User adoption can be the Achilles heel of CRM implementations, not addressed until the tail-end of the project.
Many drivers of digital transformation often get excited and passionate about implementing a piece of technology but don’t include the end user. This can mean that the sales team ends up failing to use the very technology that can make their life easier.
User adoption can be frustrating but it doesn’t have to be. It all depends on how you approach the situation and the tools you provide to drive the user adoption of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales.
Tips for successful end-user adoption
Here are some quick tips for successful end-user adoption for a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales project:
Let the end user own it!
Meeting with the users working with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales is one of the most underrated tasks that need to be done. They will work with the solution for most of their daily business tasks. Therefore, it is crucial to listen to the process from the end user’s perspective and listen for keywords/phrases like: “It would be nice if…” or “I wish we could…”
This will establish a better understanding of the process you need to re-engineer and solve pain points for. And, importantly, give ownership to the team that will adopt the new process.
Best practices are not universal
Users can just adopt the best practices for the out-of-the-box Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales you implemented, right? Not quite. Every organization uses different processes to service their customers and most processes have been implemented separately to achieve the highest level of effectiveness for that task.
Therefore, it is important to develop a best practice guide unique to the specific process entity. This gives the users a resource to review for all processes throughout the system.
Be creative with your training
Rather than have the end users read through guides as thick as tree trunks, save some paper and adopt a more creative approach. By creating a library of short videos and walking the user through the most common tasks for each department, you’re creating an asset for the whole company for the future. This can also increase the company’s return on investment for their new Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, by decreasing training time for new employees, enabling streamlined training for all relevant business processes, and enhancing user knowledge of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales and service applications.
Video assets provide an excellent foundation for teaching the best practices within Dynamics 365 Sales for specific organizational processes. Giving users the resources they need will instill confidence in the new re-engineered processes will drive successful user adoption.
How to increase CRM User Adoption
Choose a user-friendly CRM
The best way to get your staff to use a new CRM is to make it easy to use. Some proportion of your staff will be naturally digitally savvy but there will inevitably also be a proportion who are great at their jobs but not great with technology. But if a user-friendly CRM is provided, even the technophobes will be inclined to rapidly embrace it.
Create a change-management strategy
As with many business objectives, it’s always a good idea to crystallize what exactly it is you want to achieve and when you want to achieve it. For instance, you might commit to having all senior sales, marketing and customer-service staff trained to use the CRM by the end of the month and have all staff trained to use it by the end of the quarter.
User training
Skimping when it comes to staff training is usually a false economy and this is certainly the case when it comes to introducing a CRM. (Even if it’s a user-friendly CRM.) Most reputable providers, including Microsoft, provide plenty of e-learning resources. But it’s up to employers or managers to ensure staff are given sufficient time to watch the relevant videos and complete the relevant modules and to then confirm their staff have acquired the necessary competency.
Don’t forget new employees
On the above point, there is often a big investment in staff training (either the e-learning or person-to-person variety) when a CRM is introduced but little attention is then paid to training up new hires. Make sure CRM training becomes part of the onboarding process rather than assuming new employees will somehow acquire the necessary skills by osmosis.
Reward users
Salespeople would seem to be highly incentivized to embrace any technology that could result in larger monthly commissions but even they can drag their feet about embracing a new CRM system. A minimum-wage earning customer service staffer who feels overworked and underpaid may be even less inclined to exert themselves. That being the case, a modest investment in rewarding (think gift cards, time off, or bonus payments) those who get with the CRM program can yield large and lasting dividends. If you want to include a bit of stick along with the carrots, you can always make appropriate utilization of the CRM as one of the KPIs employees are expected to meet.
Why is your current CRM failing?
Ask staff why they haven’t warmed to a CRM that has been introduced with great fanfare and you’ll typically get a range of reasonable-sounding responses. You’ll be told it doesn’t have the right features, or it’s difficult to impossible to integrate with other commonly used systems, or that it’s time-consuming and frustrating to use.
To be fair, not all CRMs are created equal. In some cases, the criticisms of your staff may have some validity. But with an industry-leading CRM such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, the problem is much more likely to be that staff haven’t been trained properly to find the features they need and quickly locate the data and insights they are looking for.
The solution to this problem isn’t installing a different CRM. As flagged above, it’s making a plan to comprehensively train up staff on using the existing CRM and then executing that plan.
How Flintech can help in Successful CRM User Adoption
Flintech is a long-time Microsoft Gold Partner with lots of experience in helping a wide range of businesses implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales. As well as handling the nuts-and-bolts side of implementing Microsoft solutions, our expert staff can also help business owners and executives design staff-training programs that are appropriate for the needs of their particular business.
Final takeaway
Even the most powerful technological tool is rendered useless if nobody wants to use it. Chances are, once they make the upfront investment of time and effort in mastering a CRM, your staff won’t understand how they used to get their jobs done without it. But you’ll probably have to give them a bit of a nudge to get the CRM-use ball rolling.
Want to ensure your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales project is adopted successfully? Flintech can help. Book a free consultation with us today to find out more.
