It’s one thing for managers, analysts and consultants to sit together in a conference room and piece together ideas about how a system should be used. In reality, It’s a different ballgame to make the system align with user’s day-to-day jobs. Success in the world of user adoption has more to do with strategy, planning, communication, and leadership than it does with the technical elements of the system. Even experienced Salesforce developers and analysts can get it wrong. The good news is that the system can always be revised and optimized. User feedback can be integrated into the system at any time.
Collecting User Feedback: User Acceptance Testing, or UAT for short, is a trial of new system features with a select group of users to ensure that the planned use of the system meets the reality of how the users will interact with it. Because the UAT process allows users to provide input, they consequently feel a greater level of ownership. A greater sense of ownership makes the users feel heard, valued and gives them more motivation to be successful with Salesforce.
Training: Training is an absolutely critical component of user adoption. It is essential that trainings are clear, easy to understand and resonate with the user’s unique needs. We prefer live in-person training where we record a screen capture of the training for future use and new employee on-boarding. Implementing new technology solutions require buy-in from users at all levels and training is a key component in the process of legitimately convincing users that the system is adding value to their jobs, that it’s helping them sell, service and manage better. Training should not only take place during on-boarding or new feature implementations. Refresher trainings which reinforce the fundamentals and build upon previous sessions will turn users into power users. Power users who create their own reports tools and effectively use all the important features in the system will sell more.
Tracking Adoption Levels: Measuring success is important. We recommend creating a user adoption dashboard. Using reports and dashboards, system administrators and managers can track the number of times a user logs in, number of tasks created, number of records owned, number of record updates and much more. A cursory analysis of the adoption data will help identify which users are not using Salesforce to its fullest potential. A plan can be created from the dashboard data to address any concerns that may arise.
Where’s the value? One of the critical factors in high ROI Salesforce implementations is engaged users. Some employees may feel forced to use Salesforce, and other employees will be advocates of Salesforce. The advocates see Salesforce as a tool for accelerating the selling motion and that the system is working in their favor. They equate Salesforce with happier and more productive salespeople.