Microsoft Dynamics CRM User adoption is on everyone’s mind at the start of a new implementation. It’s a concern at every organization and the topic of countless meetings. But the truth is that user adoption comes down to being practical. These simple rules can ensure your next CRM implementation is a success.

1.Management is what drives user adoption

The reports that measure performance must come from the new system otherwise there is no incentive to adopt it. If the leadership team isn’t seen using the new tools, then people feel like it put upon their shoulders, not put into their hands. And when the daily work they do then turns into the metric their productivity is judged by, it gives the tasks they do within the system context. When management uses different tools, it also gives the users uneasy feelings that any enhancement requests won’t be a priority to address.

2.Balance reporting and ease of use

This is possibly the biggest tug-of-war in any system. CRM systems are relational, allowing you to connect data points all over the system. But you have to remember that the data comes from somewhere – usually one of your people when they are on the phone with your customers. So, asking them to gather data on a thousand new things will impact their over-all performance. And if these data points aren’t what their performance is measured by, then it’s easy to see why the users will just skip it when they are busy learning a new system. It’s important to realize that the organization’s performance is going to be impacted for a short period just by switching to a new system. It takes time and repetition to get the new menus, screens and keystrokes into muscle memory. Consider going live going live with new reporting requirements in phases after the users have gotten comfortable with the system. Implementations that roll out only what a user can absorb and feel confident with are highly successful. You can always add new fields or increase the data gathering requirements once the users have adjusted.

3.Give every user a carrot

You have to ask yourself “what does every user get out of this?” If the only thing the company gets out of the system is new reports, your users aren’t going to care. Unless they used write those reports out by hand and that was a pain point for them. For users who hate manually creating a report of what they’ve done every week, point out how adding activities as they communicate with customers allows the reports to be automatically generated for them. It gives you a positive message and a reason to be excited about the new system. For sales representatives who hate not being able to tell that a customer called in for support, show how they now can have access to cases so they can know if a customer is having problems before they talk to them. If every user can answer the question “what will this do for me”, your implementation will be a roaring success.

Happy CRM’ing!