Will Sales 2.0 Technology Drive CRM Adoption Rates?

I used to see frequent reports and blog postings about the success or failure of CRM systems. Lately, however, I hear radio silence. Has this technology finally turned the corner and achieved consistent ROI, delivering on expectations?

Probably not. The most recent survey from CSO Insights showed no appreciable change in CRM adoption within the sales community of the companies surveyed. CSO measures adoption when 90% of the sales force consider a CRM system a "must have." Lamentably, only roughly 39% of companies surveyed achieved that criteria.

Arguably, as major creators of information in a customer relationship, sales' failure to adopt a CRM system means that system has failed. I know from personal experience that salespeople cannot be bullied, nagged or even incented to use a tool they don't want. So wherein lies the answer? I always look at the "What's in it for me" (WiifM) measure. I suspect that WiifM drives behavior much more than we would wish to believe, and certainly has more impact than encouraging salespeople to be good corporate citizens. And why not? Depending on the industry, a typical sales person has to close $10,000 of business per day, which tends to create laser-like focus on what works and what doesn't.

That said, creating value in a CRM system for the salesperson is critical to success. Value is not created by high quality data, mobile applications, dashboards, and coherent sales processes. These are a given--a minimum set of requirements. The CRM evangelist should instead look to an array of Sales 2.0 tools to help drive adoption:

• Intelligence tools such as InsideView bring valuable data about prospects or existing accounts, directly to the desktop of a salesperson. They also tap into social/professional networking solutions to show how to connect to decision makers.
• Automated transcription services like Ribbit can take voicemail messages (or even dictated meeting notes) and set them as activities in the CRM system, linked to the correct contact person.
• Content management (strictly not Sales 2.0) that delivers relevant information direct to the salesperson based upon data entered into an opportunity (e.g. case studies, references, proposals).
• Sales process tools such as Playboox or Landslide which provide highly targeted and relevant qualification criteria and strategy for given sales scenarios.

All of these tools either directly enhance sales productivity or enable improved sales performance (increased sales) by empowering the sales person with information to increase their selling capability.

It will be interesting to learn whether the next CSO Insights report will categorize CRM adoption rates by those organizations that have implemented Sales 2.0 technology.