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Driving User Adoption in Salesforce

Driving User Adoption in Salesforce

User adoption is critical, especially for software that drives your business like Salesforce. At the end of the day, it just doesn’t make sense to be spending money on a system that your team isn’t using.

However, the importance of user adoption is more than “we bought it so use it”, rather, user adoption has been linked to all sorts of business issues, including:

Keeps Data Relevant

One of the most powerful features of Salesforce is its ability to capture, track and analyze many facets of your Sales data. However, if your users aren’t using the system or aren’t entering everything properly, you can pretty much throw all your data out the window.

Avoid Losing Leads

Proper use of Salesforce across all sales team members can provide timely, accurate and detailed information to potential consumers, encouraging higher conversion rates.

Improve the Skills of Your Sales Team

Full adoption and utilization of Salesforce helps team members grow their skills, which leads to higher conversion rates and a stronger return on investment.

Discourage Ghost Users

Ghost users are those who simply log in, and do a few things every so often to avoid being shamed. When adoption is high though, it is more difficult to hide and avoid using Salesforce without being noticed.

Encourage Collaboration

When a company has high adoption, each department can contribute their expertise to the benefit of the entire company. Conversely, when a company has low adoption – the data is unreliable and each department must work much harder to find information.

So with all of that being said, how do you increase user adoption? Well, there are a number of ways, from setting incentives to designating internal use champions to working with a consultant to help your team. This article gives a nice example of going at it from the consulting perspective.

There are quick and easy options as well, like Emojis! Emojis can be useful in more than just text messages, and can, in fact, make your org more user-friendly, fun and actually help drive user adoption.

Take a look at this article here, and remember that every bit of adoption helps, even the little things like emoji! 🙂

 

-Ryan and the CloudMyBiz Team


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Robust Team Training with Cornerstone LMS  for Salesforce

Robust Team Training with Cornerstone LMS for Salesforce

 

It’s no secret that training and continued education are important in today’s business world. However, it can be challenging to decide which training program to use, and how to go about getting your whole team on the same page. Not all training and LMS apps give you the functionality and power you want. Consider this though: Salesforce themselves use Cornerstone LMS to train their team. If it’s good enough for Salesforce, they have got to be doing something right!

Cornerstone for Salesforce enables your employees, partners, clients, and volunteers with the mission-critical information they need, exactly when & where it’s needed.

Check it out here!

5 Common Business Training Mistakes to Avoid

5 Common Business Training Mistakes to Avoid

 

Proper training is key to business success for both the present and the future. It does require some real investment, but it more than pays for itself if you make the right decisions. With the plethora of options out there for training, you might be tempted to just dive in and create a nifty high-tech training program for your team. However, before you do, make sure you take some time and set out a smart plan to make sure your learners are getting the most out of what you give them. To aid in the planning process, we have a few essential tips that can really make the difference in high-quality results. Avoid these training mistakes below, and get your learners the in-depth, quality training you want, instead of having the information go in one ear and out the other.

Lack of Concrete Goals

If you don’t know exactly what the goal of the training is, how can you expect great results? Step one to any good training is defining a couple concrete goals, both long term and short term. Once you have your goals, sit down and evaluate what training materials and content you currently have and what additional materials you might need to achieve your goals. You may be surprised to find that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel or hire a consultant to get the results you want. Finally, don’t be hesitant to take advantage of the skills your team already has to bridge gaps. Maybe you want to ask around and get feedback on the quality and needs of the training. Keep it open, but always with your concrete goals in mind

Information Overload

It isn’t hard to throw too much at someone new. You want them to get on board as fast as possible, and with all your specific business processes and practices, there are usually quite a few documents to go over. But showing a little restraint at the beginning can actually make things faster in the long run, as people will be able to steadily retain information and not get overwhelmed. One technique is to break your content down into smaller courses, rather than tackling the whole thing at once. This allows people to digest the whole thing over the course of a few sessions and enables them to better retain everything they have learned.

Lack of Hands-On Training

Technology-based training is the primary vehicle for all businesses these days. While LMS’s and other training options are very effective, don’t forget that the hands-on variations are, generally speaking, the most effective form of training for most people. Short, practical, relevant courses will give your learners the best results, and wherever possible, look to give your learners an avenue to ask questions and get quick answers from a qualified trainer.

Do keep in mind though that different people learn differently, and consider making all of the information available in different formats, such as written or pre-recorded in a demo. When training content is all kept to the same style, learners who happen to match well with that kind of content will significantly outperform those who have different learning styles. If you can deliver content using a variety of methods including visual, auditory, written, and activity-based elements, and make them as hands-on and active as possible, you will improve the overall success in all of your training.  

Don’t be Boring

Believe it or not, this is one of those things that most companies just don’t think about. They focus on getting the bare bones content into some form of video or document, and then just hand it over to the learner, regardless of how interesting or well presented it is. But think back to those classes we have all have had during our schooling: where a boring, monotone teacher is droning on and on and putting half the class to sleep. Is that what your content is like? If so, can you really expect your team to get focused and learn what they need to learn?

Recent learning trends have been combating this and spicing up that dull old business training process. Gamification is one of the more popular and fun methods, making training interactive and adding a little bit of lighthearted competition. Newer applications and programs are also making it super easy to add videos, images and interactive widgets or icons, to keep variety and break up the content.

Training that Doesn’t Grow and Evolve

Your company isn’t static, so why should your training be? As your company grows and times change, so will your needs, practices and goals. As all of this natural growth occurs, so should your company training. Whether it is training for current employees on a new technology or business strategy or updating your basic content to correctly reflect your current business practices, evolving your training along with your business is an essential component. It doesn’t make much sense to train your employees on outdated practices. Not only will it be confusing, but it will also be demotivating to ask people to learn something that isn’t entirely relevant.

Whether you have a brand new Salesforce system or have just recently upgraded and updated a number of your processes, you will need to train your team. If you can keep in mind these common training mistakes, you should have a solid foundation for creating a better and more effective training, and ultimately get the most out of your investment!

 

-Ryan and the CloudMyBiz Team

App of the Week – Salesforce Video Creation and Sharing with NativeVideo

App of the Week – Salesforce Video Creation and Sharing with NativeVideo

It’s no secret that when it comes to online content, video is rapidly growing and is one of the best ways to get a message across. From training to promotional content, a well done video is hard to beat. The NativeVideo app helps you engage with the growing video trend through easy to use video recording and creating features. More importantly, this app lets you do all of this from inside Salesforce. You can record, share and watch videos as native Salesforce objects!

Salesforce users can record, browse and share videos directly inside their Salesforce Org and enable video functionalities for both internal and external use cases

Check it out here!

Tip of the Week – How to Encourage New Software Adoptions

Tip of the Week – How to Encourage New Software Adoptions

So you just installed new software in your company to boost productivity and growth? Great! But how do you get everyone on your team to really commit to adopting and using the new features? Poor adoption can lead to a fractured and dissatisfied team, as well as potential business setbacks and losses. Whether you have made a significant change, like moving your entire operation onto Salesforce, or a smaller one, like adding a group messaging app such as Slack, encouraging software adoption can be challenging.

 

For each user, the adoption arc will be unique, but the following practices are a great place to start:

  • Transparent Communication: Talk to your team openly. Make sure everyone understand what change is being made and why. Take some time to spell out the benefits.
  • Early Adopters: If possible, make the new software available for experimentation prior to the official launch. Give your team a risk free opportunity to explore
  • Success Stories and Super Users: Do you have any early adopter wizards? Super users who immediately pick it up and run? Share their stories to encourage the team. Explore what is working well and let them share tips from personal experience.
  • Appreciation and Recognition: Little rewards can go a long way. Simple shout outs to a new successful adoption, or a quick thank you message can keep the adoption rolling.
  • Support Structure: If anyone is struggling, make sure you have the resources readily available to help. Make it easy to get help, and push the message that it’s ok to ask for help. Nobody wants to be ostracized for struggling with a new system.

-Ryan and the CMB Team