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You may have done everything right including procuring licenses to the world’s #1 CRM or partnering with a certified Salesforce Consulting Company for implementation. But at the end of the day, if your intended user group does not adopt the new platform, then the CRM fails to serve its purpose.
Organizations implement Salesforce because of its flexibility, scalability and versatility. But if a successful Salesforce implementation has the potential to transform your business, a failed Salesforce implementation can leave you high and dry with a platform that your stakeholders aren’t willing to adopt.
User adoption is key to a successful Salesforce implementation. And some of the significant threats to a failed implementation are slow user adoption, insufficient attention to training, and challenges in re-aligning the organization with the new way to work.
Here are 8 tips to boost User Adoption after a Salesforce Implementation.
Key Stakeholder Buy In
For any Salesforce implementation to be successful, leadership buy-in is critical. Ensure that your leadership team (or you, if you’re the boss!) understands the strategic value that Salesforce can bring to your organization.
Having said that, acceptance alone is not enough. They need to be the first adopters of the new way of working. Leadership from the front motivates staff and employees to follow their example.
Your Salesforce implementation will be successful only if the top management lead the change management process. Merely “big vision” talk by the leadership about CRM success is not going to be enough. Employees are inspired to step up and take responsibility if their leaders walk the talk. For instance, you as a business leader, no longer needs to ask for reports. Use the analytics feature of Salesforce instead. Celebrate a new deal and collaborate with your teams on Chatter, wish them on their birthdays and acknowledge high performers.
Here are some of the things your leadership can do to show support for Salesforce
- Review analytics in Salesforce instead of sharing spreadsheets across email
- Collaborate and celebrate in Chatter
- Make adoption metrics discussions a part of your organizational meetings
Elicit Feedback
A fresh installation of the CRM that is in use does not always mean you are all set. There will always be questions from users who are still getting a hang of the system. These users should have a mechanism by which they can submit questions, raise support tickets or bugs and know how long it will take to resolve them. No matter how big or small your organization is, having a Salesforce expert on your team will benefit you as your business grows. You can choose to hire a full-time Salesforce admin, or hire a Certified Salesforce Consultant, depending on the needs and scale of your business.
For adoption, it is vital that you show that your end users’ needs matter to you. Let them know that you understand and respect what they need to do their jobs.
3 ways to receive feedback:
User groups: Form groups to discuss what’s working and what’s not, and what may be the plan going forward.
User surveys: Provide your users with a mechanism to give feedback anonymously
Adoption dashboards: Adoption dashboards are available on AppExchange that can be easily integrated with Salesforce. This is a great way to identify reluctant adopters and track your progress in adoption.
Simplicity
Salesforce is loaded with a plethora of features and that can be overwhelming at times. Less is usually more in a process. Here are a few ways to simplify your Salesforce implementation for your users:
- Personalised User Interface: Make your users feel important by giving them a personalised interface with relevant features and functions based on their role.
- Eliminate clutter: Run the Optimizer to generate concrete recommendations for optimizing Salesforce feature usage that helps you to eliminate unnecessary fields, layouts, and other things that slow down productivity.
- Eliminate repetitive data entry: Integrate email into Salesforce and free up time. Salesforce comes with free connectors for Outlook and Gmail.
Prioritize Training
Mastering every Salesforce feature takes time. Avoid overwhelming your users with an exhaustive training program that covers everything. Instead break it down into segments and phases. Work with your Salesforce implementation Partner to develop a phased out training schedule. Start with training on the basics to get everyone on board. And then move to role-based functions and features.
Build a detailed training plan. And no training plan is complete without a re-training component. No training should be considered complete until you are certain that your teams have fully understood how to use the features assigned to them.
On-demand app guidance is another great way to supplement training as it allows users to get up to speed at their own pace.
Encourage Engagement with the Trailblazer Community
The Salesforce Trailblazer Community is a great place for Salesforce users to discuss features, ask questions, and share tips. This community driven self-learning platform provides users with a go-to resource that is backed by inputs from millions of experienced Salesforce users. By encouraging your users to engage and share ideas with the Trailblazer Community, you can supplement your in-house training.
The trailblazer community gives users access to networking opportunities, white papers, case studies and videos. Interaction facilitates learning, and learning augments adoption.
Automate
Repetitive, low-value tasks are a drain on your teams’ productivity. Show your teams how automation within Salesforce can take care of non-critical and repetitive tasks that will allow them to have time to focus on value-based activities like fostering relationships with customers and stakeholders.
Automate routine tasks by creating rules, building flows, and leveraging Einstein AI. Make a strong impression on your employees by showing them the true power of Salesforce.
Salesforce allows a virtually code-less automation environment that has been designed after collating feedback from thousands of users across multiple verticals.
Monitor CRM data quality and accuracy
Data is the heart of Salesforce. Accurate and complete data is what makes Salesforce the key driver of your organization’s productivity and growth. The quality of data entered or migrated into Salesforce is a direct indicator of how well your users have understood Salesforce’s capabilities.
Inconsistency in the data quality is a clear indicator that users either have not understood the functionality or are not entirely convinced of its helpfulness. Use data quality reports and follow-up with your teams to determine any training or support needs.
Measure your Salesforce usage
As a business leader or champion, you want to know how well your users are adopting Salesforce. You can use some of the pre-built dashboards available in Salesforce or integrate a dashboard from the AppExchange.
A few of the key adoption metrics to monitor are:
- User login rates
- Record creation/updation rates
- Contact creation/updation
- Opportunity creation/updation
- Activity completion
- Open/Closed tasks
- Chatter usage
These can be measured on a scheduled basis to help you understand where your users need support. This will also help you to assess what kind of training and support needs to be provided to users to iron out those issues.
Make Salesforce your single source of truth. Encourage your teams to adopt the mantra “If it’s not on Salesforce, it never happened”. There is bound to be resistance, but that’s how cultural change is brought about. Good data is the backbone of a strong sales organization. Encourage collaboration to make sure they understand the bigger picture. Once Salesforce becomes an integral part of your organizational culture, adoption becomes more organic than enforced.
Adoption of Salesforce translates to adoption of success. Having said that, just following these tips is not going to guarantee a successful adoption, but they have been proven to work. As a business leader, you need to champion the cause of adoption and incorporating these tips into your organization’s plans will not only trim wasted time, money, and effort, but also help you maximize your ROI.
Girikon is a Gold Certified Salesforce Partner that helps companies deliver value to their customers. Get in touch with one of our experts today!
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About Author
Indranil is a technology enthusiast with over 25 years of experience in project management, operations, technology and business development. Indranil has led project teams in egovernance, business process re-engineering, product development and worked with Government and Corporate customers. Indranil truly believes in the power of technology to drive productivity and growth for teams and businesses.
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