Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology will only work for you if your employees use it. Surprising number of companies don’t see a solid ROI due to lack of focus on user adoption. Your employees must understand your CRM software and be aware of your goals in order to put the system to its best use. Full user involvement is require to understanding the CRM technology strategy as well as being motivated to learn new practices and capabilities of CRM Solution. This article will explain three best practices which are planning the user experience, testing the CRM system, and providing your employees with a support system so they can get help when necessary and efficiently learn the CRM system.
Table of Contents
User Experience Planning
Most developers plan for the user experience at the onset of system creation when designing for public consumption. This notion gets lost when systems are designed for business users, because development mentality tends to focus on system functionality and assumes that user will adapt to any design shortcomings. The same development approach used for public consumers should be taken when designing CRM software, as this will eliminate major hurdle when asking employees to change their habits. A CRM system that considers the employee experience will be more cost-effective to the business, because there will be one less issue to contend with, which in turn saves the company money by speeding the adoption rate of the new system.
CRM System Testing
Another way to smooth new CRM implementation and gain user adoption is to run beta test with a small group of employees. Beta test is common practice in designing software for public consumption, because software is often released as beta version not only to test the software’s functionality but also to determine how well people interact with the system. Developers can gain valuable insight from small group of employees during beta test, determining what the major interaction issues are and correcting them before actual system implementation.
Customer Service
Provide employees with a knowledgeable customer service or support system in which employees can get help with the new CRM system quickly, easily, takes pressure off of management and reduce intracompany tension, leading to greater cohesion and ultimately more effective user adoption of the CRM system.