CRM User Adoption: A Customer Story

It's a crucial question that needs be answered in every CRM project.

How do you get people to engage with system?

Recently, I spoke to one of our customers, Jenny Bicket, the CRM administrator for BCR Associates, a cost management consultancy about their experiences with Microsoft Dynamics 365 / CRM.

During our conversation, Jenny talked about the challenges they faced in getting their users to engage with the process of implementing a new CRM system, and explained some of the tactics they'd used to win them round.

This has proved an excellent strategy. In less than 12 month's, BCR Associates has moved from having a CRM system that was thoroughly disliked by its users, to a new solution which is actively embraced by its team and is helping them to grow their business.

“Microsoft Dynamics has proved a fantastic system for us. We can now look far more closely at our data thanks to its integration Power BI which is giving completely new insights that we never imagined were possible.”

Jenny Bicket
BCR Associates

BCR Associates had been using their previous CRM system for around 4 years but the interface was 'clunky' and its performance was slow and unstable.

A replacement system was sought, and was quickly identified as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, but the team's frustrations resulting from their poor experiences with CRM had created a barrier when it came to gaining their commitment to start working with something new as Jenny explains:

“Our recent CRM history presented a series of user concerns and it required a major effort to get everyone on board with the project.

Collectively, we needed to retrain our minds in terms of what CRM could deliver for the business and create a vision of how we wanted it to work. Throughout the design and build process we actively canvassed user opinion about how they wanted the new system to look and feel.

Everyone was involved in this process in some aspect which included determining field names and refining our sales process. Overall, it was a real collective effort."

This approach helped Jenny and her colleagues change user perceptions and create more positive sentiment towards the project as BCR Associates begun to answer the another important question associated with CRM user adoption namely, 'What's in it for me?':

"During this stage we shared progress updates internally and previews which was a good tactic to develop wider interest in the project. It also created a wow factor when users could see at an early stage what improvements this would make." continues Jenny.

Many of BCR Associates users are relationship managers who need to use CRM on the go. These individuals presented the biggest challenge to win over but Jenny highlighted how strongly they are now embracing Microsoft Dynamics:

“They had endured a tough time due to slow unreliable access to CRM. This was especially restrictive for them when they were attending on-site customer meetings. As well as involving them in the planning process we ensured they were given the necessary time and resources to make sure their CRM questions were promptly answered.”

This communication combined with their own experience of using Microsoft Dynamics meant that these users were quickly on-boarded with CRM.

“We now find these users are driving most of the ideas for CRM change and improvements,” confirms Jenny. “It’s been amazing to see this transformation! Thanks to the Microsoft Dynamics app for iPad our relationship managers are now able to bring CRM and this data into their customer meetings and that’s made a big improvement to the outcome of these sessions.”

Jenny says BCR Associates are using further Microsoft technology to drive user engagement and make decisions about further improvements to their CRM system:

“We use Yammer to share CRM ideas inside the company and this works well by helping us quickly gather user opinions and this helps us decide on further customisations and functions.”

As this demonstrates, you are never done with CRM user adoption!

The success of BCR Associates strategy to involve its user base from the outset is demonstrated by this picture with the team celebrating their CRM launch which was repeatedly shared and liked on Twitter:

In assessing the progress that BCR Associates has made with Microsoft Dynamics in less than 12 months, Jenny is effusive in her praise:

“Microsoft Dynamics has proved a fantastic system for us. First and foremost it has enabled us to better manage our customer requirements. Also, we can now look far more closely at our data thanks to its integration with Power BI which is giving completely new insights into our data that we never imagined were possible.

Its management of our sales process is another example of how Dynamics has been a leap forward from our previous solution in terms of how it help us progress our leads.”

A superb CRM story and Preact is proud to have helped Jenny and her team achieve this result!

Download the BCR Associates case study to read more about their CRM journey.

The inclusive approach taken by BCR Associates has resulted in an excellent result as they have digitally transformed their business with Microsoft Dynamics 365 / CRM in just a few months.

Actively involving users in the planning process and making them a CRM stakeholder can throw up other challenges if some requests and ideas come into conflict.

As a result, there is a risk the process can end up feeling like attempting to herd cats but this is where CRM leadership is needed to keep progress on track. Partnering with a CRM specialist and having a strong project team will always mean that businesses are well placed to emulate the success of BCR Associates.

This post was originally published at http://www.preact.co.uk/blog/how-do-i-get-users-to-engage-with-crm

Preact is a UK based Microsoft CRM Gold Partner implementing and supporting CRM solutions since 1993.