Customer Relation Management or Control Reps Manager?

Is your VP sales or Sales Manager using the CRM for improving the relationship with the customers or for controlling the sales reps in the company?

The CRM as Control Representatives Manager

This is one of the major problems of a CRM.
The people deciding to implement are the managers or the C-level officers of a company. The goal of the CRM is to improve customer relation in order to increase sales, lower sales costs, thus maximize profits.
At start their intentions might be good, but as soon as they get their grips on the CRM and get acquainted using the reports, then they will turn the CRM intended for improving the customer relation into a control system for sales representatives: Control Reps Management system.

Sales reps and Salesmen will be required to enter all their customers, leads, contacts, all their meeting reports, all their planned meetings, the potential deals and the chances of getting those deals.
Thus the more data the Sales reps and men enter into the CRM, the more control the Sales Manager or VP Sales will have over them as they know about all contacts, communications, meetings and price quotes.

In case of a Control Management Reps system, there is no single good reason why a Sales rep. should enter all his data into the CRM system. All the effort that has gone into the CRM, will work against him and even his future.

The CRM as sales tool

A CRM should be used for lead generation and customer retention, not for management control.
A CRM should be a source of information for the entire Sales team in order to acquire as many customers as possible and to retain as many customers as possible.

In order to have successful CRM system, C-level officers and management will need to change and thus no longer use the CRM as a Control (Sales) Reps Manager tool.
Then full collaboration from Salesmen and Sales reps can be expected.

What’s the purpose of the CRM in your company?