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How To Convince Your Older Employees To Use A CRM LoyicaBlog

An intergenerational workplace is one of the factors that play into making a dynamic organisation. The transfer of knowledge that can

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Author
Loyica Team
Feb 25 2020
How To Convince Your Older Employees To Use A CRM

An intergenerational workplace is one of the factors that play into making a dynamic organisation. The transfer of knowledge that can occur between the older generations and the younger ones is invaluable and far more than any theoretical understanding can provide. Merely interacting with someone who is not a part of the social circle one has grown accustomed to can provide tons of new perspectives. 

With that said, it is important for team leaders to play an active role in facilitating and mediating this connection. One of the salient challenges you are bound to come across while running a business includes implementing new technologies into their workforce. Older employees may not have the flexibility to adapt to the latest softwares in the same way. 

To help ease them into trying out new platforms, here are a few tips to get you started.

Be Transparent About Its Implementation

There is never going to be an easy way to set up a new technology in your organisation. Apart from the money you will invest in obtaining a license for the software, you will also need to give additional time and labor into ensuring that it is thoroughly understood by all your employees. 

Furthermore, a CRM system does its best work by painting a picture of a scenario that already exists for your team. It connects all the sales points, generates reports,manages your customer data, and more. With that said, it is not doing anything new; rather, it is only giving you and your team members a clearer picture of what is currently happening and where you need to plug in a few loopholes. 

This means that the more upfront you are to your team about having a CRM software, the more capable they are of feeding into the system so that it generates a precise and accurate depiction for them. They will feel naturally incentivised to make the most out of the situation. Go beyond explaining that a CRM system is a strategic move for your business and delve into how the platform simplifies all the most routine and complex parts of their work as well. 

Once they comprehend the benefits of introducing better automation, data management, and organisation that a CRM can bring, they will be able to plan ahead and shape their work around the incoming system. 

Invest In Additional Training And Support

Older employees are more difficult to sway when it comes to implementing new software because they’ve already gotten used to a certain flow of work, even if it is not necessarily the most efficient or the most meaningful. This is why training is essential, because you need to clearly guide them from point A to point B in integrating a CRM software into their daily routine. 

Consider setting aside certain times of the day or the week where you and your team members can just sit down together (or one on one) and walk through the basics. You could also have a tech specialist visit every once in a while to lay out the more complex areas of the CRM system so that the full depth of its presence can be felt by your team members. 

It may seem like the finish line when you see your new CRM installed on everyone’s devices, but this is far from the reality. In fact, it is only just the beginning. Make sure that you do not leave your team to fend for themselves and work their way around this new technology; think of ways to train them that are engaging and exciting. As someone who invested in the service, you will now need to work on sharing just how different the user experience is to your team members. 

Implement The Right CRM Software

This may look like it goes without saying, but more often than not organisations will be putting their time and money into software that does not know how to adapt to their workflows. Avoid settling for the easiest option available and take your time to look for a software that everyone can adjust to. 

Look at the kind of integrations a CRM software offers and see how it can fit in with the applications that your team is already using. For example, if your organisation does most of their work on Google Sheets or Outlook, then you will want to search for CRMs that are known to pair well with the data that is already stored in these software. That way, you save you and your team the hassle of transferring these files onto the CRM.

Apart from that, you can also take a look at how your sales process works. This is because a CRM platform offers certain automated tasks that may or may not be relevant to your organisation, including adding contracts, customer support, and sending emails. 

Give Simple Metrics For Data Entry

CRM is capable of managing massive amounts of data and it may seem tempting to just jump on it immediately once it is set up in your organisation. However, the full functionality of this software may become too overwhelming for older employees to understand properly. As a result, the whole process becomes more frustrating for them than it should be. 

You may want to have your team log in every single minute detail of all your prospects. However, this is not a necessary step so early in the CRM implementation. Focus first on painting a general picture of what each customer looks like so that your team can get accustomed to logging in their details before you start honing in on recording birthdays, old emails and conversations, and other information.

Emphasize The Power Of Data Visualisation

Let’s face it: spreadsheets are incredibly useful but also difficult to follow on a regular basis. CRM platforms make the user experience more exciting by visualizing key points of data on extensive reports, analytics, and overall application design. Point out how there are charts, graphs, and other tools that can help make data more exciting. In addition, these metrics can be freely displayed on a dashboard so that your team always has the most relevant information on hand. There is no need to go through rows upon rows of excel sheets or dig through a variety of files just to find the one spreadsheet you are looking for when a CRM system lays it all out in an attractive manner. 

Always Be Open To Feedback

Even with the best CRM system implemented in your company, you are bound to run into problems and challenges later on. Be there for your team and take note of what they have to say about the CRM. They are the people in your organisation who you are buying it for and they will also be the ones working directly with the system. 

If they do raise concerns about the system, consider how else you can tweak it to make their workflow easier. Take a look at the add-ons you could purchase in the next cycle to alleviate their burdens or conversely, remove a few features that seem unnecessary for their job. Implementing this technology will always be a work in progress, so it is important to keep an ear out for any issues experienced within the team. 

 

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