User Adoption Tips for New Admins
So you’ve inherited an instance of Salesforce, and upper management is less than excited about the low user adoption of the tool they’ve invested in. It is now your problem. Don’t panic – you aren’t alone! Hundreds, even thousands of admins have faced this same problem and have come out the other end triumphant.
The first thing you’ll want to do is measure just how bad (or, hopefully, good!) your user adoption is. How? Well, let’s take a note from Matt Jadhav and a pdf that I’ve used many times: https://help.salesforce.com/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=01530000001x38ZAAQ
Have a Sound Training Plan
While we can all agree that training isn’t the most fun, it is something that’s necessary.
There are many different ways to train your users – it doesn’t necessarily have to be a painful day of endless presentations that make you want to pull your hair out. I’ve spent countless days preparing for, training, and re-training. Here are a couple takeaways:
Be sure to include why things are set up the way they are (without getting too technical). What’s in it for them? If you can’t answer this, odds are you aren’t going to get through to them on how to use it. The biggest thing end users often need to hear is that this platform will actually make their lives easier, not harder!
Record and/or document your trainings! If you are a solo admin like I’ve been, you probably aren’t consumed with requests to re-train on a daily basis. Do yourself a favor and provide pre-training materials that are required to be reviewed before you spend your valuable time with them. If you are lucky enough to have Premier or Premier+ Support through Salesforce, you have access to an incredible list of training materials to get your users acquainted before you even have to open your mouth!
Bite size pieces, people! We’ve all sat through a day-long training covering the gamut of products, tools, etc. It’s near impossible to stay focused and to remember all the different facets of the solution on top of that. Don’t torture your users! Focus on a specific area to start (e.g. opportunity creation, management) and set up a training schedule to provide bite size pieces of information – weekly is generally a good bet. Trust me, your trainees will appreciate it.
A great resource (an oldie, but a goodie) by Erica Kuhl (@ericakuhl) outlines 10 tips for a successful training plan: https://help.salesforce.com/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=01530000001x3SAAAY
Try an Incentive Plan
Now that you’ve highlighted that user adoption is an area of concern, it is time to put a plan in place to turn it around. Start with the people that use the system the most – the end users (usually, your sales reps). What’s in it for them? Incentivize them to login more frequently, update records to improve data quality, and follow the business processes that have been defined. Chances are, if there’s prizes involved people will do what you ask them.
Listen
Give your users an outlet. For example, in one organization, I had a custom URL link on the home page that allowed users to click and submit any feedback at any time that would be routed directly to me.
Same concept as a feelings jar! I got a ton of great feedback. Mostly that they appreciated the opportunity to be heard, and often times it was easy fixes they wanted- like an additional column on the Activities related list on the Opportunity page. They’ll love you and you’ll be their hero, and who doesn’t want that? Not to mention it will help you, as the admin, to sort through all the requests. Win-win!
Utilize Tools on the AppExchange
In line with listening to your sponsors, stakeholders and end users, if they have specific pain points that can be solved by implementing a tool, do it! I’m all about not reinventing the wheel. And I faithfully follow a mantra that I’m not special. Someone out there, somewhere, has had the same issue and has solved it so why not heed their advice rather than struggling to find the solution again?
Of course, I’m not saying you should install every tool that you come across on the AppExchange- but realize that those tools can facilitate processes and ultimately, be more user-friendly. In fact, change management and understanding when it makes sense to implement and when it doesn’t is a whole other conversation, for another time (Effective Tips to Increase User Engagement and Adoption).
A few sample AppExchange tools I’ve implemented to improve a variety of processes are:
Salesforce Adoption Dashboards (And other Salesforce Lab Apps!)
Laura is a Certified Salesforce Administrator and Marketing Program Manager at Apttus where she develops and executes various marketing campaigns for admin and CPQ tools. She has been working as a Salesforce Administrator for 5 years in a variety of different industries.
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