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Almost half a century into the digital revolution and we’ve got countless technological solutions that make our existence more comfortable and efficient.
As the evolution of technology accelerates, the market is becoming flooded with digital accelerators for every aspect of our lives. The corporate sector is a frontrunner in the adoption of these digital solutions.
Nowadays, you won’t surprise anyone with your enterprise’s cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) system or AI-managed customer service platform. However, you might get somebody’s attention if you say that your company’s employees adopt technology, such as CRMs, quickly and painlessly.
Salesforce is a great example of a technology implementation that can boost your enterprise’s performance. Nonetheless, Salesforce onboarding can be problematic.
To achieve maximum productivity, it’s important to use this digital accelerator right. Your employees need to be aware of all aspects of this digital tool and how to use it to the fullest extent.
You can show them all the statistics in the world but if your worker still thinks he/she can do a better job with tons of Excel spreadsheets, nothing will change his/her mind until he sees for himself that a new digital tool is good for him.
After this resistance to change comes the issue of training, which oftentimes results in frustration for your team and simply reinforces their desire to go back to their old ways.
All these factors will eventually demoralize your employees and, as a consequence, you won’t achieve a desirable ROI. However, follow these simple tips and you can cope with the majority of risks associated with Salesforce onboarding.
4 tips for Salesforce onboarding
1. Develop a strategy for onboarding
Before jumping into training your workforce on how to use their new CRM, it’s crucial to develop a Salesforce onboarding strategy. This step will include everything from a roadmap and milestones to problems you might face along the way.
A basic introduction to the tool, along with handing them a bunch of manuals and superficial advice won’t do a thing. Your strategy has to be built based on a detailed process with thorough guidelines, tools and success evaluation metrics.
Besides, it’s essential to take into account the level of your team members’ existing knowledge. Whether a person already has experience with Salesforce will determine the level of involvement the onboarding can offer them.
A slower learning strategy will quickly extinguish the interest of a tech-savvy person, while a fast learning curve will frustrate a person with fewer skills and less experience with similar tools.
2. Utilize the Salesforce onboarding team
Salesforce has its own “boot camp” for employees who encounter the software for the first time and also for those who have never had any experience with CRMs.
Designed and tested by software providers, this program will help your newcomers get to grips with the software easier and faster. Salesforce also provides support for your employees to address any questions or problems.
However, you need to understand that while such an onboarding resource provides employees with an understanding of the tool, it still lacks one of the crucial components: personalization. Understanding the corporate culture into which it’s being introduced and the particular backgrounds and requirements of each user is just as crucial as practical training.
3. Acculturation as a part of Salesforce onboarding
When Salesforce — or any other digital tool — becomes a part of your employees’ digital workplace, it also shapes your corporate culture. It becomes ‘the way we do things’.
The way your employees communicate with each other, your clients and how they manage the work process within the CRM are integral components of your corporate culture. Therefore, it’s a high priority to ensure your employees adopt the digital vision as well as the ability to work effectively with the tool itself.
Find your seasoned colleagues who are open-minded and good in communication and delegate the mentorship of the “rookies” to them. Putting new team members into such a receptive environment will quickly yield desirable results.
4. Install a Digital Adoption Platform
Since you’ve invested so much into the Salesforce platform and/or your new hire, you’ll want to see the return on your investment(s) as soon as possible.
According to onboarding statistics from Urbanbound, a new employee requires 8-12 months to become as proficient in the workflow as their older co-workers. However, a sure-fire way to reduce that time span is through the use of a Digital Adoption Platform (DAP).
The DAP is a layer of software that allows a better adoption of digital tools by any user. It’s a machine learning-based solution that collects data about the person using it, providing them with customized guidance.
Such guidance will speed up the person’s Salesforce onboarding, since learning isn’t separated from the workflow. As a bonus, DAP will save your workers from many mistakes with precise advice and smart notifications.
Final words
The process of onboarding is crucial and most of the time it is hard to estimate its speed or success with each worker. Salesforce is a remarkable tool geared to provide a pleasant UX. However, Salesforce onboarding still requires time, investment and a developed strategy to operate it to the fullest extent.
