User Adoption and Conformity: How Well Is Your CRM Strategy Working?

Customer relationship management (CRM) starts at the top of your organization. The CRM choices made by leadership influence decisions made farther down your marketing and sales funnels.

 

That’s why it’s important to reevaluate your CRM strategy regularly to determine whether your current tactics are working or if they need a little work.

 

“User adoption” and “conformity” are fancy ways to say that your team needs to be on the same page when it comes to customer relationship management. It’s easy for even the best-laid plans to crumble when everyone in your organization isn’t working with the same information or instruction.

 

As a business leader, it’s your job to align strategies and answer team members’ questions. This will ensure that everyone is on the same page.

 

Not sure where to start? Here are some tips, tricks, and tactics for fine tuning your CRM adoption and conformity.

 

Is Everyone in Your Organization Doing Things the Same Way?

It’s best to start with this question because doing so gives you a reliable path to follow.

 

If the answer is yes, you’re golden. Or, at the very least, you know it’s not the practical implementation of your CRM strategy that’s causing trouble.

 

If the answer is no, then you know where to begin to realign your CRM strategy.

 

If the answer is “maybe, kinda, sorta,” you can ask yourself the following questions to get back on track:

 

• Are the key leaders within your organization using your customer relationship management tactics every day?

 

• Are you holding your team accountable for using (or not using) CRM?

 

• Do users/team members have a clear path for submitting ideas to improve CRM?

 

• Do any departments like to “do things their own way”?

 

Remember, strong CRM implementation starts at the top. You can’t expect team members to put your CRM strategy into practice if key leaders aren’t doing so. Start at the top and work down to make sure everyone in your organization is approaching your CRM strategy the same way.

 

Next, make sure there’s a clear, easy way for your team to:

 

1. be held accountable for either following or deviating from your CRM strategy and

 

1. suggest improvements to better manage customer relationships

 

Lastly, don’t tolerate team members or departments that do things their own way. There’s a time and a place for not following clearly-defined strategy and tactics. Customer relationship management is not one of them.

 

User Adoption and Conformity Tips

By asking the above questions, we hope that you now have a clearer picture of just where your CRM strategy needs help. Is it at the top? Is it lower down the ladder with individual workers or departments?

 

Here’s how you can get everyone back on the same page to work together.

 

Start with Your Executive Team

A strong indicator that your CRM strategy is not aligned with the goals of the organization is if your executive team members are not daily users of CRM. Remember, CRM success starts at the top.

 

Hold workshops or training sessions with your management team to align organizational goals with your CRM strategy.

 

Utilize Usage Metrics

Maybe team members just aren’t using your CRM platform. There’s one good way to find out.

 

Collect and publish usage metrics to help drive user adoption. It’s easier to identify pain points or disconnects between strategy and application when you know who is and isn’t putting your CRM tactics into practice.

 

Meet with users who are not meeting expectations, identify root issues, and address those issues in a productive way.

 

Keep Communication Channels Open

Communication is a two-way street. Your best opportunity to improve customer relationship management is lost if CRM platform users don’t think they’re being listened to.

 

Create a formal feedback process and make it easy to use. Celebrate when user recommendations are implemented.

 

Discourage a “Do it Your Own Way” Mentality

It’s tough to achieve success when groups go rogue. You’re not much of a cohesive organization—and it’s harder to meet your goals—if every department has its own way of doing things.

 

That’s not to say quirks and productive shortcuts should be prohibited, but it’s important to discourage departments and users from deviating too far from your CRM strategy.

 

Find out why they are doing things differently. Then, address the issues so you can realign them with your overall goals and tactics.

 

It’s much easier to realign your CRM goals with practical implementation once you know where people are deviating and why.

 

CRM Isn’t Rocket Science

But it’s much harder to get your CRM strategy off the ground when user adoption and conformity is all over the place.

 

Don’t let your customer relationship management fall apart because rogue elements are at play. Instead, find out where people are having trouble and offer them ways to get back on track.

 

Start at the top and work your way down. Before long, CRM success will be everyone’s goal.

 

Contact Empellor CRM today to learn how we can help you analyze your CRM setup and align it with your business needs.