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Gaining Sales Team Acceptance and Adoption
of CRM
Building CRM from a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
You may have heard the buzz phrase Minimum Viable Product (MVP) by now. It has become the driving force for many software development teams at the inception of a new development project. The goal is to produce a software product that satisfies the minimum requirements stakeholders need to justify continued development. It’s either viable or it’s not. “We need to make a decision before a larger investment is approved.”
MVP is applicable to stakeholders because they have access to limited resources and must make decisions that result in the selection of projects that maximize their return on investment (ROI). In the same way stakeholders must maximize ROI, so must sales professionals. For them, ROI can be calculated at the end of each pay or bonus period. Most sales professionals view time as their number one tool for maximizing ROI. Time to follow up on leads and opportunities, time to cultivate relationships, and time to close sales. It is the constant drive to utilize time effectively that can negatively affect a sales person’s perception of adopting a new work tool such as CRM. This article intends to define a roadmap for building a minimally viable implementation of CRM that is quickly accepted and adopted by the sales team. One that can be grown incrementally to ensure continued adoption as the system matures. The end stage is a system that provides the metrics you need to increase revenue and grow your business.
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Why is User Adoption Important?
User acceptance and adoption are commonly identified as key factors in the overall success of an enterprise software implementation. This is particularly true for sales professionals who are likely to be Type-A
personalities and reluctant to adopt software they may perceive as invasive, difficult to use and most importantly, time consuming.
Sales professionals are reluctant to change course when they perceive the current process as adequate to meet basic needs. The first ‘CRM’ was a simple address book and soon thereafter the Rolodex was the weapon of choice. Business cards were collected at every opportunity. A successful sales person would protect their Rolodex with their life.
Following the Rolodex was the first series of electronic devices known as PDA’s (Personal Digital Assistants). Popular examples are the Palm Pilot and Blackberry. The Blackberry started out as a pager and later became a full featured smartphone. The Blackberry continues to be widely used in large corporations where the device becomes a mobile extension to the laptop. As devices became more powerful and sales
professionals transitioned to laptop and tablet devices, slightly more complex contact management applications like ACT and Goldmine appeared on the scene.
As each successive wave of technology passed, many sales professionals were prepared to disparage the next big thing in favor of their tried and true favorite of the moment. They saw their investment in the current solution as non-trivial and were reluctant to move on to the next step; even in the face of strong evidence supporting the move. This trend continues today as CRM becomes a first class citizen in the business software realm.
Today’s next step is the adoption of an Enterprise CRM system such as Dynamics CRM. These systems are supported by mobile software that empowers the sales professional to seamlessly move from office to client and from lead to sale. The functionality in these systems is deep
and far reaching. Sales process flows can be created to guide the sales professional through the entire sales lifecycle from lead to opportunity to quote and finally, the sale. Managers can define process flows that mirror and enhance existing business processes.
There are still dinosaurs out there using an address book for “CRM”.
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Overcoming Objections
Just as sales professionals must overcome objections with potential customers (opportunities in our vernacular) we must overcome the objections of the sales professional when moving up the technological ladder. Three common objections are:
1.
It doesn’t do what my (fill in the blank) does.
Unless the user has spent several hundred million dollars (probably more) and hundreds of man-years developing an enterprise level tool for customer relationship management, it is doubtful they can backup this assertion.
Dynamics CRM is one of the most feature rich and extensible (you can add a bunch of stuff to it if you want) CRM solutions on the market. Over the past few months it could be argued it has become the big dog on the block when it comes to the core feature set in the product and it has no rival when it comes to extensibility. If it were not for these facts, we would not need to provide a way to ease into a CRM implementation using MVP.
2.
It’s too difficult to Use
Fortunately for us, Microsoft has dedicated a great number of resources in the form of time and money to ensure the Dynamics CRM user interface is easy* to learn and use. Users are now guided through the application with a series of menus designed to shadow the natural flow of events in any given context. Administrators are free to modify labels to match vertical business processes. As an example, an “Account” can be referred to as a “Customer”, “Client”, “Business” or any other word or phrase appropriate for a given business type. These changes can be made locally on a form used by a group of users or system wide for the entire organization.
Forms in Dynamics CRM are consistent from one entity to the next. Things like adding notes, sending emails and other activities are performed in the same place using the same tools. Any entity (person, place, or thing) can be connected to any other entity, making navigation truly global across the application.
Reducing the number of entities, forms, buttons and fields by first creating a minimum viable product further reduces the skill level and training required to use CRM for the first time. Introducing new features over time and ultimately achieving a product that is enhanced to meet all stakeholder requirements (EVP or Enhanced Viable Product) means users are exposed to features incrementally allowing them time to learn one set of features before being exposed to the next.
*That is not to say there have not been struggles along the way. When Dynamics CRM 2013 was released users were dissatisfied with the new primary navigation architecture. For some it was nearly impossible to navigate the software
effectively. The interface was counter-intuitive, leaving the user wandering if Microsoft was trying to fall on its own sword. For those of us on the outside we can only assume there was some sort of turf war raging in Redmond as Nerf balls flew from cube to cube in waves. Eventually though, management saw the error of their ways (with the help of a multitude of rants by forum users and bloggers) and changed navigation to the more palpable and much easier to use pull-down menu system we all grew up with.
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The "new" CRM pull down menus.
3.
Big Brother is watching
One of the primary factors affecting the decision to adopt Dynamics CRM at the C-Level is the ability to create and track key performance indicators (KPI’s) relative to sales performance. Things like the number of leads contacted, proper follow up on opportunities, and adherence to the approved sales process are often very difficult to accurately survey without the data provided by enterprise level software.
Sales professionals that adhere to company standards and routinely meet or exceed expectations for these tasks may welcome CRM with open arms. Others may vigorously resist adoption of a system they are confident will expose shortcomings. Watch out for the person that voices unrelated objections in the face of evidence to the contrary. The primary goal of using MVP is to improve user acceptance and adoption of the product. By first providing a streamlined interface with just the data needed to improve sales performance for your business we are able to overcome unwarranted objections on day one. To quote a favorite phrase from a former boss (I spent the first half of my adult life in military
intelligence and as a corporate investigator.) “The proof is in the pudding.” What he meant was that no matter what our perception, when enough physical evidence (the pudding) is available it will reveal the truth. If there is a bullet hole through the victim’s leg, someone shouting “He used a bow and arrow” may not represent the entire story. Objections may be made in earnest, but determining reality may require more evidence.
Defining MVP for Success
Every business has unique requirements. CRM software must account for these requirements and offer the most streamlined experience possible to users while providing the data management needs to succeed as a business. If your business does not create quotes in CRM, why expose quote functionality where it will never be used? If quotes originate in a different system but are useful to track in CRM, create an experience for users that matches that scenario. With Dynamics CRM you can expose quote data or any other data by user role. If sales reps are not concerned with quotes in the CRM system, there is no reason to show them quotes.
For an MVP implementation to be successful when we add new functionality to CRM we must match that functionality with the ability to measure its use. It is true that CRM is designed to lead the sales professional down the path toward increasing sales, but measuring sales alone can leave important stones unturned. Take
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for example a company that can sell to competitor customers when the competitors contract is about to expire. Failing to track contract expirations and hold sales reps responsible for following up on those expirations is tantamount to CRM malpractice. The system is no better than your ability to understand how it should be used. The folks at WebTech One have decades of experience implementing sales focused CRM implementations. They may be able to help you identify yet undiscovered or underutilized metrics for success.
The MVP for CRM Development Cycle
As you have already learned, implementing MVP for CRM does not mean creating a one-size-fits-all solution. A successful implementation requires a thoughtful iterative approach. We can’t simply remove every field except last name from the lead form and expect success. Like most business processes we can break the process into phases. In this case we will iterate (cycle) over five phases as described below.
Phase I – Learn
You may already have a good idea of what the finished product should look like but in this phase you must decide what functionally will be included in this iteration. Stakeholders must be patient, implementing functionality goals as time allows and providing an even mix of functionality wanted by stakeholders and functionality wanted by sales reps. If sales reps see the implementation schedule as lop sided a revolt is likely. Time-to-Adopt (TTA) is the amount of time it will take all team members to accept and adopt the features added in a particular iteration. Determine a TTA metric that is reasonable for your team and stick with it. If the TTA is four weeks for a particular set of features you must provide the necessary time for the team to catch up to your goals before proceeding with the next iteration. In the first iteration we will create the MVP solution. Successive iterations will grow CRM until we finally reach EVP.
Phase II – Build
In this phase someone will make the next group of changes to the CRM system. We call it ‘building’ the system. As we stated earlier, Dynamics CRM may be the most extensible CRM system in existence. This can be the shortest phase in the process but the amount of extensibility in Dynamics CRM also means it takes extensive training and experience to be proficient at making these changes. In the beginning you may be better off to save expenses elsewhere in the project and have our experts do this work. Later, as your team becomes more
experienced you will want to start making changes internally.
Phase III – Train
In this phase either you or our team at WebTech One train users to use newly implemented functionality for their specific CRM role(s). At WebTech One we employ a training methodology first learned in the US Air Force**, The concept is simple: First we will tell users how the functionality works; then we will show them by demonstrating the functionality; finally, we will watch the users as they perform the functionality in the system. By following these simple steps we are able to quickly determine if a user has a grasp of the concepts. We can then repeat the training as many times as are needed to ensure success.
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Finally, we complete this phase by creating CRM knowledge base articles for the benefit of future users. This easy to access documentation and a carefully planned onboarding guide may be all that is needed to get new users to adopt the system.
** Commonly considered to have the best training methodology by fortune 100 companies and top professional trainers.
Phase IV – Deploy
We deploy the solution to your production environment and begin tracking acceptance and adoption of new features electronically. Throughout the lifetime of the implementation the number of successful interactions with all features is counted and failed interactions are investigated. This permits us to constantly improve the experience for users and the effectiveness of CRM as a whole.
Phase V – Measure
In this phase metrics gathered electronically and surveys of users are combined to determine how well we are doing to achieve our goal of 100% user acceptance and adoption. During this phase we must analyze the factors that lead to our success and identify things we can do to improve during the next iteration. The measure phase is where we determine if the proof ‘is’ in the pudding.
The measure phase is a good place to start to determine who the technical leaders will be. If a user is unable to effectively use the product it is unlikely they will be successful training others. This is also a good time to reinforce expectations to all users. Users are motivated by a wide variety of influences including competition, peer pressure, recognition, compensation and accountability. Make sure to utilize all the tools in your kit to ensure project success.
Finally, please rinse and repeat…
We cannot emphasize enough the importance of taking an iterative (cyclical) approach to CRM
implementations. The list of CRM features and functions is immense. Attempting to start with a full featured implementation would cause even the most di-hard CRM fans to become frustrated. Fortunately, with WebTech One daily project management can be left in our capable hands, leaving you with more time to think and plan for the future.
Contact WebTech One for more information:
Lisa Taylor
Accounts Manager | WebTech One Inc. 216 1st Street NW | Carmel, IN 46032-1706 D: 317.220.2939 | C: 317.828.7019
ltaylor@webtechone.com | www.webtechone.com
Paul Pleasant
Principle Consultant | WebTech One Inc. 216 1st Street NW | Carmel, IN 46032-1706 D: 317.220.2939 | C: 317.508.6429
