Selling to Sales: What are the Best Strategies to Drive Adoption of Sales Force Automation (SFA) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Solutions by Sales Team Members?

User adoption programs with their associated nuggets for either SFA (stand alone) or CRM for Sales should include where/when appropriate:

- Monthly notes from the system admin to top management copying Sales team about usage calling out users on the wall of shame as well as top performers
- Top performers earn incentives such as gift cards, name on a very public board
- Executive management mention in monthly CEO letter about top performers using the tool effectively
- Quarterly Sales reviews including performance metrics tied to system use- bonuses are rewarded to those that hit or exceed those goals
- Ongoing training for all user levels- recorded, web and/or in person
- Quarterly or bi-annual tool review with Sales team(s)
- Quarterly or bi-annual tool review with Executive team(s)
- Actionable Feedback platform- feedback in weekly Sales Team meetings logged and assigned as to do when appropriate where someone is assigned the work and actually gets it done
- Voting for features/functionality- this one is very cool where end users can vote on things they want to raise priority
- Measurements for user adoption beyond logins including:
* Data completeness- how much information are the sales people filling in?
* Activity logs in the tools- stage changes, activities entered and closed, open activities on average, etc.
* Data timeliness- equate to doing laundry as you go versus letting it pile up and doing it at the last second
* Data accuracy- how many duplicates has the user entered tells me the end user is not using the tool
* Sales performance- improvements in sales performance such as increased additions to pipe, increased close rates each tied to the completeness, timeliness and accuracy of data
* Are users providing feedback or not?
* Is a user attending training or not? If so, what have they trained on
* Certification programs for user levels- I once tied a new tool everyone on the Sales team wanted to individuals completing 3 training modules and taking a quiz. Once you completed, you got access. VERY effective if the reward is enticing enough

Another interesting and quite effective soft measurement is to watch users’ physical language as they use the tool. Cringing is not good. Smiling and acting like it’s no big deal is good. Look at the weakest user, a mid range and best user to get a comparison.

Remember, garbage in, garbage out. If you cannot measure it, then why are you doing it? If users do not like the tool and do not use it, it’s a wash for everyone. Easier said than done to drive adoption high, but it certainly is possible, so do not give up!

Users want to feel that they had input in the system, so as mentioned, it's critical to get a couple of the star performers in the loop. You want people who are great sales people, who know the power of a correctly implemented system for their performance and who will be vocal in championing all the 'goodies' that the system will provide the sales folks. Have them involved in planning meeting and don't be afraid to ask what is important to them when it comes to the proposed system (changes).

Make sure that if you are converting from a prior system, that all important and relevant data is in the new system when it rolls out. Few things can have more of a damper on user buy-in and anticipation then logging in to a new system after all of the pre-show hype and discover that their leads, contact, account, calendar, is not there. And not only does it need to be in the system, care needs to be taken that it is correct!

Be sure to communicate the benefits to the end users right from early planning stages. They don't want to hear that the system is being implemented because the 'folks upstairs' are mandating it or that the VPs want to track their activities. You do not want the system to come across as 'Big Brother'. If they get a whiff of that, most of the users, and particularly the folks who may be somewhat marginal in compliance and corporate culture already, will do all that they can to passively submarine the project's adoption.

Give plenty of training, package it in a way that fits their comfort and schedule and train on what they will use, not on what they won't. Make sure to keep training. Sales based organizations with a sales team should have on their calendars recurring sale meetings. One of the items that should be on the agenda for EVERY quarterly/whatever meeting is tips and tricks/new features/etc. of the system. This helps to cement in users minds that the system is an integral part of the sales culture in the organization and that the firm is committed to the system evolving and being the best it can be and that it wants its people knowing how to best use their tools.

Have a channel of communication for suggestions and for support. Make it transparent, clearly communicated and readily available. The users in the trenches are the folks who know first when something is working, not working well enough or is just plain broken. Listen, and then do what you can to fix what needs to be fixed.

Be honest with everyone when it is obvious that something what not forseen, is broken or was poorly designed or implemented. Acknowledge the problem, and clearly communicate what actions are being done to remediate the situation.

Consider incentives for maximal compliance with system usage. Perhaps if sales leads and opportunities are entered - including are required descriptive - prior to days before they close (i.e. - no sandbagging opportunities), the rep gets an extra point or two of commission. You know what fits your organization, so tailor your compensation and incentive to fit how your firm sells.

If you have all of the other stuff mentioned in place, then you should also be in a position where use of the system is mandatory. Do not leave options for closing sales in some other fashion. Sales that have not been tracked in the system as per the clearly stated 'rules of engagement' do not pay commission. Again, fit it to your organization/culture, but the idea is, the company has worked hard - with the sales team involved - to create the best sales facilitiating system it can to date and it is a requirement that if you want to be part of this sales organization, you have to use the tool. If that doesn't work, then I guess we part ways.

My two cents.

The seeds of end user adoption are planted long before implementation. The secret is to create a sense of ownership and positive anticipation leading up to deployment.

Consider the foundational meaning of the word "adoption". When a parent "adopts" a child, they take one that belonged to another and makes them their own. By this definition, true adoption goes beyond meeting the minimum requirements to a sense of personal responsibility and expected value.

To create a sense of ownership, create a committee (whether formal or informal) that is to actively participate in shaping the process or technology being deployed. This team should have at least one representative from each role being effected. Guide them to provide input at pre-established milestones.

Be sure to listen carefully and value their input. Give them a sense of ownership. Only the true owner of a project can offer a sense of ownership to selected others. If you do this well, they will advocate the new process to their peers well before implementation. You will have actually effected the culture, which will not be easily changed.

Now, what if we still have an issue with adoption; what if 100% of your sales team members are not passionate evangelists of your process (imagine that!)?

This is where the stick comes in. The stick is to be used only when the carrot doesn't work. Willful adoption is always more effective than forced adoption.

The following guidelines will help you to continuously increase adoption:

1. Establish metrics to measure adoption AND the expected results of adoption.
2. Use the metrics you established.
3. Acknowledge those who are adopting well and highlight their positive results to their peers.
4. Point out those who are not adopting well.
5. Managers, hold your team members accountable. Manage beyond metrics. Interact with each member.
6. Executives, hold your managers accountable to holding their team members accountable.

How do you drive adoption? You don't. You inspire adoption!

Craig, Melissa and Michael have all provided excellent suggestions that will help ensure adoption.

To expand upon a point raised by Michael: He says "listen carefully and value their input". I fully agree and believe that the best time to do this is -before- choosing a vendor or implementing the system.

You can beat and bribe them into using anything, but user adoption is so much easier if they perceive it as "their" system - something that was clearly designed to address their specific needs and which provides clear value to the individual sales/support/marketing staff, not just their managers. This is why I emphasize the need for demos of your specific processes in http://www.focus.com/ugr/research/crm/how-pick-right-crm-helpdesk-bpm-vendor

You will almost always need to refine the design based on actual experience, so you should also listen to them afterwords and be able to adjust the system based on ongoing experience.

Salespeople will generally use whatever tools help them win more deals and make more money. If the CRM system saves them time, connects them to decision-makers, and yields more sales, they will use it. It's pretty simple. For example, it the CRM system offers succinct, meaningful business insight about their prospects (key contacts and their bio's, news alerts and buying triggers, competitive intelligence, insightful sales questions about their prospects' business issues, etc.), salespeople will use it rather than waste time surfing the net for same. Access Hoover's is one CRM integration tool that offers some of these benefits - and greatly improves CRM user adoption.

As VP of Sales, I had one simple rule. If the statement by sales did not match what was in the CRM system said, it did not happen. I did not care what my salesperson said.

We had 100% adoption quickly.

No need for complex rules. Just make it clear -- no data -- no help from management.

Jeff Ogden, President
Find New Customers
http://www.findnewcustomers.net

I'll agree with Jeff.
The biggest possible scare for the management is that often SFA generated report are not a true reflection of actual sales and sales pipeline. As they say 70% of CRM systems fail due to user adoption, the inertia of sales team members in using a new application is high.
Here are a few things we tried to improve the adoption; of course this is specific to our industry too:
1. Quickly integrated SFA with Outlook. Soon users had their activities updated in CRM in no time, they didn't need to separately enter any data.
2. Included stakeholder specific dashboards as the SFA home screen. Now management, business heads and sales people could immediately look at current metrics and plan their work/day.
3. Feedback; many times SFA solution seems to be a much more complex application to use than say MS Excel or Outlook. This had to change..simpler UI or task based UI (now common in most CRM systems) improves the ease of use.
4. If its not in the CRM; its not on the report. The goes back as a feedback to leadership too.
5. CRM Adoption Dashboards offer an ability to track how different users are leading and lagging behind on SFA usage. This may be linked to KRAs of the team.
6. Simple but effective...desk placards or desktop wallpapers summarising how to do common tasks on the SFA make life easier for the sales team.

Ankur Mehrotra

You have to provide the “what’s in it for me”. You want your sales associates to want to use your SFA/CRM and not just login occasionally to comply with corporate mandates. To achieve this, the system must make them more productive, more effective, and reduce their administrative burden. After all, we all want them to have more time to do what they do best – sell!

Provide them good leads that have been vetted and timely triggers to let them know when a prospect has downloaded a white paper from your website or senior management changes have occurred at a prospect. Eliminate ancillary spreadsheets and paperwork by tracking everything through the system – and don’t allow your sales leaders to ask them to do double-entry by completing spreadsheets. Make them enter only what is truly needed and derive information from other sources where possible. Provide them an easy way to collaborate with their peers and share best practices and lessons learned. When they tell you who they are competing with, provide them with competitor information and success stories on what has worked in the past. Maintain a robust library of references and client testimonials they can easily access and utilize. Give them an easy way to research their prospects and find key contacts. Let them access the system on a smartphone, to give them anywhere, anytime access whenever they need it. In a nutshell, make the SFA/CRM so easy to use and invaluable to them that they want – and need – to use it everyday to be successful.

I wrote a blog post on this very subject - based on a multi-national rollout.
(http://real-crm-advice.blogspot.com/2009/11/getting-sales-force-to-use-crm-sy...). I quite like some of the ideas above too, especially keeping things simple. I don't think there is any "one size fits all" approach, just a set of individual tools in your toolbag you can pull out as needed.

The key points of my post is pasted below:

The SFA system had a three month pilot - longer than normal. A few pilot users found that being able to enter customer interactions the same day they occurred helped later sales calls, and that ranking the people they talked to by influence and decision-making power helped their sales closing - and that the mere fact of entering this data made them think more critically about where to spend their efforts.

These users were persuaded to talk to the rest of the sales force at the national sales meeting - the combination of “stick” (management says: do it!) and “carrot” (my fellow rep made more money this way!) led to about 80% compliance the first two months. (Typical compliance was under 50% to start for other countries.)

Compliance for the rest of the reps was a matter of management attention backed up by custom reporting. I designed a report that only showed date and time of day of data entry; it was an eye-opener as it showed who was entering a bunch of data late Sunday night, instead of all week as they were supposed to.

There are three necessary strategies, and they are all somewhat related. The first is training. I continue to be surprised by how many organizations roll-out major SFA and CRM initiatives without properly (or effectively) training the sales force and management. My firm's last two projects were to develop training for CRM's that had rolled out over a year ago, and either the company never trained the staff or the training was so poor that they needed to do it again. And one tip: rarely, can you simply rely on the vendor's training.

The second is communication, which others expressed in similar posts. Again, I am surprised by how many organizations make these tremendous commitments that will change the way everyone does business without telling everyone what they are doing and why they are doing it! Tip: communicate, communicate, over-communicate.

Finally, no one likes change. Everyone loves the legacy system, right. You know, the one they were complaining about last month! Well, change becomes easier when you feel like you are not the first one. Communicate (there's that word again) successes of colleagues using the new system. If so-and-so is using it, it can't be all that bad.

So its train, communicate and promote success.

This is fairly simply. User adoption. If you can not demonstrate that your CRM application is a lot easier to use then their current "status que" they will resist any new software package an employer tries to deploy.
A salesperson's job first and foremost is to insure that the customers employees and end users are going to use the product it's that simple otherwise you have a wasted investment, an unhappy customer and a rebellious group of employees.