Dynamics CRM: Increase User Adoption with Effective Training Materials
By John Bowdler in Documentation, Dynamics CRM on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
User adoption strategies for CRM implementations are unfortunately sometimes overlooked by stakeholders. Often however, those that do overlook the importance of these initiatives begin to see the importance too late to successfully develop sound UA strategies. Successful UA hinges on several aspects. For this post I am focusing solely on only one – Effective Training Materials.
Over my 12 year career in the CRM space, I have seen customers take a variety of approaches to creating training materials. From leveraging software manufacturers’ user guides to multi-deck power point presentations, I believe I have seen it all. More often than not, these approaches are nothing short of failure. Expecting users to learn your CRM philosophies and strategy from software reference material is akin to expecting one to learn how to drive by simply reading a vehicle’s owner manual. To be successful we must know the rules of the road, or in this case, the business rules to support CRM strategies.
Follow the steps below to build materials that will not only be effective in the training classroom, but will increase user adoption, which will subsequently bring faster ROI.
1. Identify Each Track
It is imperative that we create separate training materials to support the respective CRM Strategy for each track. This not only goes for the sales tracks and service tracks, but also for sales managers versus sales representatives. Both roles will have different CRM processes and strategies and therefore should be trained accordingly.
2. Follow the Hierarchy: Strategy > Process > Task > Action
Each strategy is made of one or more processes, and each process contains one or more tasks. Within in each Task, there are several actions. From a training manual perspective, we want to group all the Tasks for each Process within a Strategy section. For example, an organization would have a strategy around Account Management. Within this section of the training material we would find the processes to support Account Management. The Account Management processes would identify each Task, and so on.
3. Utilize Supportive Diagrams
For each Process, create a short flow diagram to help visualize the flow.
4. Utilize Step / Action Tables
Step/Action tables will provide users a systematic approach for each Process Task. During training, emphasize each step for the Task
5. Use Granular Screen Captures
Instead of stating “Click the Excel icon to export,” replace Excel with an actual screen capture of the button or icon. Now, you may be saying to yourself: “this seems like a lot of work.” I won’t lie to you…it is. However, visual cues are much more effective in guiding users toward an action then typed prose. It is important to note, that as development of the materials progress you will find some repetition of certain images. Obviously you can create them once, then simply copy them as needed.
Example Task:
Adding Files to an Account
1. Click Accounts on the Navigation Pane to display the Account grid.
2. Locate the desired Account, and then double click the Account Name to open the record.
3. Click the paper clip at the top of the Account record window to display the Add Attachment diaog box. This will allow you to add records from your computer to the specific Account record.
4. Click Browse to open Windows Explorer in order to locate the respective attachment.
5. Browse to the appropriate folder to select the desired attachment, and then click Open to associate the attachment.
6. Confirm that the correct file path is listed in the Add Attachment dialog box.
7. Finally, click Attach. This will add the attachment to the Notes tab as a hyperlink.
Strong UA is something we stress in all of our CRM projects here at IBIS. When budgets allow, most of our customers engage our services for the creation of custom training materials, as well as end user education. Please contact us should your organization have questions in any aspect of effective UA strategies.
About John Bowdler
Posted in Documentation, Dynamics CRM
Tags: CRM Documentation , CRM Training Materials , Documentation , User Adoption
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[...] “Over my 12 year career in the CRM space, I have seen customers take a variety of approaches to creating training materials. From leveraging software manufacturers’ user guides to multi-deck power point presentations, I believe I have seen it all. More often than not, these approaches are nothing short of failure. Expecting users to learn your CRM philosophies and strategy from software reference material is akin to expecting one to learn how to drive by simply reading a vehicle’s owner manual. To be successful we must know the rules of the road, or in this case, the business rules to support CRM strategies.” More on the same subject at http://www.dynamicscare.com/blog/index.php/increase-user-adoption-with-effective-training-materials/ [...]