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How do you boost CRM end-user adoption rates?
What are the best practices for boosting CRM end-user adoption rates? High quality responses will be published in an upcoming report on CRM, and will receive significant promotion across the Focus network.
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7 Answers
We have found that the best way for organizations to “boost” and then “sustain” high CRM user adoption is to develop and implement a comprehensive user adoption strategy. Most CRM failures occur when organizations take a Go-Live centric approach to CRM (on-time & on-budget delivery of technology), without taking the necessary actions to drive and sustain user adoption over the life of the system.
It is important to recognize that user adoption is all about changing user behaviors, it is not about technology. The skills and methods you use to change behavior are very different than those required to build and deliver effective CRM systems. This means that the people who lead and manage your CRM system implementation may not be (and probably are not) the right people to lead the user adoption program.
Here are some (though not all) key elements of a CRM user adoption program:
1. ASSIGN OWNERSHIP FOR CRM ADOPTION - Give a senior executive overall accountability, authority, and required resources to drive and sustain CRM adoption. Make this a meaningful portion of the executive’s performance & bonus criteria to ensure they are properly motivated to put in the time and resources required to make the CRM project a success.
2. DEFINE CRM SUCCESS – Define success in terms of user adoption, business value creation, and ROI. Determine specific CRM success measures (quantitative and qualitative) and align all employees’ performance management plans (and rewards) to these goals.
3. ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS – Conduct a comprehensive analysis of your organization to identify all of the key factors that encourage or inhibit CRM adoption. This includes looking at policies, processes, reward systems, communication activities, job descriptions, leadership, and existing user attitudes and behaviors. Use this information to shape your overall CRM adoption strategy.
4. SHIFT FROM "USER RESISTANCE" TO "REMOVE BARRIERS" – Make clear distinctions between instances of user resistance vs. organizational barriers that prevent adoption. Many people fall in the trap of “blaming the users” for not adopting CRM when often times there are organizational barriers – that fall outside of the users’ control – that prevent users from adopting the CRM system.
5. FACILITATE ADOPTION – Take specific actions before, during, and after go-live to facilitate full and effective user adoption. Communications and training are necessary, but not even close to sufficient, for driving effective user adoption. (This is an example where you may need a different skill set to drive adoption. If you are not sure what else you need to do to “facilitate adoption” this may mean that you do not have the right skills and/or right methodology for driving user adoption. You may want to consultant an outside user adoption expert for help.)
6. MEASURE & EVOLVE – Measure user adoption at regularly scheduled intervals, update CRM adoption goals, identify specific CRM adoption activities to be completed, and adjust your CRM adoption program as necessary to ensure your CRM system is meeting current and future ROI goals.
Implementing an effective CRM adoption program is not easy and it does take time, resources, and User Adoption expertise. Nonetheless, with a commonly reported CRM failure rate near 70%, it is clear that organizations need to take action to protect their CRM investments. In the future I believe you will find more organizations implementing comprehensive CRM user adoption programs as part of all CRM initiatives.
For additional information and resources on user adoption, check out our blog at www.TriTuns.com .
It has to become a part of the culture and shown to be a priority from the top of the organization (very key, from the top). Here are a few best practices that I think boost adoption:
Training - you have to invest in training and make sure the end-users know the product well and know the short-cuts and power features. This is probably the piece most left out and one of the largest reasons for failure. CRM may be easy and intuitive but to expect a busy team to take the time to learn the ins and outs is a recipe for failure. (Record the training for future staff OR plan to have regular tune-up trainings)
Process - as part of that training or separate if leveraging non-customized training a well documented process needs to be created and communicated to explain exactly what the expectations of use are and the methods for how to use. A key to the process, keep it simple. Once the usage matures you can always add in the "nice to have" elements of the process. Start with the minimum to get adoption built into the culture.
Reporting - establish communication to the team through reporting (and it needs to be regular and consistent). Show the success of the process and how adopting the system is trigging better success in the sales cycle. If the reports are not showing that then you may need to take that feedback and go back and look at the process.
Reward - In a public forum give praise to the Top 3,5, 10 that have the top metrics coming from the system. Metrics shouldn't just be meaningless usage stats but things relevant to sales, "Shortest Average Closure Time", "Top Sales Volume" "Top Transactions", whatever is relevant to your sales cycle. Pull the stats from the system and apply the peer pressure of success and praise. If your team doesn't respond to that then add monetary prizes for the Top X winners per the CRM reports above (and feel free to add some fluff prizes like "most logins, most entries, etc".)
Should the carrots above not work, then it may be time to start the sticks.
Establish policies that no comp (or reduce comp) on sales that are not properly entered into the CRM and within certain time frames (eliminate the day before closure pipeline entry).
Set some MBO (management by objective) goals to the performance review such as accurate and timely updates to the CRM and link performance reviews to compensation.
And ultimately if nothing works, have a frank discussion with the end users that goes something like this "We have a process that we think makes us successful. You have 2 choices, you can follow our process and if things are not closing, we can work with you to help improve it OR you can do it your way and if you're successful great, if not then you won't last long"
I'm not going to recommend you remove a successful salesperson who refuses to use the system, but I'm absolutely recommending you remove an unsuccessful salesperson who refuses to use the system.
If nothing else, removing an unsuccessful salesperson with the reason of non-use of the CRM will create a legend that will spread and trigger better adoption for years to come. :-).
The simplest way to engage people with CRM is to set compensation and progress objectives as dependent upon their status in your CRM solution.
A simple example is, "you won't be paid on a deal that isn't in the CRM solution".
It sounds harsh, but this is one tie that seems to center the desired behavior.
It all comes down to 4 simple items - and most of these are "management issues", not "system issues".
(1) TOP DOWN BUY IN.
If your upper management isn't using the system or doesn't understand it, then I would say they dont' really care about it. And this perception will be felt throughout the user base. The last thing you want is for users to feel like the CRM is simply an accountability system or only for the pawns of the company.
(2) IMMEDIATE EXPECTATIONS.
People need to get over the usage hump immediately. Don't wait one or two weeks. Bottom line, this is change, and it is definitely uncomfortable. If you let down your expectations at the beginning, then forget about your success! At the beginning they have gone through training and it is somewhat fresh in their minds. If they don't implement the knowledge immediately, then they will forget it within a few days.
(3) NICE GUY MANAGER
This goes hand in hand with the above point. If you aren't willing to ruffle some feathers, then kiss your investment goodbye. This is particularly challenging when it comes to employees with longevity, especially successful sales reps. They feel like they don't need to use the system. And you are scared to make them upset. Keep in mind that if you allow those exceptions, then the other users will also find a way to use the system less than needed. I guarantee you that your CRM project will fail if you like being Mr. Nice Guy.
(4) USAGE REPORTS
You can easily create some usage reports. KPIs can include the following:
- Who is entering the most/least activities?
- Who is entering the most/least new records?
- Who is logging the most/least histories or notes?
- etc...
You get the picture. Create some simple KPI's and look at them each week. If you like, you can even automate a report that will get emailed to the users - showing them who is and is not really using the system. There is power in peer pressure.
But these KPI reports are not just useful for accountability. They, more importantly, reveal areas where the users do not feel comfortable with the system. This provides an excellent opportunity to do refresher trainings. We recommend weekly refreshers at the beginning of each CRM implementation. Keep these refreshers focused on the areas of the system that employees are not really using. Ask them if why they aren't using these functions. You might be surprised at their answers! Then you can launch into your explanation.
Without going into lengthy discussions, I'd say make it so that it helps users in doing their jobs better, and not so that it only serves to meet management reporting needs. Too many solutions are focused on management needs, and not on adding value to the user (finding information and expertise faster, understanding customer contexts, keeping track of interactions and not only transactions etc.)
An old SFA sage once told me in the early 90's that you must make it easier to do it right using the system than not using the system :)
Jason really wraps up what's needed in a clear, enumerated bundle. I would particularly highlight #2. DEFINE CRM SUCCESS. This is the one piece typically left out of an implementation plan. There may be data flow diagrams, process charts, and benchmarks, but if specific tests for success are absent, there is no way to tell when you're done.
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