Becoming a Salesforce Leader Blog Series: 6 Key Questions

This is sadly the end for our 3-part Salesforce innovation blog series, but we hope you have learned some helpful tips to improve how you innovate your Salesforce instance. In our last post, Beyond Salesforce Go-Live: Tips for Salesforce Release Pacing and Quality, we covered how to manage your internal Salesforce releases and how to ensure that each system modification has been checked for quality. Now we can dive in a bit deeper and discuss some strategies on user adoption and key metrics.  

Question #5 How do I introduce change to my users?
Once you have determined your release rhythm, you will need to develop a strategy to ensure that your users are adopting the system and your changes. No matter how much time you spend working on killer Salesforce innovations, if no one is adopting them, you are wasting your time and money. By developing a comprehensive and consistent strategy, you can ensure that your message is being communicated.  

Strategy: You will need a consistent and engaging way to get the message out to your users. Meet with key stakeholders to determine how you will deliver the training messages. Will it be internal marketing collateral such as tip sheets, videos, PowerPoints in Salesforce, or eLearning? These can all provide a fun and informative way for your teams to learn new features and how they will impact their day-to-day. Make sure your communication is conversational and that it portrays key ideas such as why the change will save time, how it increases productivity, and how it will address any other concerns that your user may have. Your internal marketing materials and training should be timed with each quarterly release.

Question #6 How do I measure success?  Determining relevant metrics is not a post-live activity. This should be something your organization should determine before you implement Salesforce. Metrics will become your business case as you gauge the success of your initiatives. You should be looking at hard metrics like sales figures and productivity numbers, in addition to soft metrics like customer and employee satisfaction.  

Strategy: Start by meeting with your governance board to determine what your business case template will be. How will you determine the effectiveness of each user request project after you have released it to your team? At Bluewolf, we use the Agile Story Structure with our clients to begin the dialogue. With every user request, the requester and governance board should be able to complete the statement: As a ________(user role), I want to be able to ________(request) so that _______(business reason). Every user request should always be brought back to the business, and should be able to be measured by time, cost, output, and quality. Costs should be reduced, time should be reduced, output should be increased, and quality should be increased.

User adoption and relevant metrics are key to ensuring that your Salesforce instance continues to run smoothly and that you are able to continue innovating on the platform. Implementation is just the beginning of your journey with Salesforce. After your organization goes live, you will need to effectively manage change, determine release priority and cadence, ensure quality, focus on employee adoption, and measure results. These are the 6 key strategies you will need in order to maintain an organized, productive, and consistent platform. You can check out our Inside Track and Manhattan Associates case studies to see how our clients are putting these strategies into action!

Missed the 2 other blogs in the series? Be sure to check them out! In the first post, Tips For Salesforce Implementation User Requests, we discuss how to manage your backlog of user requests and prioritize releases. In our second post, Tips for Salesforce Release Pacing and Quality, we discuss release cadence and quality assurance steps. And stay tuned for the next post in our series, Beyond Salesforce Go-Live: The Quiz. Answer questions about our blog and win a cool prize!