"I've seen management say that no one will receive sales commissions if they are not logged through a new system," AMR Research senior analyst Louis Columbus told CRMDaily.com. "That is far too heavy-handed, and besides, if you think people resented the new application before, you can imagine how they will feel about it after you issue one of those mandates."

Issuing an ultimatum can be a costly mistake. Lack of employee buy-in is one of the main reasons for CRM project collapse. In fact, said Gartner research director Beth Eisenfeld, most CRM breakdowns can be traced to one of three P's: people, process or politics. "About 70 percent of CRM failures are caused by issues in one of these areas," she told CRMDaily. "People don't like change."

With that in mind, CRMDaily has put together a primer for companies trying, by hook or by crook, to get their employees to actually use their IT investment.

Greasing the Wheels

Offering larger commissions on sales completed on a new system is a standard -- and effective -- tactic. Using an SFA tool usually requires more time for data entry and reporting -- processes that rarely have the direct result of closing more deals. "Unless incentive compensation is put in place to compel them to use it," Eisenfeld said, "they won't."

But in some cases, financial incentives might not be persuasive enough. Top salespeople -- especially ones earning six figures -- tend to be strong-willed and independent. Those characteristics make them excellent at swinging a deal, but are not usually consistent with docile acceptance of new administrative procedures.

Management might do better to focus on the new tools that make the day-to-day job easier -- such as automated letter and proposal templates, or tight integration with Outlook -- to ease sales reps into acceptance. "If you show people that it can help them do their job better, then you'll really see user adoption soar," Columbus said. (continued...)

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