Imagine - you are an analyst. You were one of the key people to evaluate Salesforce, contributed significantly to business process maps, design and all the way up to implementation. Everything was ready, your senior execs had given the thumbs-up for go-live. One month after go-live you realise that the number of opportunities that should have been created by the sales teams is significantly low and the sales metrics are way down.

What went wrong? Well, your end users have decided not to use Salesforce - too much effort to learn the new system, old ways were better, need to spend too much time to enter data and it goes on and on. Sound familiar?

End user adoption is the key to a successful Salesforce.com implementation.

“User resistance and lack of user support is the main reason why change programs like Salesforce fail 70% of the time” - McKinsey study

Here are 4 best practices for driving end-user adoption in Salesforce-

1. Make Salesforce’s Importance Known to End Users

Show the importance of using Salesforce and what advantages it brings. Make it mandatory for all to use Salesforce.

• By aligning Salesforce platform with the business process, show the end user how the process can be enhanced with the help of Salesforce.

• Explain all the disadvantages of not using the platform.

• Use the concept of WIIFM value proposition to make your case

What’s In It For Me Value Proposition (WIIFM) - The WIIFM is a popular strategy which summarizes why a user needs to use the service or buy a product. WIIFM value proposition gives users a clear understanding of how it benefits them.

2. Training is the Key - Hands-on and Day-in-the-life-of

You can’t just convince end users to adopt Salesforce unless you show them the functionalities it actually provides. It is not just giving the tool to the user, a proper training needs to be given on the platform.

• Develop a customized Training Plan.

• Training should be made mandatory.

• Engage the audience and make them participate in the training sessions.

• Training should also be followed by some sessions with the experts where all the doubts can be clarified.

• Use Hands-on training and DITL methods to enhance the training process.

Hands-On Training - This is a method of training which goes by the motto - “Learning by Doing”. In this, people are not only trained to learn about the task but also perform that task simultaneously. Users also participate in Acceptance Testing where they get to check whether System meets requirements as per the requirement specifications or not. This Testing is done in a QA/Training environment similar to a production environment. This method is productive because users get the experience of working on a near-live environment.

DITL (Day-In-The-Life of) - This is a unique approach that helps to design trainings specific to a business function and role. It is especially effective in training end users on Salesforce. Divide your end users by business function like sales, marketing, operations, and more. Then take roles - Sales Representative, MD of Sales. The features that a sales representative will access will be very different from the ones that the MD of Sales will need. Design DITL trainings that reflect

• The tasks and activities that the particular role will perform like entering a new opportunity or updating an existing opportunity

• Have videos and screenshots that show how a particular task can be done on Salesforce.

• Make these flows available to the teams for them to practice and refer to.

3. Choose the right Champions

Without the right level of support, user adoption is not easy to achieve. Choose the right individuals to lead the teams. They help users realize the full functionality of Salesforce.

• A person who is an expert in Salesforce is the best choice of Salesforce admin. He should be able to maintain the Salesforce within your organization. He also acts as a coach who makes others become experts within Salesforce. He should have the right kind of mentality and should be able to inspire others about using Salesforce.

• In addition to that, vital individuals should be identified who knows the importance of Salesforce as Champions in your organization. They help to not only build advocacy but can actually help in motivating other users to use Salesforce.

4. Use Gamification Techniques to make the Process Fun and Rewarding

This process can be made fun and engaging by introducing some techniques like Gamification. Gamification is a concept of driving and influencing behaviour based on the concepts of game mechanics and social computing. Gamification taps into the competitive nature amongst individuals and motivates them to be more productive.

These are some simple techniques that you can utilize:

• A sales person gets 100 points each time he creates an opportunity in Salesforce. Assign some points for every activity. Important activities get higher points. As the opportunity moves through the different phases, assign points for every update.

• Display the score of every individual on a leaderboard. You can have several leaderboards, depending on how you are driving the adoption

• Reward top performers with badges and appreciation.

There are different aspects of gamification that can be used at different stages of adoption. A lot is governed by the release plan. Create your communication strategy, training plan and embed gamification techniques to achieve a highly effective end-user adoption.




Want to learn more about gamification? Read the below articles

The Psychology of Sales Gamification

Gamification and Employee Engagement: the Why and the How

Accelerate Your Sales Performance Through Gamification

Improve Employee Engagement of your Remote Teams with Gamification




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