Boost your ROI with effective Salesforce change management and user adoption strategies, including comprehensive programs, advanced features, and continuous support tailored for success.
Imagine investing in a state-of-the-art, cutting-edge tool that could revolutionize your business operations, only to find employees who aren’t using it to its fullest potential. This scenario is all too common in digital initiatives, where organizations often focus primarily on the functional or technical aspects, neglecting a crucial component: the people who will use the tool. Using Salesforce is no exception, but a Salesforce change management approach can address the challenges the scenario above causes.
The goal isn’t simply to implement technology. Rather, it’s about generating business value, boosting productivity, and enhancing efficiencies through that technology. The secret to a successful launch and high adoption is setting clear goals, getting everyone on board, from leadership to team members, and having an effective and engaging plan for communication and learning. Neglecting change leadership in a Salesforce implementation can be risky and costly.
In this blog, we’ll explore why Salesforce change management is the key to achieving adoption. We’ll highlight how successful initiatives integrate change leadership and share actionable best practices to help you maximize your Salesforce investment, whether you’re just beginning or optimizing an existing implementation.
Why is Change Management Crucial Throughout Your Salesforce Journey?
Consider this: you’re preparing to launch Salesforce, a powerful platform to transform your business operations. You’ve invested in aligning it with your goals, the features are ready, testing is going well, and anticipation is building among your users. Yet, without effective change management, the rollout could fall flat. Your team may struggle with the new processes, feel overwhelmed, or resist the change altogether — leading to a lack of adoption, and the expected benefits could fail to materialize.
The risks are real. Harvard Business Review reports 60 to 70 percent failure rate of digital transformation initiatives due to poor change management practices. Salesforce change management is crucial to unlock the tool’s full potential and propel your business forward by ensuring your team is engaged and empowered to integrate it into their daily routines.
From Vision to Reality: User Engagement is Key to Salesforce Adoption
Turning your Salesforce vision into reality goes beyond technical setup. It starts with a clear strategy that aligns with your business goals, but the true key to successful execution is engaging the people who will drive its adoption. Often, companies focus solely on technical elements like requirements and features, overlooking the users’ perspectives. Rolling out Salesforce without involving the sales team in planning can lead to underutilization, even if the system is technically flawless.
Successful Salesforce launches begin with strong change leadership, with user engagement throughout the project. This includes using Salesforce tools like Trailhead for continuous training and Salesforce Surveys for gathering ongoing feedback directly from users.
By integrating user engagement into every phase of your Salesforce project through structured training sessions, feedback loops, and regular updates, you create a more seamless transition for users. Prioritize the people element in your Salesforce work by clearly communicating the benefits and actively listening to feedback. Address concerns early on for higher adoption rates and, ultimately, greater business success.
Mastering Salesforce Change Management: Planning Before, During and After Launch
Effective technology change management isn’t a one-time task — it’s a continuous effort before, during, and after your Salesforce launch. The goal is to empower employees to excel in their new environment from day one and beyond. Prosci research shows that successful employee adoption and usage are crucial for achieving the desired benefits of any technology change.
To make this happen, organizational change management (OCM) must address issues that diminish employee effectiveness, such as communication gaps, leadership misalignment, and uncertainty. Involve employees in the change process as active participants, not just passive recipients, to boost adoption rates and achieve measurable success.
To ensure a smooth Salesforce transition, consider these core goals at every stage of your initiative:
- Drive leadership vision alignment and change strategy early and sustain it throughout the process.
- Activate sustainable change networks across the organization to maintain momentum.
- Foster continuous two-way communication and engagement before, during and after the launch.
- Implement ongoing learning initiatives instead of one-time training sessions.
- Measure readiness and adoption consistently throughout the initiative’s life cycle.
A holistic approach that considers every aspect of your organization — people, processes and technology — is key. At its heart, however, are your people. Hilary Lee, National People and Change Lead at Centric Consulting, captures this perfectly, “The ability of people to understand and use that technology is the key to success. When people feel empowered, knowledgeable, and supported through a technology transformation — via intentional communication, training, and coaching — the benefits of the investment come much sooner.”
By embedding Salesforce change management throughout your journey, you’ll create a workforce culture that embraces new technology and thrives under change.
How to Embed Change Management for Salesforce Success
When starting a new Salesforce initiative, organizations often rush to gather requirements and translate them into Salesforce capabilities. While crucial, it’s essential to take a step back and consider the big picture.
Grasp the importance of engagement and timing from the start. It’s about discussing needs and helping the team understand the change, its impact, and how to best prepare and collaborate.
Early engagement ensures that those developing Salesforce features and those experiencing the changes are aligned, creating a seamless transition and fostering a shared understanding of the goals and outcomes.
Here are some best practices to embed in your Salesforce initiatives from the onset:
1. Create a Salesforce Change Narrative and Vision
Develop a change program with governance that becomes your organization’s standard. McKinsey & Company’s research shows organizations excelling in change management are six times more likely to succeed.
Clearly define the need for change and your vision for success. Tailor strategies for different roles, emphasizing communication, learning, and empathy. Outline your purpose, goals, values, impacts, and benefits to engage and motivate stakeholders. Start early, apply consistently, and track success metrics.
2. Designate and Mobilize a Salesforce Change Agent Network
Change management is more successful when employees and managers lead changes rather than a top-down approach. Gartner reports that only one-third of change initiatives succeed. At the same time, leaders expect more changes to occur. Currently, over 80 percent of organizations manage change from the top down.
However, this strategy is fundamentally disconnected from today’s work and even slows organizations down. Consider a change management network that includes key stakeholders or functions, a change manager, and Salesforce champions to encourage and increase successful adoption.
3. Establish a Salesforce Center for Enablement
Embrace your Salesforce journey as an evolving process that requires dedicated resources to drive business value, boost adoption, and maximize ROI. A Salesforce Center for Enablement (C4E) plays a crucial role in this evolution. Unlike a traditional center of excellence, a C4E focuses on empowering your team with the tools, knowledge, and support needed for continuous improvement and effective use of Salesforce.
For a deeper dive into the role of a C4E and how it supports Salesforce initiatives, check out Salesforce’s comprehensive guide on what a Center for Enablement entails.
4. Establish Guiding Change Principles
Set up principles, expectations, and metrics to help business leaders, stakeholders, and program team members monitor and track adoption. This proactive approach helps manage ongoing change needs, setting your organization up for deeper adoption and utilization.
5. Gauge the Level of Change Support Needed
Ensure you understand the level of support required for successful Salesforce adoption. This may vary based on communication styles, your audience, individual leadership styles, and learning techniques.
6. Track Results
Analyze the results of your change and whether it achieved the expected ROI. If not, develop a plan to address the gaps and ensure the change benefits your organization.
Remember, this collaborative approach should continue well beyond the initial launch, as ongoing feedback and adaptation are fundamental to supercharge adoption rates.
Salesforce Change Management: Your North Star for User Adoption
Change is not just a part of business and overcoming challenges. It’s the heartbeat of growth. Yet, studies show, initiatives lacking change management practices face a staggering failure rate of 50 percent, with only 34 percent achieving clear success. Without a strategic approach to change management, companies risk being overwhelmed by growth challenges, employee turnover, and underperforming technology investments.
Emphasize change leadership and effectively using resources for employee engagement to unlock tremendous benefits, including:
- Transformative Impact: Seamlessly migrate from legacy systems to modern solutions
- Unified Leadership: Align leaders to guide Salesforce champions and users
- Accelerated Adoption: Speed up platform adoption and integration
- Faster ROI: Achieve quicker returns through enhanced utilization and efficiency
- Enhanced User Engagement: Boost engagement and satisfaction among users
- Innovative Leadership: Equip leaders to steer change efforts and foster innovation
- Agile Adaptation: Adapt swiftly to new challenges and opportunities
In a world of constant change — whether driven by new technologies, evolving metrics, or emerging competitors — success hinges on your ability to adapt. The organizations that thrive proactively plan for change, secure user support, and optimize their resources. Make change management your North Star, guiding your leaders to steer change effectively and embedding it into your business strategy.
Salesforce change management isn’t simply a process. It’s the driving force behind growth, unmatched customer experiences, and enhanced business outcomes. Let it be the guiding principle on your Salesforce journey, illuminating the way to higher adoption, greater success, and a soaring ROI.
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Our Salesforce experts help organizations create an integrated change strategy that engages leaders and employees and drives the adoption of your Salesforce initiatives. Reach out learn more about our approach and how it can be tailored for your organization, along with the benefits of working with a Salesforce-certified partner. Let’s Talk
