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Salesforce user adoption, Part I: Signs you don’t have buy-in from your org on using Salesforce

Now that your company has rolled out its shiny new CRM system, you’ll want to make sure your team is fully on board. How can you track Salesforce user adoption? What are the signs you don’t have full buy-in from your organization on using Salesforce?

Of course, there are many useful reports available in the Salesforce Adoption Dashboards. To get the most benefit from those dashboards and reports, you’ll need to quantify your expectations. How should your team use the system?

Some of these questions should already have answers from the initial discovery and implementation phases; others may require more detailed analysis.

What are your team’s benchmarks?

  • How many Salesforce users are on your team?
    • Should all users log in daily, or are some expected to log in less often?
  • If your team is using Chatter, how much activity do you expect?
    • Some teams use it throughout the day as their primary internal messaging app.
  • Expected average time for leads to change status?
  • Expected average time for opportunities to move to new stages?
  • What are some key data fields that would tell you that team members are actively working on leads and opportunities?
    • Leads often have fields that team members fill in just before conversion.

How can you gauge Salesforce user adoption by your team?

Now that you have some benchmarks, how can you assess the level of buy-in on using Salesforce? There are several ways to measure usage in Salesforce. The Adoption Dashboards app is a great place to start. You’ll also want to look at your team’s workflow holistically, both inside and outside of Salesforce, to get a clearer picture.

Using Salesforce to check Salesforce user adoption levels

  • How many times have active users logged in lately?
    • The Adoption Dashboard report ‘DB‐Adoption: Active User LOGINS’ is available out of the box.
  • How active has Chatter been?
  • Have any Leads kept the same status for too long?
  • Have any Opportunities kept the same stage for too long?
  • How many new activities and events?
  • How many email messages are in Salesforce?
  • This may sound strange, but it is reportable. Do any Leads or Opportunities have:
    • A blank picklist field AND
    • Free-text comment fields that include picklist values?
      • This shows that team members are capturing the information they need but aren’t taking the time to enter it in a reportable way.

 Observing non-CRM activity to check Salesforce user adoption levels

  • Is any data shared between Salesforce and other applications?
    • If so, is that data in sync?
    • How is the data synchronized?
    • Do your team members ever copy information manually between Salesforce and other applications?
      • This process can almost always be automated!
  • How many mobile-authorized users have installed the Salesforce mobile app?
  • Do team members complain about Salesforce? Some common complaints may be:
    • Too difficult
    • Redundant or unnecessary
    • Inconvenient

An ounce of prevention

In a perfect world, all team members will have bought into the Salesforce concept by the time you roll out your production org. Sadly, we do not live in a perfect world.

Even if you’ve followed best practices to the letter, some users may need more information, more training, more support. Some users may find missing features that your org needs to implement. Some users may identify new data cases that require changes to your automation rules. And so on, and so on.

That’s OK! Just keep your finger on the pulse of your Salesforce user adoption to identify your team’s needs. You can use this feedback to make ongoing improvements to your Salesforce org and keep your team happy and engaged.

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