Is Your CRM Working for YOU?
Here’s what you should know about CRM adoption, to ensure that you are maximizing this tool.
It can be difficult, overwhelming, and time consuming for users to learn a new CRM system, and sometimes that’s even after training. Most organizations spend months or longer researching and planning to bring on a new CRM or software. Then they begin to ramp up, perform initial training, and finally send their users out into ‘the wild.’ Your hope is everyone in your organization will be wildly successful with this new tool, and business operations will be better than ever!
With highly proficient teams, this shouldn’t be a concern, but we all know that every team is not highly proficient.
In the real world where capabilities across teams vary, it is inevitable that different users will use the new systems in different ways – and to varying degrees of success.
Some members of your team will not take to the new CRM at all!
This is low user adoption.
You might think, “well, that’s their problem if they don’t use the tools provided to make their work easier. We gave them training!” But trust us, we know you’ve probably made a decent investment in time and resources to implement this tool. You deserve to get the most out of it. You likely had the intention of equally balancing the goals of making your staff the best they can be, AND giving yourself and business operators the essential insights based on CRM data.
But perhaps your CRM just hasn’t taken hold.
If you suspect this might be the case in your organization, it’s time to take a closer look.
What is User Adoption?
This is really straightforward, so we’ll share it quickly.
User adoption is the process of ensuring that a system user can be successful in their goals by using a software product.
In this case, we’re talking about how successful your teams are in being able to attain their objectives using your current CRM. This includes how quickly it becomes a routine tool, and how much users like it and want to keep utilizing it.
Consider your teams across Customer Service, Sales, Marketing, Operations, and Leadership when observing for user adoption.
Then consider if all teams used the tool to its full potential, and fully adopted the CRM.
What does great user adoption look like? With that data at hand, you have the power to create accurate dashboards and better forecasts, and you can empower your businesses’ leaders with the information they need to grow and make their teams successful. Win – Win!
Using Your CRM to its Full Potential
Curious if your CRM users on the teams we mentioned above are in a murky area of user adoption? You can make sure you’re getting the most of your CRM investment with this quick CRM User Adoption Checklist – it’s just 20 questions!
Take a look and get the info you need in order to assess whether or not it’s time to take action and realign around your CRM.
Is there potential for your CRM to work better for your organization? Take the CRM Adoption Survey and find out where you stand.