Getting Your Salesforce Users to Embrace the Change

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As part of Month of Adoption, we’re taking a deeper dive into how you can get your users to embrace change so they start using Salesforce.  And, bonus: we’re learning how the Salesforce User Adoption Services team can help!

If you build it, they will come

If you build it, the odds are that some users will use it. But if you put thought into why those users should use it and ensure they understand the benefits, you’ll increase those odds exponentially. When employed as a holistic approach, user adoption of new CRM technology and the accompanying processes is far more successful. By ensuring leadership alignment, stakeholder engagement, clear communications and custom training, the organization can build anticipation by setting clear expectations for users to adopt the impending changes. It is the culmination of these efforts that we in User Adoption Services know drive success.

Tips for embracing the change

1. Identify leads from organization to support change management, communications and training.
Just as critical as it is to have a project manager on a project, it is equally important to identify an individual or individuals to help support these areas. Create clear responsibilities and objectives for the identified lead(s), such as creating the change management and training plans, defining next steps/actions and creating a timeline.

2. Identify the stakeholder groups that will be directly or indirectly impacted by the change.
Often we forget about the users that won’t be directly impacted by a change, so it’s crucial to think through everyone that the changes may touch. For example, a process that affects a Sales User may also indirectly affect someone in Legal or Finance. Understand each group’s priorities and concerns by conducting interviews or surveys. Develop an action plan to engage the stakeholders moving forward.

3. Create a plan for clear, consistent, and targeted messaging.
Based on the stakeholders identified, create a time-based plan to ensure users are kept up to speed on the impending changes, the benefits they’ll bring, and important dates such as UAT, Training, Go-Live, etc.

4. Conduct a Change Impact Assessment.
Based on the stakeholders identified, assess the way users do business today compared to how they will do business in the future. Determine the magnitude of that change and how it will impact users and create a mitigation plan for change management/training activities and communications that can help prepare users for the new expectations and ways of working.

5. Survey your users.
Who better to give you feedback than the individuals that are using the system. Ask your users for fresh ideas, feedback on processes, have they received enough training, would they like to know more. Publish a summary of the results with actions/next steps to provide transparency to your users.

6. Establish metrics that will measure the success of the implementation.
Think through what success looks like to your organization and start small. Are users using the tool? Are users creating records? Then move on to data quality. Are users entering the information that they need to? Are users following the new processes in Salesforce? Lastly, what sort of KPIs or business metrics show the impact of Salesforce.

7. Develop a clear training path for all of the roles impacted.
Utilize the stakeholder analysis to determine a set of roles that will need to be trained and develop custom training paths for each. Based on the paths, determine the type of training that will be delivered – Instructor Led, Virtual, Jobs Aids, E-Learning, Trailhead, etc. Create a plan to maintain the documentation as additional updates are made to the system and provide refresher training, as needed.

8. Develop a post-implementation support process.
Determine how users will be able to ask questions, get answers, or make suggestions. For example, will you use Chatter, Cases, Super Users, or local support?

User Adoption Services

User Adoption Services (UAS) employs a multi-dimensional approach to user adoption through change management best practices and custom training, thus ensuring the success of our customers.

Would you like to learn more about user adoption or custom training and the services we provide? Reach out to your Trailhead Account Executive for more information! Fill out this form to get started.

Additional Resources

Salesforce Adoption Dashboards on the Appexchange
User Adoption Services

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