Getting Users Excited About Using Salesforce
Nothing is more frustrating than building an intricate, time saving, efficient system that no one wants to use. Users who are used to doing things a certain way do not necessarily want to change, especially if it seems like more work, has a huge learning curve, and does not personally provide them any incentive for doing the process another way. Change management can be a little tougher than it seems but investing time and energy on adoption strategies early in the process will have a big pay off. Here are a few tips and strategies that I have seen, picked up at Dreamforce in the past, and personally implemented. Any system administrator or manager rolling out Salesforce can use these to get users to be more open and excited about using Salesforce.
Early Buy-in
The earlier you can get users involved and invested, the better. That includes all stakeholders who will be using the platform. Providing a glimpse of what it looks like, how it will be used, and how it will save time, is so important to transitioning users from one system to another. If there are opportunities for users to take a test drive in a sandbox environment, it would be a great way to demystify the system very early on. Of course, emphasizing the efficiencies and time saving that each user will experience (via periodic recorded screen-share or webinar updates, for example) will engage users and possibly get them excited to try out this new system even if it’s different than what they are used to using.
Comprehensive Training
I cannot emphasize enough that all trainings should be hands-on as much as possible. The more users can do during the training, the faster they will learn and transition into using the system. Let them see and try their full process in action from start to finish, ask questions, and most importantly voice concerns. You might not be able to remedy their concerns right away but knowing where the challenges are puts you as the manager or system administrator in a better position to address it on the spot and find a solution. Also, begin to foster collaboration during the training via Chatter (within records directly) or Chatter groups so that users can support each other and really feel comfortable using Salesforce right from the start.
Resources & Support
In the first several months, providing users full support is also key. As users are transitioning, if they don’t have someone to help them remedy concerns or issues immediately and quickly, they will more easily become frustrated with the system and possibly have a negative connotation with it. Having easy to use user guides or quick tutorials specific to a users processes are also super helpful especially if there are steps they may not do as often as others. Sometimes guides can get long and bulky and it can become extremely difficult to find answers to quick questions. The more that you can break out the information and provide links to jump to those sections (something the Salesforce release notes does oh so well), the more likely users will turn to these resources to help them. As users get more comfortable, you can also begin to direct them to the Salesforce’s Help and Training to get more general support on the features themselves.
Showing Effort (via dashboards) & Providing Rewards
Who doesn’t love being acknowledged or praised for their hard work? Make an effort to reward users who are doing great things with their work, with Salesforce, or with supporting other colleagues (the list is endless). You can use great tools and/or platforms like Work.com, which actually allows you to design and give badges for great accomplishments. How cool is that? I still get so happy every time I get one. These are really great ways to publicly let an individual and their colleagues know that he/she performed well. Also, sometimes a little competition becomes fun and exciting too. Use dashboards to show how individuals teams or users are doing in different areas of the work in comparisons to others. Let this be the 1st things users see when they login into Salesforce. Who wants to see that they have the lowest # of sales or activities records?
End-users are some of the most critical stakeholders in the success of launching, scaling, and maintaining a Salesforce initiative. So the more that you can invest in not just teaching them what they have to do but getting them actively involved and seeing the benefits of the new system, the more they will want to use the system.
If there are other user adoption tips that you would like to share, please feel free to comment below, on the Salesforce Success Community, on our facebook page, or directly at me on Twitter @sylviacabral44.
