When speaking at conferences and I ask what is the definition of “Team Selling” I always get sharing in the responses. The word I rarely get is Leveraging. I believe companies can achieve a competitive edge by sharing and leveraging information. CRM is built for being the repository for information to be shared and leveraged. It is in CRM’s wheelhouse. The question is, who on your team is involved with sharing and leveraging information?
CRM is typically focused on the sales side of the business. Which I believe it should be. But I challenge companies to look beyond just the sales team and look at all your company’s touch-points with customers or prospects.
During a recent industrial association webinar, I asked a polling question:
What departments should be using CRM?
92% said Outside Sales
92% said Inside Sales
83% said Management
75% said Marketing
33% said Services
As expected, the majority of the responses where with the Outside and Inside sales. We will round up and say 92% = 100%. I was glad to see that Inside sales was the % it was, as I have seen some companies not focus CRM with the Inside sales team, which I believe is a mistake. You ask why? Because Inside sales is touching customers or prospect 10 to 20 times more than Outside sales and this is where the Sharing and Leveraging of information can truly be a company’s competitive edge. Not to mention, you are now giving back to the Outside sales so they can’t say that CRM is a one-way street where all they are doing is giving.
The area I want to bring attention to is the non-sales titles within your company. I challenge you to think about getting them on CRM for the power of Sharing and Leveraging. In the poll the number that jumps out at me is the 33% for Service. I believe that if your company has any type of service department (counter or outside technicians) they can be your golden ticket of information that can be shared and leveraged. Anyone with the title service (customer service, technical service, service technician, etc.) I believe can get more information than anyone with the title sales.
That being said the power of sharing and leveraging information between your service department and your sales team can be a competitive edge.
Service <—> Outside Sales (the golden ticket)
Their information can be invaluable based on interaction between the service department and the customer. We also must consider the response to a “service” title vs. “sales” title and the customers willingness to share information without the worry of being ‘sold’. It can even be beneficial to bring service employees into sales meetings, so they can truly understand what is being pursued by the sales team and can have their radar up when in the field.
So my challenge to you is take a look at your company and all the touchpoints both externally and internally and ask you are you Sharing and Leveraging across all departments? CRM can be your hub for this and your competitive edge if implemented properly. This should also be a selling point to your team on “WHY” putting their touch-point information in CRM is valuable.
