The Benefits of a CRM and Getting Your Sales Team to Adopt One

Today’s customer relationship management (CRM) tools are effective, flexible and mobile optimized, but even with those benefits it’s often a challenge to get a sales team to adopt one. Old perceptions of sales team members endlessly entering data on clunky technology persist today, and busting these myths is pointless if the team doesn’t buy into the idea.

A CRM only works if you use it. Lasso, a partner in the Zillow Advantage Program, offers tips for getting your team on board and comfortable with using a CRM sales tool.

Give your team ownership in the CRM

Hold a strategy session with your sales team so you can ask for their feedback, listen to their needs and take their concerns into consideration. Share the benefits of CRM with your team and how it helps them sell homes. Compile a list of possible objections beforehand so that you’re prepared to change “I can’t” and “I won’t” mindsets to “I’m in.”

Show them the money — literally

You’re selling a CRM sales tool to your own team: Treat them like prospective buyers and close the deal. Back up your pitch with data that shows how home builders who use a CRM system follow up with leads more quickly and effectively, garnering them higher conversions and more sales.* Create a flyer with this data that you can share at your strategy session.

Train on CRM, then train some more

Get them in the trenches so they’re familiar with how your sales CRM works, and train them to be consistent in how they enter data. A CRM is only as good as the information that goes in, so consider ongoing training to reinforce best practices.

Ask for your team’s feedback

Since the sales CRM is supposed to help your team, check in regularly to make sure it actually does. Ask what’s working, what’s not and what can be improved. Identify a CRM superuser who can answer your team’s questions and be an advocate for its adoption.

Encourage use of the CRM sales tool

Remind your team that the CRM can go with them in the field — on a laptop, tablet or other mobile device — and encourage them to use it on those devices if it’s easier to capture information that way. Prompt them to use the CRM to replace paper-based tasks whenever possible.

* Source: Lasso, Online Lead Follow-Up Survey, 2014-2015.