User adoption – A key component of a successful CRM 2013 implementation

The number one obstacle for a successful CRM implementation is user acceptance.  Too often people are reluctant to embrace a new system because it is new, it’s different, they haven’t been part of the implementation process or they have been inadequately trained.  Some of these concerns can be addressed by the implementation team, while others can be resolved by introducing Tips and Tricks to the user. 

A few simple guidelines can greatly increase the probability of user adoption:

1. Get strategic users involved early in the process; understand their role in the business process, and make sure they understand the business process as a whole and the impact they have.
2. Perform user acceptance testing with the users that actually perform the tasks.  These are the people that know idiosyncrasies of the process, and live it every working day. This will reduce the unexpected gotchas that pop-up during training, or worse, after go-live.
3. Train, Train, Train!  Conduct training session as close to go-live as possible so users don’t forget the process.  Provide adequate user guides that detail the process, so users can quickly answer their own questions, new users can easily be trained, and the process will be done the same way regardless of who is doing the tasks.

Here are a few Tips Dynamics CRM 2013 has to offer to assist the user;

•  A user friendly description field can be added and displayed as a tool tip when the user hovers over the field name.  This will assist the user in understanding the intention of the field. For example, hovering over the Purchase Process field name will display a custom tip
• The Pop-out button – Allows the user to open a second window, keeping the record open while navigating elsewhere in the system
• – The quick Create button – Allows the user to create a new record in any entity without having to navigate to that entity. By clicking on the quick create button, the user can quickly select the type of record they would like to add.

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