Salesforce the world leader in terms of CRM, is a powerful tool designed to accompany decision-makers, implementers, and executives in your organisation. It will only perform as an excellent tool that is it if it is adopted by the end-users. A few years ago, toilets were built across India, in a bid to increase the use of toilets and promote healthier habits. Ultimately, only some of these toilets were used as people used them as storage areas or offices. While this might sound like an extreme, something similar happening to your Salesforce CRM would literally mean money flushed down the drain.
One of the easiest ways to increase adoption in Salesforce is to make it more accessible through training. Salesforce can represent very unfamiliar territory for some of your internal users, including higher management. During periods of change management, which is becoming more frequent now, new approaches can seem daunting, and even more so when you are not familiar with how they work. Train your staff very early on to use Salesforce, whether they have to make a decision or develop a strategy. This will familiarise them with Salesforce and enable them to fully integrate using the CRM in their processes and strategies. Training will make Salesforce their new and best ally.
Adoption will also increase when there is a serious buy-in by those who matter the most. So pushing for early adoption by the Executive Team will lead to wider adoption across the board. This needs to be done in a very structured and somewhat imposed manner, to ensure that everyone is using Salesforce diligently and appropriately. This approach can be consolidated by further training and explaining the reasons why Salesforce is being used, how the information is being gathered and processed, and how it can be integrated into the strategic decisions. Data provided must be clean, accurate and up to date to produce the best results for all users. This type of data will also lead to increased adoption of Salesforce as teams and departments understand that good data will yield good information, which will, in turn, yield good results.
Another way to increase adoption is Salesforce is providing the users, whether they are internal or external with what they need from the CRM. While it can be described as a good all-rounder, customisation in line with requirements and results will allow users to adopt it more easily. Tabs can easily be removed and reorganised on the platform to enable a unique and tailored experience for each user. This will not only make training and use easier but will also prevent any confusion and questions from hampering the adoption and use of Salesforce. Make it their CRM and they will make it your business’ CRM.
One final way of increasing adoption in Salesforce is by breeding a Salesforce champion in the form of a Salesforce Admin. This trained Salesforce Admin will complement your existing IT team and deal with your internal users as well as external parties including Managed Services Providers, to enable a smooth and seamless operation of the platform and its integration to the business. The Admin will ensure adoption, produce the appropriate reports, update the different layouts, ensure the processes replicate your processes, and assist users in making the correct reading of the information as well as deal with any pertinent queries. They will also ensure that people get familiar and start developing the right attitude towards using the CRM, looking at it as not a ‘waste of time’ but a helpful friendly tool.
This article covered how to increase adoption in Salesforce. At Smplicity our certified team of Salesforce experts based in London and Mauritius work together to provide you with our best services.