“CRM projects fail for a variety of reasons. In the North American market, a recent study estimates that over half of all CRM implementations fail to meet their objectives.” –CRMsolution.com. This shockingly high rate can be partially attributed to inefficient or non-existent training programs.
You’ve found the perfect new employee. They are knowledgeable, skilled, and ready to make an impact in your business.
You’ve also found a great CRM – Salesforce. You’re naturally eager for them to start working together as soon as possible, but you need to make sure that your new employee knows what he/she is doing. Finding a balance between thorough training and quick adoption can be tricky, so here are 5 ways to make that process more efficient.
Begin with Highly Focused Deliverables
Thinking with a long-term view is always a good thing, but spending too much time looking into the future may diminish progress in the short-term. Starting with specific, short-term goals provide an avenue for new employees to express their productivity in a measurable way.
Harvard researcher Teresa Amabile found that the best workplace motivator was the achievement of small, daily progress. Her research also uncovered that the most damaging thing to motivation was experiencing setbacks. If you can facilitate progress you facilitate better results. Emphasizing good habits and routines during training to minimize the amount of mistakes they make is also beneficial and may even reduce costs.
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Create a Culture of Continuous Learning
When it comes to onboarding processes, employers need to think outside the box. Simply lecturing new hires about Salesforce procedures won’t yield the best results.
In fact, new studies have shown that knowledge retention via traditional classroom teaching are dismal compared to other more practical methods. Using real situations to train new members of your customer service team is the best preparation for the real thing.
That’s why its imperative to verify the knowledge available is relevant to actual tasks. A knowledge management and performance support application like
WalkMe can be a big help in this regard, helping to directly tie learning to Salesforce user performance.
More importantly, this makes employees more productive and compliant with Salesforce procedures, and adaptable to future changes in market influences and new technologies.
Involve Veteran Team Members to Provide a Strong Example
The best way to get everyone to buy in is to provide a good example. Identify employees that are proficient with the Salesforce software as a focal point and direct new employees to these veterans for questions and advice. Highlight these users as potential sources for feedback in the future.
Don’t overlook how the perception of management affects the rest of the employees. Managers that are not engaged with the Salesforce platform and continuous learning sets a precedent to other employees that their training is ultimately not important. Involve the whole staff in the onboarding process.
Seek Internal Feedback
Look to your employees for meaningful feedback on the Salesforce system. Use a combination of free form comments and focused feedback. Since the sales team will be using Salesforce the most often, they will have the most relevant feedback to provide. Adjust sales strategies according to new ideas that your team presents. Ask specific questions about their experience with the onboarding process.
Good feedback also helps because it allows you to find areas of improvement, which in turn gathers more feedback with an improved system. This is called a feedback loop, and it is among the most effective ways to iteratively improve Salesforce onboarding.
Focus on ‘Why’ Instead of ‘How’
Knowing
how to do a job using Salesforce is certainly important, but encouraging employees to question why certain actions are performed leads to a deeper understanding of the system, which ultimately leads to more effective onboarding.
In fact, employees who approach training in this way may actually be more efficient than employees who do not. According to a new study in the
Journal of Consumer Research, people who become focused on
how to achieve a goal may have a harder time achieving their aims than people who think abstractly about
why they want to do something.
Following these tips will ensure that Salesforce onboarding will be smoother for employees, and have a measurable positive effect on performance and productivity.
Proper Salesforce software protocols are critical to keeping both your sales team and your clients happy. By following these steps, you will be giving your new employees and your business the best chance for success.
