The advice to “implement CRM” becomes harmful when a business owner buys software hoping they will no longer need to remind salespeople about customers. During the launch, people do start working in a more organised way. But the software also brings reviews, questions and attention from management to the sales department. If all this stops after the launch, the improvement goes with it. And the company starts looking for faults in the settings.
We had a client in wholesale. All enquiries were inbound, and sales had fallen noticeably. In the first week, we listened to calls and reviewed 30 deals step by step. The customer's needs had been identified and a proposal sent — then silence. Across all 30 deals, there was not a single “I’ll call you tomorrow at such-and-such a time.”
One deal had been dragging on for eight months. No one had set a next step, and in recent months they had been unable to reach the buyer. The salespeople mostly took incoming calls and did not take the initiative to contact customers. The reasons for losing deals were not recorded anywhere. Given this situation, it was too early to lower prices: the department had not even found out why buyers had stopped responding.
Yet they had already implemented CRM. Back then, they listened to calls with the owner personally taking part, and the salespeople improved. Then they stopped listening. The owner's explanation suggested that the earlier momentum had run out. This is a review of the first week; there are no later results in this story. But there is already a significant fact here for deciding whether to change the CRM settings again: the improvement came alongside work that was later stopped.
More than the software changes at launch
I believe that before making another change to CRM, we need to separate the effect of the tool from the effect of attention to the department. Otherwise, the owner commissions a second launch when what they need is for the work already started to continue. People will come together again for the launch, review deals and remind salespeople of the requirements. After the project is handed over, the question will return: who now makes sure those requirements are met?
In this case, the proposal reached the customer. The conversation broke down after that: the salesperson left it to the buyer to decide whether the next contact would happen at all. An incoming call started the sale, and after sending the proposal the department went back to waiting for the customer to act. Between these events, no one took the initiative.
Here, it is dangerous to mistake the length of a deal for its difficulty. Eight months sounds like a long negotiation. But without an agreed next step, and with calls going unanswered, that period does not represent eight months of discussion. The date a deal record was created does not, on its own, tell you that the buyer is still deciding. The head of sales needs to find out where the purchase stands before counting on it.
Another danger is to give silence a convenient explanation. If the reasons buyers say no are not recorded, saying the price is too high merely fills a gap in what is known. Even a perfectly configured report will start counting the salespeople's explanations. First, the department needs a conversation that produces an answer from the buyer.
What to assign before changing the CRM settings again
The owner does not need to sit down and listen to calls from the whole department again. They need to decide what exactly they are commissioning: removing a technical obstacle or managing deals every day after a proposal has been sent. These are different commitments with different end dates.
For a conversation with the head of sales, I suggest a short task. You can forward it in full; the deadlines below apply to the work needed for you to make a decision, not to that client's results.
By the end of the second working day, prepare an answer explaining why we fail to keep the conversation going after sending a proposal. Take the last ten proposals and, for each one, state whether the next contact was agreed, whether it happened and what is known about the buyer's decision. Show what makes it difficult to do this work in our current CRM. Separately, state what you will do every day about missed contacts. Link every change you suggest to a specific obstacle found in this review.
The answer to this task lets you choose what to do without arguing about whether your software is any good. If the head of sales cannot get a list of proposals with no next contact, there is something to fix in the settings. If the list is available but no one acts on it, another report will not get the work started. If a salesperson has set a reminder but agreed nothing with the buyer, the way the conversation ends needs to change.
A request for changes should have three lines: which action is currently difficult; what will change in the software; who will use the change after handover, and how. The last line protects against buying temporary attention again. An empty line cannot be filled with “salespeople will start selling better” — it must name the daily action the head of sales will take.
I am not suggesting getting rid of CRM itself. A lost call recording, inaccessible contact history or an inability to see overdue actions requires a technical solution. But the brief for that solution must state a specific failure. The fact that a customer was not called does not, on its own, explain what is broken in the software.
How to sign off work that must continue
The rule for the department is simple: a conversation about a purchase still in progress ends with an agreement on the next contact. This is not a requirement to call everyone tomorrow. The timing is agreed with the buyer; if they refuse to continue the conversation, the refusal is recorded. A date made up by a salesperson creates another reminder, but no agreement.
The head of sales checks every day which contacts should have taken place and which were missed. For each missed contact, they assign an action and make sure it is carried out; if it happens again, they review how the conversation ended with the salesperson. The owner only needs to receive the number of missed contacts, the reasons they recur and the measures taken. The head of sales also takes responsibility for preparing this summary.
Sign-off for the CRM changes should be tied to the first working day after handover: the head of sales gets the required list themselves and shows what they have done with it. If there are no suitable deals that day, the observation date is set for the first actual contact. This gives the technical project an end, while the head of sales remains responsible for using what has been delivered.
At RENTROP, turnkey sales management continues after setup: we take on the daily work with the team and make sure agreements are carried out. A free sales review can identify what stops your department from moving deals forward after a proposal and whether this requires changes to CRM.
In the wholesale company, the software arrived alongside the owner's attention, and then that attention disappeared. Repeating this kind of implementation is pointless if management of the department ends with it again: setup has a handover date, while work with customers continues the next working day.