100% CRM Adoption: Never Struggle Again

I’ve never had ongoing problems getting users to adopt software to do their job. In fact, I often feel shocked to hear how many companies do.

This stuff is expensive, and alternatives to software are silly!

Why is This Happening?

You should approach software adoption problems like a Product Manager. If the team isn’t using something, the user doesn’t understand or appreciate its value. How do you fix that?

• Market the utility to the end user
• Make it easier to use and quicker to reap said utility

Easier said than done, right? “You don’t know these people!”

Wrong. Try this:

1) Do Some Beta Testing

Isolate a team that will give thoughtful and direct feedback. Have them do two or three practice runs, and write down what they say. Did they groan while putting in a particular piece of information? Press on, find out why.

2) Diagnose and Solve

Did they feel it was too slow? Perhaps you should rebuild the feature.

Did they just find it pointless to put in the data? Write a short, articulate sales pitch of how it’s going to help them later. Note: if you can’t do this easily, they’re probably right and you need to kill the feature. Even if a process mostly serves their manager, figure out how to connect their manager’s success to their own, their team’s, whatever. People like to understand why they have to do things.

3) Avoid Common Pitfalls

It’s easy for even a veteran to make common adoption mistakes. When I’ve hired for Sales Ops in the past, I inevitably ask about a time where adoption was poor, and what the candidate did. The worst answers involve making validation rules, required fields, or other quality of life sacrifices. Even worse: “if they don’t do it, they don’t get paid”. The best answers are user-centric.

Sure, occasionally process is completely indispensable and must be required even under protest. People’s patience for this is finite. Don’t be the boy who cried wolf.

There is a ton of literature on building software. So, your project requires config instead of code. Or it is being built for an internal audience. That doesn’t mean the rules of the game change.

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by + 376,592 people.

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