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millennial employee

How to Convince Millennial Employees to Use a CRM?

4 min read

Technology has revolutionized our world and everyday lives over the years. Technology has created innovative tools and resources, bringing useful information to our fingertips. Modern technology laid the foundation for multi-purpose apps such as the smartwatch and the smartphone. Computers are getting faster, more compact, and more efficient than ever before. Technology has also made our lives simpler, quicker, safer, and more enjoyable with all those revolutions.

As time goes by, more technologies have been developed and more generations have been rising. One of today’s trend is Generation-Y.

Generation-Y (Gen-Y), also known as the millennial generation, is a buyer market that is very different from its predecessors. Members of this generation have grown up with technology, and have access to any knowledge they want with just a click. As far as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is concerned, Gen-Y customers are expected to answer any question immediately, anywhere, wherever, and they are not afraid to look for the details they want. 

The majority of mobile users are Millennials – the chunk of the population aged between 18 and 34. There is a massive 85% of 18 to 24 years old who already own a mobile device, while nearly half of 19 to 22 years old access the mobile web every weekday for at least 4 hours. Such statistics speak for themselves that technology is used by millennials more than any other generation as reported by Nielsen.

According to Robert C. Johnson, CEO of cloud-based customer service company TeamSupport, they are also extremely tech-dependent and likely a more educated group – more socially linked than ever, but in a tech-enabled way. He also experienced asking a customer service professional colleague of his on what he does when someone calls with a query that he does not know the answer to. His colleague answered, “I google it.” It is almost like a whole generation of journalists with ‘freedom of the press’ as their motto and we have the right to know. 

Nowadays, most of the employees who are working in a certain company is a millennial one. Given the fact that they are tech-savvy, it is now time that they should adapt to what is the modern and updated system. One of which is the booming CRM.

In this article, here are some tips on how to convince millennial employees to use CRM.

1. Clarify its value

Any employee worth her salt knows the secret to a sale is to justify a prospect’s appeal. So, you have to sell the team’s CRM tools, otherwise, they will behave like the churning customers. 

Yes, CRM tools can enable performance analysis, monitor market patterns, and evaluate the health of your sales team. But that does not matter to the millennial reps – like any prospects, they want to know why they will be better off with this decision. Rep-centric advantages of CRM software include:

  • It is a centralized location to monitor the engagement of prospects.
  • It is a place to store prospect notices.
  • They provide a simple way to get demand predictions visualized.
  • Walk-in their shoes, and take time to learn how CRM software could help them. Sell then its importance to your team. 

    2. Take the bright side to them

When using a CRM, you must convey your benefits to your employees. They should be advised that this is not just a management tool. We should be advised that they are not only pressured to use a management tool, but it also has something form them.

For example:

  • By using CRM, they will get rid of multiple manual tasks which will give them more time to focus on selling the product. Such CRM would automatically collect contact details via social media communication and emails that the sales representative had to do in the past manually. 
  • This will be more effective as a CRM can automate many of their activities such as sending client follow-up emails and arranging meetings and updates.
  • We will be structured more because a CRM will take good care of all the customer data and the records of sales. Not only will this mean that they do not lose important details, but they will also keep it collected in one location.

3.Pick the right CRM

Sounds simple, isn’t it? But it is easier to say than done to find a CRM which is powerful enough to be useful as a management resource, so low-touch enough to solve for your salespeople. 

Here are a few things you should be searching for when evaluating options:

  • Integrates with other applications from your company (marketing apps, software calling, file sharing systems, e-mail client, etc.)
  • Logs contacts automatically, without reps joining them manually.
  • It can be personalized to suit the sales process of your business.
  • It provides high-level information such as call volume, revenue projections, stage-by-step deals, etc.
  • Has the ability to communicate as robustly as your needs.
  • Easy to surf.

Do not just follow some old CRM program. Vet your choices carefully so you know it will meet your needs when the time comes to use one. 

4. Integrate the use of CRM into Career Development

Your leadership team is setting an example for the rest of your reps, so every manager has to incorporate CRM use with direct reports and foster software use into their one-on-one usage. Managers will set the goal that they will need to get all the details that are necessary to form the CRM for pipeline reports, and then have salespeople fill in the missing data. Reps will be used to completing this training before their one-on-ones, and gradually becoming a second nature to refresh the CRM as they go about their day. 

5. Provide the Needed Training

Implementing a CRM without preparation is like telling a rugby team to be playing soccer. If the employee does not understand the system, he will become irritated and this will negatively affect their performance. Thus, CRM training is very necessary. 

So the provision of adequate training is an essential part of introducing a CRM. Be sure they are trained on the features and functionality. This can be done by several in-house training sessions and by supplying the reps with e-learning facilities. 

6. Provide stimuli

Introduce an “If CRM is not here, we will not be here” policy. Whether it is withholding commissions, compensating activity-based reps, or setting the expectation that you are not going to attribute deals to the reps that closed them unless they are logged into the CRM. 

But each stick requires a carrot, and that comes in SPIF shape. For a cause, they are standby sales – they operate. Run small competitions tied to data contained only in the CRM, such as awarding one-on-one managers to reps who have all their deals logged into the CRM, or completing their pipelines entirely. Try running such competitions regularly or awarding multiple smaller SPIFs so many millennial reps experience the immediate benefits of using CRM. 

7. Give tips and tricks for further follow-up

Get the team’s input regularly to identify pain points and where they are effective. If your reps frequently experience similar problems or are continually puzzled about certain aspects of the product, look into the problem and disseminate the answer to your team. When you can head off issues and concerns before they turn into barriers, you are going to have a much better chance to drive adoption. 

In a nutshell, millennial employees and CRM are not an instant “match made in heaven,” but the more time these two spend together, the more they are drawn to each other. When correctly introduced and used, CRM can improve every sales team’s performance and help salespeople succeed in four areas that are important to them. These are:

  • better scan, sort leads, and evaluate them;
  • systematic and timely tracking of the sales opportunities;
  • prioritizing and streamlining follow-up tasks and;
  • increase goal reach rates quickly

Nevertheless, the changes that CRM brings do not come from the millennial employees’ side without commitment, knowledge, and determination. Millennial employees specifically sales reps need to realize universally that CRM updating is crucial to their success.