The Keystone to CRM Success

Implementing a CRM solution into an organisation is simple - but not easy.

As with embarking on any unfamiliar project, achieving success is far more likely when you engage in effective training. Imagine allowing someone to learn to drive, or operate machinery without effective training! However, while these actions are prevented by law, taking on a business project is seen to be someting that you can pick up as you go along.

In "The Keystone to CRM Success", Gill Walker unpacks this diagram, showing the consequences of inadequate training and how these lead to a failure in user adoption. She further shows how users failing to adopt the solution can usually be traced back to missing or inadequate training, during the project. Each of the three types of training is introduced, and its value is explained.

How ineffective training leads to a failure in user adoption and hence a CRM project failure - detail

There are many possible reasons for a failure of user adoption, and the commonest are these five:

Don’t know that they are supposed to use CRM - for their role or a particular task
Don’t know how to use CRM - for their role or a particular task
Feel that the effort of using CRM outweighs the benefits, ie it is easy to continue working in a familiar way than to embrace the new solution
Feel that the solution is only to benefit management
Feel that the data in CRM is incorrect, so they will get better results using an older data source

While these are usually the reasons given, the root cause can almost always be traced back to inadequate, or completely missing

End user training
Stakeholder Training - which led to poor decisions
Technical Training - which led to a solution that fails to meet users needs

One of the challenges is that many providers over-simplify the challenges.

Stakeholder training (i.e. training / education so the stakeholders have a broader vision of the potential of the technology) is a phrase that I never seen elsewhere. However, giving the stakeholders enough knowledge of the opportunities offered by your selected tchnology, so they feel confident in the decisions that they make, will almost always save money in the long run.

In my work with a variety of Microsoft Dynamics 365 projects, I frequently see short-sighted scoping decisions which blow out the cost of the project significantly.

Ensuring that everyone involved in a project gets relevant and appropriate education is great way to keep your CRM project on track and on budget.