Are you getting the most out of your CRM configuration?
There are two types of staffing customers: those using an ATS that has CRM capabilities available and enabled and those leveraging a separate CRM for managing prospects and pipeline. Here, we’ll discuss challenges inherent in both situations—and how to solve them.
1. Your ATS Has CRM Capabilities, but They Aren’t Fully Utilized
An ATS with CRM capabilities can be a huge win for you and your business, as it allows users to work and track data in one application. But many staffing firms with this application haven’t fully explored what it can do. Understanding what an ATS/CRM system offers your sales team ensures you’re fully utilizing the system’s capabilities—and getting the most for your money.
Utilize your CRM to track Leads and Opportunities – As a business leader, you want your sales team to have prospects in the pipeline that can turn into clients. These prospects are either leads or opportunities. Understanding both can give a 360-degree view into your business and what the future holds.
– A lead is someone you aren’t currently doing business with. They might be someone who you met at a networking event. Once qualified, they can be converted to a contact or candidate.
– An opportunity is a potential job or order you’re negotiating with a client, but you haven’t won just yet.
Strong software that not only tracks leads and opportunities, but also allows you to report on the number of leads it takes to turn into an opportunity—and then secure a job order—is an important value for your business. Having easy access to that information helps you and your sales team understand how many leads and opportunities need to be in the pipeline, expected time to close, and how many phone calls must be made before a deal is closed.
2. You Use a Separate CRM To Manage Prospects and the Pipeline
A standalone CRM lets your sales team manage prospects and the pipeline, and lets your leaders forecast and predict revenue. These are important benefits—but using a CRM that’s not integrated with your ATS has challenges too.
First, users must learn two different systems. That can cause issues with user adoption and confusion on which system to use. Also, data can go missing data in both systems, as users can grow accustomed to adding data in one system but not the other. Another challenge is cost: You’re paying to license and maintain two systems.
One solution is to integrate. Many CRM applications such as Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive already have integrations built-in to work with top ATS applications like Bullhorn.
If your CRM or ATS doesn’t have a built-in integration, ask your vendors if they can provide open APIs to allow you or a consulting firm, such as Newbury Partners, to create it. The effort and time of keeping both applications aligned can be substantial, but an integration will allow them to share information. That means you can:
• Report on the data that’s the most valuable for your organization
• Automate workflow for handovers to recruiters
• Receive insights on recruiting activity within the sales platform, potentially keeping your sales team in a single system
If you don’t want to invest in building an integration, consider creating a reporting warehouse where you can report on the data from both applications. That will give you a more holistic view of your overall business and metrics.
Regardless of Your ATS/CRM Situation …
Have clearly defined and attainable (but challenging) sales goals and quotas, so your sales team knows what they’re trying to accomplish. Displaying goals provides clear visibility and creates friendly competition among each member to be at the top.
Within your CRM, you should be able to easily set up and display your team’s activity-based goals and sales quotas—and provide the team with real-time insights into their performance metrics. The first step is to clearly state those goals and quotas. Create both based on your team’s tenure and experience. Once both are defined, a sales dashboard should be created and displayed—not just for individual team members, but also for the entire team as a leaderboard, so they can see how they rank daily.
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Harjot Panesar is the Director of Sales & Solutions for Newbury Partners. The Newbury team helps staffing companies of all sizes identify and implement the best products and applications to meet their business needs.
Email Newbury Partners (sales@newburypartners.com) to learn more about how Harjot and the team can help you identify the best CRM solutions for your organization and help you implement, configure, or integrate your system of choice.
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