Here are several excerpts from an article by Eric Slack, Why Salespeople Fear SFA Will Replace Them:
So what can the corporate office do to get sales-staff support for an SFA investment? The answer is simple — do what salespeople do for a living. Sell it to them. Show your sales reps how SFA solutions remove some of the tedious aspects of their jobs and provide them with tools to make more sales (and more money).
Initially, companies must develop long-term internal processes that will connect sales staff with the SFA solution. An SFA investment isn’t like buying a sports car — don’t purchase one simply because you think it looks cool. In fact, Jim Dickie of CSO Insights explained that two-thirds of these implementations fail because of poor planning. “If there are no CRM processes in place, it is impossible to implement a sophisticated CRM system, as there is nothing to automate,†he said.
Sales reps need to know the system will provide leads and help sell customers on additional products. Since automation is supposed to help management and sales develop a better understanding of customer behavior, products and services can be better suited to meet customer expectations. This equals better sales opportunities.
Salespeople can also benefit via automated and personalized messages about discounts and new products through direct mail and email marketing campaigns. Management can use information entered into the system by sales to create and deliver those messages with no additional effort on the part of the sales staff. Marketing colleagues can also provide better-qualified leads by using information from the system and automatically distributing leads to the sales force. This removes much of the work associated with cold calling and following up on loosely targeted marketing campaigns.
Analytic software and reporting can also help sales people make better decisions about handling customers. If they understand their clients better, sales reps can refine their own strategies to sell more effectively. They can also take advantage of distributed sales materials and deliver customized content directly to their contacts.
In the end, effective salespeople have nothing to fear from SFA. Why? According to Chihab BenMoussa of the Turku Centre for Computer Science, sales reps claim the leading cause of most SFA failures “is that SFA did not help them in the most important aspects of their job: face-to-face customer meetings.†SFA isn’t a robot designed to replace a factory worker. Purchasing decisions are still made with emotion and personal connections involved. SFA helps companies refine product lines and find more qualified leads. It still takes top-notch sales professionals to seal the deal, and that won’t change.
