Give your salespeople a break and use a CRM

Take a look around your office. Do your salespeople feel stressed out? Is it affecting their work? Have sales prospects and closures dipped recently?

We’re not shocked if this is the case. Salespeople have difficult jobs, and a survey conducted by SalesDog.com, according to All Business, noted that six out of 10 salespeople feel stressed at work. Respondents also believe their high level of stress is detrimental to their jobs.

“The survey findings suggest that most salespeople feel good about their chosen career despite the high stress levels,” Michael Dalton Johnson, founder and publisher of SalesDog.com said to All Business. “Considering that lack of recognition is a common complaint of many employees in all types of jobs, we were surprised to learn the large number of salespeople who feel adequately recognized for their work.”

Making their jobs easier by helping them work more efficiently will help salespeople reduce their stress. We suggest doing so by implementing the latest customer relationship management software into their operations – specifically Microsoft’s CRM solution, Microsoft Dynamics 365.

CRM solutions can completely eliminate manual-based data entry processing and analysis. All those notebooks and desktop spreadsheets filled with hundreds (maybe even thousands) of indecipherable pieces of information can go away. With a CRM solution, it’s all stored in one central database that in-house and remote salespeople can access.

Let’s break down how a CRM solution can help your sales staff:

1. Accurate information Salespeople rely on accurate information to close deals. After all, customers – especially ones not familiar with your business – have a lot of questions. If your sales team provides them with wrong information two things will likely happen: 1) It may cost your business money in lost sales and 2) The customer may be more likely to cancel his or her order if your salesperson overpromises and the rest of your staff struggles to meet those guarantees.

As you can see, accurate data directly impacts your bottom line.

2. Better communication Are younger generations of employees more awkward at work than their predecessors? A Hay Group survey found that 74 percent of hired graduates lack “soft” skills, such as the ability to communicate properly, that will help both them and their employer succeed.

Employers recognize this can be a problem because 80 percent noted that employees who lack people skills can create toxic work environments.

The question then is: What are these companies doing to help their employees? While sponsoring educational opportunities to help staff members develop these skills is one way to fix the problem, another way is to simply adopt Microsoft Dynamic’s 365 .

Microsoft Dynamics improves office communication because it eliminates mistakes and therefore frustration and stress. By actually reducing the number of conversations revolving around correcting data mistakes and inaccurate information, employees may feel less anxiety and more confident about their ability to do their jobs well.

3. Saves time How many administrative meetings do your sales reps have each day? If you’re struggling to remember, the answer is too many! Whether it’s on the phone or in the office, an excessive amount of administrative meetings can seriously undermine a sales rep’s ability to effectively perform his or her job.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 can save time because it allows your staff to better organize their data. Sales reps can then easily use this data to create detailed reports for higher ups. And if there’s any questions about the data in that report, they can easily verify it with a click of a button. This CRM solution provides up-to-date, real-time information about each prospect and the entire sales cycle.

If you’d like to help your sales people be better, less stressed out professionals, the best way to do so is by equipping them with the latest CRM technology like Microsoft Dynamics 365.