TRAIN TO GAIN

Today’s multifaceted Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems provide the ideal support mechanism for a wide spectrum of businesses, including recruitment. However, many CRM users – especially those who may not use it on a daily basis – struggle to make the best use of what is now an essential tool for managing customer interactions.

Effective, bespoke training tailored to the specific needs of a particular sector, or individual business, ensures the workforce is confident and equipped to use a CRM system competently and access its full capabilities. CRM can help recruiters effectively manage interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects by organising, automating and synchronising sales activities and other business processes such as marketing, lead management and customer service.

Process improvement

In our recent poll of 252 CRM users from across the UK, over two-thirds (69 per cent) said that their CRM system did not help them focus on daily targets and almost four out of five (79 per cent) indicated that they did not see their CRM system as an essential part of their everyday work.

However, if used correctly CRM systems can dramatically improve business processes. Opportunity management, customer service and sales execution are just some of the processes associated with CRM systems, and all these processes can materially impact the relationship between a company and its customer.

It is vital that recruiters are fully aware of the capabilities of CRM as it can provide clear and comparable data about each and every prospective client or candidate. Using the CRM system effectively, recruiters can build up a better relationship with clients as they can search, match and place candidates more efficiently and at any time. As a result, they can secure more opportunities and make better business decisions based on the easy to access information available at their fingertips.

A recruiter’s administration work can also be cut as a candidate’s profile can be updated on the system for all users to see. This reduces the chance of human error because all data is safe and secure and all communications can be tracked.

Transparent client interaction records can also be kept so that multiple recruiters are aware of account activity and do not contact the same company (or candidates) with the same opportunities. This can improve recruiter productivity and responsiveness leading to increased levels of customer satisfaction.

Usability and its impact on acceptance

Our recent poll also showed that nearly half of users (48 per cent) disliked the way that their CRM system was configured, with 29 per cent saying that the system was too complex. A further 19 per cent felt that their CRM system was not user-friendly enough and that its fields were not specific enough to their job role.

For this reason alone, it is clear to see that good system design is essential for any CRM system to be used effectively. One of the most common mistakes organisations make is building and implementing poorly-designed CRM systems that do not consider the customer’s existing processes.

To ensure that the CRM project has the best possible chance of success the system’s design has to be right and feedback from users in a pilot implementation must be taken into account before it is rolled out to the rest of the company. Making a CRM system more user-friendly has numerous benefits, not least the impact it has on user acceptance levels. Following implementation, user acceptance can remain low, at about 40 per cent, even after two weeks of training. However, a CRM application that presents the data in a more user-friendly way combined with good quality training can make a significant impact and push acceptance rates up to 75 per cent.

Training and its impact on acceptance

While most companies recognise that CRM training is important, project timelines are often too aggressive or project phases overrun to such an extent that training is the first thing to be squeezed, either through lack of time, budget or both. As a result, users are not equipped to confidently use the new system and either ignore it or swamp the help desk with “How do I?” questions.

Training is vital for success and the most effective trainers are often those within the business itself. However, equipping one person with the required knowledge and experience can be a time consuming task. Typically, training on an average CRM system can take up to one week without any significant positive impact in terms of user acceptance.

But, a user-friendly solution doesn’t just increase overall acceptance of the system, it also reduces the time needed for training. Rather than one week, training can be reduced to two days, with half a day spent on system and the rest on process training.

This ‘train the trainer’ approach leaves a point of contact within the business that fully understands the CRM system and its benefits. It is this person that is best placed to train other users because, not only do they understand the system itself, they also know the business and the needs of all other in-house users.

Making it work

CRM systems are complex but needn’t be complicated or onerous to use. Planning and training coupled with a carefully designed system should aid successful implementation. User-friendliness, both in terms of design and in terms of the meaningful data produced, will improve processes, increase staff productivity and the overall workflow with a business.