There are many reasons why organizations look for a new Sales Force Automation (SFA) tool, lack of good user adoption is a predominant one for many organizations to look for an alternate system to what they have currently.
As organizations, when you first implement a new or different solution, focusing on change management and user adoption is clearly a key first step in doing that. Some usual steps in doing these are listed below. The idea being you want the users to WANT to use the new SFA system rather than use a “do it or else” approach.
– Getting users involved at the very beginning – right from product selection to create a clear sense of ownership – There are several occasions where I have seen the IT department drives the decision knowing the user community has a different preference
– Informing the users as project progresses to explain what they can expect in the new system, and how their roles and work processes will change, with a focus on the gains they will see. Sometimes it may require explain how some of these benefits may not be right away
– Training is extremely important. Additionally identifying “power users” or “super users” or “user champions” is also very important. Early adopters play a large role in any product adoption be it IT systems or consumer products. So, getting users recruited into the project team, with a required profile for that role is important to do early in the project. It also important these early adopters feel a strong sense of ownership of the system
That said, what I have noticed is that even when some of these implementation practices are not followed properly, users in many organizations are willing to given the new system a try. In other occasions, mandating the use of the system works fairly well in the beginning.
However, in my observation, the things that you do after you implement the system, is even more important in driving user adoption than what you do before. This is one viewpoint that I have not seem much commentary on in the internet.
o Monitor user usage and gauge adoption – which means you need to identify key metrics that can be used to take the temperature, so to speak
o Actively survey users on how they feel about the system and solicit constructive feedback
o Working helpdesk / knowledge management system – where users can turn to for any questions, guidance, or to provide any feedback on the system
o The most important thing of them all, is to keep the system an active system, where changes/fixes are made at an adequate pace:
– So that the system is adapting to new user needs and evolving over time
– The users feel their voice is being heard and their issues being resolved, creating a sense of ownership, even if the system is not perfect
o It is equally important in this front to choose a product vendor that is making improvements to the system actively, so that it is not just you as an organization that is doing this, but the product vendor you choose is doing the same
There are several occasions, where organizations did all the things properly to implement the system but neglected to maintain the system actively, which had led to a lack of use over time, or lack of proper/adequate use by the users over time, thus diminishing the value of the SFA system not just to the organization but to the individual users.
So the next time you are looking to replace your SFA system, and you are driven by lack of user adoption, and not necessarily by lack of features and functions that you need and could be met by the newer system, it would be worth pausing to check and see what is driving the lack of user adoption first.
