The Importance Of Ongoing Adoption
Imagine you are back in grade school and learning the multiplication tables for the first time. The purpose of which is to arrive at a conclusion when confronted by a basic mathematical problem. Now imagine if the teacher who taught this to you only showed it to you just once, and at every occurrence thereafter you would have to remember it. While there are some who may have the power to memorize it the first time around, the majority of us would need to refer back and study the tables in order to get a foothold on its utility.
In its elementary form, this simple example demonstrates the importance of ongoing adoption, and in the case of your Salesforce CRM, the term ‘ongoing’ is meant to be placed in its truest form as the platform is an ever-evolving system with changes being made all the time. While many executives may see Salesforce in similar fashion to other software applications, it can be forgiven to consider that training them in one sitting, or over a few days would be sufficient. However, with CRM as the enterprise-wide tool to serve the organization, there are many facets which it serves and as such why an ongoing training regimen is essential.
Staff Changes
Regardless of the software package or application within your enterprise, it is standard operating procedure to invoke some sort of onboarding for new staff as they come on board… emphasis on the word ‘standard’. But what of the existing staff who may take on a different role, or perhaps contractors / suppliers.
While there may be a company-wide initiative to train new sales / marketing members based on the influx of new staff (usually spearheaded through HR), it is imperative for the growth of your Salesforce investment to also include others who ‘move into’ these new areas, but may not check the ‘new staff’ moniker. The specifics based on the HR software or internal process may need to be updated, but such an upgrade is well worth it compared to the ‘after-effects’ which would surely be evident later on down the trail.
Consider for instance if a person within the company who for years held a position which did not require Salesforce and moved into a new role which required access to your CRM. Technically this user may not be under the classification of ‘new staff’, but they should be on-boarded in exactly the same way… even better if this can be ‘headed off at the pass’ prior to moving into their new position so this can be managed within the team’s calendar. This is but one example but the same applies to seasonal workers, sub-contractors, partners and others.
Salesforce Changes
3 times per year, Salesforce provides admins with their latest features through their Service Notifications. As some of these changes may apply to specific users (or more specifically users who utilize certain objects) working these latest goodies into your training need not be a hassle, so long as you prepare for it. In the weeks running up to the release, Salesforce provides written (and sometimes live videos) showing what is to come in the new release so you can prepare the material for your staff.
In order to make the job of incorporating these new features into your training system the easiest and most impactful, making every user (regardless of the permission or profile) aware of them will leave no stone unturned. While this may seem counterproductive to some, the time taken to filter each of the new items in the latest release to a specific profile will usually mean much more time spent on development of your next training presentation. Instead, why not show all the latest updates to all, and let your users adopt the ‘shopping cart method’ giving them the ability to take what they need and leave what they don’t. For those that wish to learn more about any aspect of your CRM, Salesforce offers a top-shelf education system called Trailhead, where your users can search and enroll in over 650 modules.
Object / Application Changes
Chances are that your Salesforce instance will go well beyond the standard Sales Cloud / Service Cloud options that are provided out of the box. In fact, chances are that many of the custom objects developed within your enterprise came through either discovery or a dire need to solve a real problem. Either way, the applications available within your CRM today are no doubt different than they were a year ago (or perhaps even 6 months back).
Now, taking into account your changing workforce, if a single training session was allocated a year ago, some of your users may not be aware of the ‘newer’ objects which they could benefit from…. or worse… they may have been shown by a newer member of the team not realizing it was added. This is a major issue with some firms that follow a basic training program but receive no ongoing adoption thereafter and to shore-up this problem could not be easier.
Tying this all together, each person who is given access to Salesforce should, at a minimum, receive a thorough session on how the CRM works prior to the license being issued. But in leaving no stone unturned, the real ROI in terms of payback for your Salesforce investment comes via regular sessions so as to ensure everyone keeps current with the new features, objects and other changes of the CRM which (depending on the size of your organization) should be done once per quarter, or 4 times/year.
Organizing these events need only be done at one sitting so that ahead of time they are organized in your calendar. In the weeks ahead, set notifications to alert the teams well ahead of time to account for vacations and other commitments as people’s calendars fill up quickly. Yes, it takes extra effort up-front to work this into your calendar, but the value will be realized in not having to concern yourself at the 11th hour.
Following these steps are not easy, but they are simple and will get easier each time they are practiced, but if not initiated, the overall value may never be realized. Just the fact that you are reading this post proves you are willing to do more for yourself, and for your organization as many are content with letting training take care of itself, which is nothing short of a recipe for disaster. Be it Salesforce adoption, purchasing a property or even a birthday party, the more preparation and effort you put in, the better the results and the less volatile your delivery will be.
Title image by Yayoi Kusam | Trailhead by Salesforce.com
