The adoption of customer relationship management (CRM) software has immovably risen over the last couple of decades. Now we find ourselves in a CRM era, in which most companies are using a CRM solution to manage their majority of sales and marketing activities. However, the biggest challenge when implementing a CRM for many companies is its user adoption rate.
Why is CRM user adoption important?
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Collecting and organizing actionable customer data is an important part of your sales and marketing activities, and one that requires a lot of effort. As such, user adoption in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is a must for any business that wants to make the process more efficient and enhance its customer satisfaction to the next level. CRM offers a number of advantages that will help its users to identify, understand, and assist your clients, so that you’ll never have to worry about losing revenue as a result of incomplete data.
Here are five CRM adoption best practices that will increase usage to improve the results of your sales and marketing efforts and drive faster, more sustainable revenue growth.
Establish your leadership involvement & project team
Before you get to the design phase of CRM, it’s crucial you establish a good CRM project team. Consider the departments you need to be represented among users. Define and invite them. Establish what level of leadership you need involved day-to-day or to steer the project. Whoever is a part should play a consistent role throughout your CRM project.
Design and plan your system
Your CRM system’s design components are critical for gaining user adoption. Survey your users to know what requirements and objectives you should establish in your CRM system. Consider the cross-departmental impacts of your final design. Make CRM a one-stop-shop for all.
Establish a “Phased Approach”
You’ll never get a chance to make a second impression with CRM. When introducing it to users, don’t overwhelm them with too much information at once. Focus on quick Wins. Keep it simple without over-engineering. CRM is a journey. Enjoy (and be patient with) the process!
Identify Guidelines
Failure to prepare and train your CRM users will almost always guarantee failed user adoption. Prevent this from the start and don’t wait until the end to start providing them a CRM education. Training sessions can start during the pre-rollout phase, remotely or in-person. Don’t give users an excuse to not be trained!
Communicate early on
Start to tell your team about CRM early on. One key with achieving user’s adoption is for everyone to have a positive attitude about CRM. The sooner you get users on the same page, the more likely they are to adopt and embrace the system.
Despite the recent growth in the demand for CRM software’s, the cases of user adoption failure are also not very uncommon. In order to be successful, you need to take action to protect your CRM investments. By following some of the tried and true best practices above, we are sure that you will come far.