Report: Integrating your CRM and LMS to Drive Sales and Fuel Performance

• 3 min read

Uncover the Real Profit Producing Power of your CRM With an LMS Integration

In his new publication, David Patterson of the elearning consultancy and training firm Learning Light examines the growing popularity of customer relationship management tools, despite widespread low adoption, and reveals how a learning management system can help companies guarantee these powerful tools are contributing to growing revenue while helping to cut administrative costs.

The high cost of CRMs meant they’ve traditionally been targeted toward large enterprise organizations, but new competition has driven down the cost of the CRM, opening up availability to smaller businesses. Salesforce, currently the most popular CRM on the market, boasts over 100,000 customers and five million users worldwide, but it’s still a major investment with a suite of features that many companies don’t take full advantage of.

CRM Adoption Struggles

Despite a massive customer base, these CRMs are continually plagued by low adoption among sales teams, according to Patterson’s research. Without the right tools and processes in place, your CRM becomes little more than a race car without a steering wheel. It has tremendous performance capabilities but will never actually get you around the track to your ultimate goal of stronger, faster growth.

In his report, “Integrating your CRM and LMS to Drive Sales and Fuel Performance,” Patterson writes that:

  • 70% of organizations saw little positive impact on sales after implementing a CRM
  • 35% of organizations struggled with user adoption issues after implementing a CRM
  • Fewer than 75% of sales teams adopted the CRM to meaningful use after implementation

The 3 P’s of CRM Success

The report identifies three factors for successful CRM implementation: people, products and processes:

  1. Ensure the people at your organization understand the value and know how to use the CRM to establish strong adoption rates
  2. Provide product support along with product and sales knowledge directly from the CRM to increase the value to users
  3. Create processes that standardize the way people at your organization use the CRM to ensure data accuracy and consistency.

How an LMS Enhances your CRM

Patterson’s research isn’t all doom and gloom for CRMs. He believes integrating a learning management system can help realign the use and reveal the full potential of a CRM. A proper LMS integration will help you achieve the 3 P’s of CRM success. Here’s how:

  • Offer training that not only explains how to use the CRM, but reveals the value of the tool, ensuring high adoption rates among sales staff. This training will also protect the integrity of your data in the CRM by eliminating the kind of human errors that result from poor training.
  • Use training certifications to ensure every user across the extended enterprise has the knowledge tools they need to use the CRM to its full value.
  • Combine your training data with sales data to reveal weaknesses and realign for better sales results.

Proving LMS+CRM = Performance

Patterson backs up his research with real data that proves the value of integrating an LMS with your CRM. He examined an LMS integration at one organization that resulted in a 20% decrease in learner administration costs and a 35% increase in sales. These are probably the results the organization was expecting when they implemented a CRM, but they weren’t achieved until an LMS was integrated with the CRM to reach the company’s fullest potential.

See for yourself how you can maximize the profit-producing power of your Salesforce platform by integrating it with your LMS.