Tips and Resources on Adoption from the Awesome Admin Community

Throughout the last few weeks, we’ve been asking you to share your favorite resources and insights into how you blaze new trails to drive Salesforce adoption. And, of course, you delivered! Now, we want to share all the community goodness back with you, our trailblazin’ #AwesomeAdmins. See what your fellow Salesforce Admins have said, and take away some valuable tips to help drive adoption at your company.

Get buy-in and manage change

On January 10, we hosted our Adoption webinar with Amber Boaz and Mike Gerholdt. During the live webinar, we posted polls about adoption practices in the Trailblazer Community to get your input. We learned that the biggest roadblock most Admins face is users not feeling that they have time to use Salesforce correctly, and users not seeing the value in using the platform. This tells us that their users haven’t ‘bought-in.’

However, there are other reasons too. Christine Marshall commented that the roadblocks differ based on the type of user. Michelle Hansen says that adoption is always a work in progress and there need to be consequences for not using the tool correctly.

So, what are the resources you can use to overcome these challenges as an admin?

1. ? An easy and effective way to address value and platform knowledge is to check out the recording of the Drive Adoption of Salesforce at Your Company webinar with Amber Boaz. She does an amazing job giving practical advice for all Admins like, “Remember, you and your co-workers are on the same team! You have the same goal—you are working towards the growth of your organization.”

2. ? Ready to implement an adoption strategy, but not sure if you’re ready to manage change in your org? Ian Gotts says, “Adoption starts at the BEGINNING of the project, and starts with engaging stakeholders in the changes that are required.” He published The Top 6 Reasons Why Change Fails, which is a valuable read for any Salesforce Admin looking to drive adoption.

3. ? Deepa Patel created Go Faster: How to Gather Requirements to Boost Adoption. Her presentation is a perfect starting point to kick off your adoption strategy and give yourself positive momentum.

Measure and report

In order to gauge how successful your adoption tactics are, you’ll need to have tools in place to measure and report. Do this, and you’ll show your leadership and stakeholders that Salesforce is a valuable asset to your business.

So where do you start?

According to our webinar poll, user logins are the preferred way for Salesforce Admins to track adoption in their orgs.

However, there are many different metrics you can use to track adoption depending on your org and company. So, focus on metrics that reflect adoption at your company specifically. A good place to start is with the Salesforce Adoption Dashboards pack on the AppExchange.

1. ? Check out D’An Ervin on the Salesforce Admins podcast talking about driving adoption as a solo admin. She shares valuable insight about building trust and setting clear expectations. D’An says, “Tell them exactly what’s going to happen, and then make sure that you follow through on what you say.”

2. ? For another perspective, give Laura Maker’s blog post a read on Cloud4good.com. She discusses how communication is a strong tool to help drive adoption.

Train and incentivize

And now, take action! Our third, and final, poll showed that 84% of Admins found success with in-person/in-office classes or workshops for training. So, what does this mean for you and your org?

But, training and incentivizing your team to continue and increase adoption doesn’t have to feel like a full-time job. So, how should you continue to drive adoption in your org with the resources and strategies we’ve covered above?

1. ? In order to make the most of incentivizing your team with in-person resources and training that work for them, without taking up a ton of time, give this case study by Operations Director at Vittana, Nicholas Merriam a read.
2. ? You’ll also want to see these two amazing #DF17 sessions about training:

Innovate How You Educate Your End Users by Rebe de la Paz—Rebe shares her best advice for strategic burst training, communications using Salesforce, developing an ongoing training schedule— making it all fun, too!

Deliver Training on Lightning Experience—Without Breaking Into a Sweat by David Giller—David offers a unique perspective on simple, effective and flexible processes for rolling out your Salesforce training to your end users without purchasing any additional tools, apps or plugins.

They are just a few more resources that are sure to help you feel confident as you move forward with training and incentivizing your team with Salesforce adoption.

Month of Adoption

Now that you’ve had a chance to review these resources and gain confidence on your own adoption strategy, be sure to continue your positive momentum with us. We’ve been sharing resources and content all month long to help you be the best #AwesomeAdmin you can be at driving ??adoption in your company. Check them out here.

Don’t forget to share your own adoption tips, stories, and resources with us on social! Tweet us with the hashtag #SalesforceAdoption.