Theme 4: User Transition

Factors enabling users to progress along the post adoption usage process are grouped into four categories: user training and support, manager involvement, change management, and realized benefits.

User training and support

The first enabler discovered is the training and support provided by the project team before and after the deployment of the CRM system. This enabler is extremely important to move from the initial sub-phase of the adaptation phase “training assimilation” to all subsequent sub-phases, up to the last sub-phase of the exploitation phase “individual productivity enhancement”. For example, it clearly explained the discrepancies found among the school’s departments. This second CRM project was more of a collection of loosely-related individual departmental initiatives than a structured and coherent companywide project. The researcher observed large discrepancies in the project team’s time and attention paid to individual departments. Because of a lack of resources, the project team concentrated its efforts on the key users of the CRM application, and no one (e.g. the business sponsor) tried to reallocate a portion of time to other departments. As the research department manager explains:

“We were not even invited to the initial training session. Apparently we are not important to them. We met the project manager a couple of months ago to discuss our requirements but since then we have not heard from him. And now I learn that training sessions were organised last week without us. It is only for marketing and admissions. We are just a satellite …”

On the other hand, the admissions manager was satisfied with the support provided to her team:

“I have a direct contact with the project manager and the support team for any data or process related problems. When changes are implemented for my team it is easy to get hold of the technical partner. So far (after 6 months of usage) I have nothing to say about the support team. All our core processes are in Salesforce.com now. So they must react quickly. But I know I am a privileged client as some of my colleagues (fund raining and research) do complain that they are left aside …”

Manager involvement

The second enabler is the role and involvement of the manager (through support, training, pressure, and control). This plays an important role in the same phases and sub-phases and also, according to the feedback of trade marketers (case one), plays a key role in reaching the “individual productivity enhancement” sub-phase. We can clearly see that users who have reached this phase are part of teams whose manager actively contributes to the success of the TMS.

The involvement of the department manager was also a crucial element in selling the project and helping users move to exploitation and benefits realization phases during the second case study. The situation of the admissions and recruitment and fundraising departments after 13 months clearly illustrates the impact of the manager on CRM usage. The first department was led by a CRM knowledgeable manager who rapidly saw the benefits that Salesforce.com could provide to her team. These included increased productivity, and centralization of data for better reporting and decision-making process. Her team achieved a level of benefit that far exceeded that of the other departments, whereas the fundraising team stopped using the system.

“Our manager (admissions) organises weekly CRM meetings to discuss business as well as tool issues. It is difficult to hide … we have no choice but to use the tool. It is now part of our daily activities. The support team developed a lot of reports for our manager: she is able to track our usage on a daily basis. Big brother is watching us … but now we are more efficient and are able to handle more students ... when we face problems we escalate them to our manager and she contacts the support team ... She wants to control everything …”

Although the CRM tool could have benefitted the fundraising team (e.g. emailing capabilities), its manager did not really care about the initiative. The fund raising assistant regretted this behaviour:

“My manager does not use Salesforce.com anymore. I still enter new contacts and update existing ones but I now do not track our fund raising activities in Salesforce.com. They are all in MS outlook. It is like double work for me, and as nobody checks it …”

Change management

The third enabler, to move users up to the “individual job objectives achievement” sub-phase, that consistently came up during all case studies (but to a lesser extent for case three) is the willingness of the company to communicate the business benefits of the TMS initiative. This willingness also helps to accompany users along this CRM journey by providing CRM business related training such as territory and account management or data analysis (case one). Most users wanted and needed to be accompanied throughout their CRM system usage journey. The researcher noticed that it took not only the individual motivation of the staff but also the willingness of the company to provide the environment conducive to it for users to reach the “individual job objectives’ achievement” sub-phase.

The researcher also identified this enabler in the second case study. However, almost all interviewees faced a more fundamental issue, in that they did not feel that the school was mature enough to succeed in its CRM project. “The cart before the horse” open code came back consistently in all managers’ interviews, as illustrated by the director of recruitment and admissions:

“… ideally we should have first a (CRM) strategy and then a (CRM) tool, but we do not have a culture of strategy and plans at the school. We implement all things incrementally, little by little and the CRM project is no exception. Instead of thinking about what CRM could mean for us, we threw a tool and tried to make use of it as best as we could. I think my team achieved something good, our recruitment, admission and enrolment activities are now well automated. But this is only back-office stuff, it is not a CRM strategy … it should have been first designed by our top managers but they never got involved. This project has not improved the communication and sharing of information among our departments. We still have a silo mentality.”

Communication and business training should, of course, be integral parts of the CRM program, but they were undoubtedly a barrier to CRM system usage in the first two case studies. Most importantly, top managers should design, communicate and support the CRM business strategy in order to provide a coherent framework to all involved departments. This clearly did not occur at the school and resulted in uncoordinated, department specific sub-projects that did

not solve any of the major CRM issues, namely: lack of corporation, lack of information sharing, and lack of CRM strategy. Like in the initial case study, the user’s willingness to progress in his/her job was also a factor favoring tool usage.

Realized benefits

Although the lack of involvement and communication of the sales director was noticeable in the third case, it could not explain the sales representatives’ low usage and slow progression. Most users were experienced sales representatives, and knew what it took to achieve their objectives, but quickly realized that CRM system use was not a decisive element in their success. Tool usefulness to achieve job objectives was undoubtedly a key factor explaining for the difference between the two user types of case three (sales team versus CRM coordinator). The researcher previously highlighted the same behaviour for LCAs (case one), and the fund raising department (case two). When sales users do not see any realized benefits either for themselves and/or for their department, they tend to slow down their usage, even in a mandatory use environment. This explains why positive comments initially collected (based on user expectations) were sometimes followed by mixed feelings from the same people (based on actual benefits brought by the CRM system).

For illustrative purpose, all open codes related to user transition enablers found for the first case study are listed in Table 17.

1 Ongoing support from the project team 4 Influence of colleagues 7 User’s CRM (business) related skills 10 Perceived benefits for the individual user 2 Role of the manager – support and role model 5 Regular communication from top management about CRM objectives and achieved benefits 8 User’s willingness to progress 11 Recognition in the company 3 Role of the manager - control 6 User’s participation in initial phases of the CRM project 9 User’s commitment to the company 12 User’s initial perception of the tool