative that your CRM system has a complete and accurate dataset that can be used with confidence as the single source of sales truth at all times. However, sales reps often view the use of a CRM system as a burden on their day, something that is useful for management but delivers little value to them. As a result, if the day-to-day users fail to see the WIIFM (What s In It For Me) and are simply not engaged and using the system, it is highly likely that you are failing to achieve your objectives. A well-implemented CRM system supporting a highly engaged sales force can deliver many benefits, for example: For Sales Managers: The delivery of believable pipeline reports in real-time that drive accurate revenue forecasts The ability to measure prospect interaction touch points to ensure that deals being forecast to close receive appropriate attention The ability to benchmark and assess current sales & marketing processes against industry gold standards, eliminating wasted cycles and squeezing the most from expensive sales and marketing resources A customer & prospect interaction memory that allows for better decision making and highly targeted marketing campaigns 10 Steps to Achieving Success with Salesforce.com 2

3 For Sales: A sales enablement tool that turns every rep into a one-person sales and marketing machine; increasing individual productivity & effectiveness and boosting the chance of over-achievement against target A richer understanding of customers and prospects that results in faster lead conversion and expanded cross and up-sell opportunities A collaboration tool that allows effective team selling and faster prospect and customer issue resolution Targeted sales coaching based on factual data gained from the insight into where reps are actually spending their time In both cases the ultimate outcome is revenue growth, which in turn fuels personal success! We all know that CRM tools such as salesforce.com are only as good as the data that is being captured by users. If you have an issue with low user adoption, then it is likely that you also have poor data quality. This in turn will result in sales management making inaccurate revenue forecasts and other departments, such as marketing, making business investment decisions based on data that represents only a fraction of the truth. So, if you are launching salesforce.com to your sales, marketing or customer service teams, or if you are thinking of re-launching; here are 10 tips you should review to ensure you are set for long-term success. 1. Document your CRM vision and align executive sponsorship Your CRM vision allows your employees to understand what the ideal customer experience should be. Are you able to articulate the definition of sales and service excellence for your organization? This has to come from the top, with a senior executive owning the vision, motivating staff to understand, engage and buy into achieving the vision and to execute it with customers and prospects. This will allow you to further differentiate your core business proposition with customer interaction excellence. Example CRM vision statements: Build and maintain long-term relationships with customers by creating personalized experiences across all touch-points and by anticipating customer needs and providing customized offers. Deliver a customer experience that consistently develops enthusiastically satisfied customers in every market in which we do business. We will be a leading financial services company which is trusted by you and renowned for getting it right. 10 Steps to Achieving Success with Salesforce.com 3

4 2. Document CRM success strategies & metrics These are the clear & measurable strategies and KPI s that support your vision. You will find a common list of compelling business strategies driving most CRM initiatives with Revenue Enhancement & Customer Satisfaction usually somewhere near the top. However, most organizations have multiple objectives behind their CRM initiatives and successful leaders do a good job of documenting these objectives in the form of CRM metrics. There are 5 simple steps to developing your CRM strategies & KPIs 1. Evaluate your overall business strategy 2. Gather the metrics used by executives in your organization to measure customer facing departments 3. Audit your current customer position 4. Seek input from multiple sources, on the current causes of customer pain 5. Document your CRM strategies including business objective, problem, solution, and metrics for success, to create the desired customer experience. Your CRM metrics enable you to manage, track and evaluate your success. CRM metrics are both internal and external indications of accomplishment. They are used to justify, monitor, and track CRM success and are a feedback mechanism for the continuous development of CRM strategies and tactics. Success metrics should be tied to compensation for all employees and ideally tracked and monitored within your CRM system using real-time performance dashboards. Example metrics include: Sales Metrics Service Metrics Marketing Metrics Number of prospects Customer satisfaction score Number of campaigns executed Number of new customers Average number of cases handled New customer retention rates Number of retained customers Average number of service calls per day Number of leads by campaign type Number of open opportunities Average time to resolution Number of purchases by campaign type Close rate Cost of service Revenue generated by campaign Renewal rate Average handle time Number of customers acquired by campaign Number of sales calls Average talk time Number of customer referrals Number of sales calls per opportunity Average hold (wait) time Pre-pipe to pipe conversion rate Amount of new revenue Number of escalations Pre-pipe drop off rate Amount of recurring revenue Amount of cross-sell / up-sell revenue Time to close by channel Margin Sales stage duration Compliance with service SLA s Number of hand-offs to low cost channels Number of product bugs raised Customer defection rate Complaint time to resolution 10 Steps to Achieving Success with Salesforce.com 4

5 3. Continually review customer facing processes CRM calls for a fresh approach to business processes, rethinking how they appear to the customer and reengineering them to be more customer-centric so that they deliver greater customer value and satisfaction. Many enterprises fall into the trap of simply automating their existing flawed sales and service processes. If you haven t already, you should use your CRM deployment as an opportunity to re-think, automate and streamline your customer facing processes. This should be an iterative review process that suits the dynamic nature of your business. As your business grows and changes and with the advent of new customer communication mechanisms such as Social Media, you will need to constantly review these processes. 4. Plan for a proper launch (or re-launch) and invest in adequate training You should plan and invest for a proper launch of your salesforce.com investment. To maximise adoption you should allocate sufficient funds for the initial and ongoing training of your users. Seven quick tips for success: 1. Leverage executive sponsorship and use this to endorse all communications 2. Don't roll out too much at once, drip feed new functionality slowly 3. Invest in training users regularly, at launch and with frequent training updates. 4. Communicate the vision, plans and report progress often 5. Listen early and regularly to all user feedback 6. Lay down the law. Don't be afraid to let go of those employees who simply refuse to change and adopt the new CRM system and processes 7. Re-launch at regular intervals to keep the system alive 5. Place a strong focus on initial and on-going data quality CRM success demands high levels of data quality. A poor initial data load or an inability to keep data clean will result in users rapidly disengaging from the system. A recent PwC Global Data Management Survey found that: 75% of respondents reported significant problems as a result of defective data 50% had incurred extra costs due to the need for internal reconciliations 33% had been forced to delay or scrap new systems 33% had failed to bill or collect receivables 20% had failed to meet a contractual or service-level agreement 10 Steps to Achieving Success with Salesforce.com 5

6 6. Keep it simple - ease of use is key Avoid the temptation to roll out lots of additional mandatory fields; it is the fastest way to turn users off and drive down adoption rates. Roll out the system and introduce changes gradually, ease of use is critical to success. Think very carefully about what data it is absolutely vital for you to collect during each stage of the prospect / customer interaction process and what is really just nice-to-have. Contemplate deferring certain pieces of data collection to later in the sales process, for example making additional fields become mandatory when the sales stage advances beyond a certain point, and so avoid the need for collection too early. 7. Insist that managers manage to the application Ensure that every manager conducts every sales meeting from within the CRM application, using the dashboards and underlying data to evaluate every individual opportunity. Ask your sales managers to adopt the attitude if it isn t in the CRM application it doesn't exist as this is a sure fire way to increase user adoption! Coach every manager to not just use the CRM application to manage by numbers, but to use the tool to help coach sales reps, to make sure all bases are covered in every deal, and to ensure your chosen sales methodology is being carefully adhered to. 8. Be strict about your change management process Conduct regular reviews to ensure the application continues to reflect the current business process. If the process has changed and as a result fields have become redundant, remove them from view to keep screens uncluttered and the data collection process smooth and easy to understand. Before building new functionality consider reviewing Salesforce.com s AppExchange to see if there are tools that are already available for the community that would meet your needs and can be quickly and easily incorporated into your processes. 10 Steps to Achieving Success with Salesforce.com 6

7 9. Encourage collaboration, sharing and reporting Encourage users to adopt Chatter as a mechanism to share experiences, best practices and to solve customer and prospect issues faster. Switch on Chatter for those objects where it makes sense for automated data sharing via Chatter feeds and digest reporting, enabling users to join in with relevant discussions and areas they can contribute towards and drive success. Train every user in the use of search, reports and analytics so they understand the ease and value of how to access and report on their own data. One of the biggest adoption barriers is the perception of users that it is easy to enter data, but hard to extract information and get value from it. Once trained in the ease and power of reports and dashboards this adoption barrier diminishes rapidly. Teach users the power of the personal productivity tools that will enhance their daily lives, turning them into one-person sales and marketing machines. For example the use of mass , HTML tracking, salesforce for outlook and Stay-in-Touch reminders are all fantastic productivity enhancements that are often overlooked. 10. Turn change into a positive and fun process Don't fall into the trap of thinking that if you build it they will come. If you launch a sophisticated CRM system such as salesforce.com it doesn't necessarily follow that you will get good user adoption. Think of adoption as a behavioral issue that you will need to embrace. To start with you need to overcome the typical sales view that the CRM system is a management tool that adds no value to them. To solve this, you will require the use of motivational techniques such as the introduction of regular rewards, which include peer recognition for doing the right thing. The use of the stick, which is the first resort of sales managers, is proven not to work and can often have a negative effect on morale over the medium and long term. Appeal to the fact that sales professionals will have a highly competitive nature. The introduction of leader boards, points, badges and rewards are a sure fire way to get them motivated. Hook it all up to Chatter to communicate progress and generate wider peer recognition and even the staunchest resistance will crumble! 10 Steps to Achieving Success with Salesforce.com 7

8 Conclusion In summary, to truly drive a successful CRM implementation and gain the greatest return from your investment, CloudApps recommends that you pay close attention to the following 10 areas: 1. Document your CRM vision and align executive sponsorship 2. Document CRM success strategies & metrics 3. Continually review customer facing processes 4. Plan for a proper launch (or re-launch) and invest in adequate training 5. Place a strong focus on initial and on-going data quality 6. Keep it simple - ease of use is key 7. Insist that managers manage to the application 8. Be strict about your change management process 9. Encourage collaboration, sharing and reporting 10. Turn change into a positive and fun process Simply by embracing the final recommendation and introducing game mechanics into the adoption equation can drive significant results. Through our customer implementations we have seen some truly surprising outcomes that include: 50% increase in user adoption 60% increase in social collaboration 25% increase in lead conversions 20% sales productivity 30% reduction in sales cycles 10 Steps to Achieving Success with Salesforce.com 8

9 About CloudApps CloudApps delivers increased business performance by enabling, supporting and encouraging employee behavioral change. SuMo for Salesforce allows you to increase user adoption and accelerate the achievement of your CRM KPI s through the power of game mechanics. SuMo changes user behavior through concepts that include in-line suggestions & promotions, rewarding with points & badges and leader board rankings for individuals & teams. SuMo is the only solution built 100% on the Force.com platform and is delivered with pre-built CRM bestpractice & marketing communications content. SuMo blends the technology & best practice content together into a managed service to ensure your success. Find out more: 10 Steps to Achieving Success with Salesforce.com 9

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