User Adoption Insights From Tri Tuns

Watch out, SaaS vendors…your customers have a BS detector!

In the olden days (you know, about a week ago), before the rise of cloud computing, software vendors could use a lot of big words, slick demos, and fancy marketing props to entice people to buy a system. They were selling hope.

Sales are easy. Customer Retention is hard.

And many vendors are feeling the pain. The above video from Adobe does a great job of highlighting the issue. SaaS systems, with low upfront fees and the relatively easy ability to switch to a completely different system, enables customers to learn for themselves what your system can deliver.

Subscription pricing means you need to prove your worth. Everyday.

The impact: every time you have a renewal sales discussion, your customer immediately knows if you are BSing them or not. And they won’t tolerate BS.

Ensure your customers' success if you want to keep them.

What this means is SaaS vendors need to ensure they stop BSing customers and start ensuring their success. Make sure your customer has achieved measurable business value from investing in your system. To do this, evolve your sales, implementation, and customer management processes.

Help customers address the two biggest issues they face  – namely, driving and maintaining full, effective user adoption of the system AND realizing the clear, measurable business benefits. If you can’t do this, your only choice is to try to BS your customer.

Good luck with that.

Do you have a Customer Success Management program? If not, why not? If so, how has it affected your customer churn? 

Please share your thoughts and experiences on the Customer Success Practitioners group on LinkedIn.



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8 Factors to Review BEFORE Investing in CRM

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced new rules for mortgages that will take affect in 2014. An article on CNBC.com reported eight factors the CFPB requires lenders to examine before making a loan. We have previously identified that lenders (and others) should treat their CRM investments with the same care and scrutiny that they do when making loans to others. So, here are 8 factors that you need to consider before investing in CRM systems.

1. Expected ROI over the life of the CRM investment

Don’t just look at implementation costs or total cost of ownership (TCO). Make sure the expected return and lifetime value is both positive and significant enough to warrant the time and effort required to implement and maintain the system. Perform a scenario analysis to weight the expected ROI to adjust for different levels of user adoption. Will this still seem like a good investment if you don’t get effective adoption?

2. Current level of user adoption of existing systems

A good guideline to follow is that just switching to a new system without any focused plan to drive and sustain user adoption of the new technology will result in the same or lower levels of user adoption of the new system. Quite simply, if you have low user adoption today, chances are good that you will have lower user adoption tomorrow, regardless of the IT. (User adoption is a people-based issue.) That is, unless you do something to address this problem.

3. Impact of future changes to users’ jobs and performance requirements

Implementing a CRM system doesn’t make users' jobs easier – it fundamentally changes the jobs. A new CRM can alter job responsibilities and how people spend their time. It changes the skills and competencies they need. In short, it changes performance expectations. Understand the extent of the changes to users jobs and then determine what you need to do to address these changes.

4. Identification of all drivers and barriers to IT user adoption

All too often we see that there are barriers to adoption that prevent people from using the system – even when they want to use it! These organizational barriers take many forms and they lie outside the users ability to control them. Executive action is required to address these items, yet often executives are not even aware that they exist, let alone know that they need to take action.

When starting a CRM implementation, ensure someone is assigned responsibility -- and accountability -- for CRM success.5. Formal assignment of responsibility, authority and accountability for ROI

A senior executive needs to be formally charged with ensuring the CRM investment is a success. This needs to include some very real reward or consequence (such as a major impact to their compensation) for hitting or missing ROI goals for the CRM investment. If you don’t have this, you are sunk.

6. Identification of resources & budget required to drive initial user adoption

Stop thinking that you only need training! Training is necessary, but insufficient, for ensuring CRM success. You need a plan for how you will quickly align users behavior and job performance (using the CRM tool) with organizational goals. If you are only focused on training or go-live focused change management, you are in for trouble.

7. Plan and budget resources for sustaining user adoption over the life of the system

The ROI on a CRM investment is just like the ROI on any 401-K or other financial investment: returns can be up one year and then down the next. So, put a plan in place for how you’ll monitor your CRM ROI and then make adjustments as necessary to get the returns you need.

8. Defined approach for ensuring the CRM system stays relevant

Change doesn't just happen at go-live. Your business will change. Your customers will change. Your workforce will change. The economy, regulatory environment, and competitive landscape will all change. Make sure that your CRM system continues to evolve as your needs change. 

More on CRM Success



Sub-Prime CRM? What IT Needs to Learn From the New Mortgage Rules

A recent article on CNBC.com reports that lenders will face new rules for extending credit in January 2014. The rules are an attempt to prevent breakdowns in the financial industry and help ensure that organizations be repaid when they lend money.

There are many lessons here for IT departments (and, arguably, the organization as a whole) before it invests in a CRM System.

New 2014 mortgage rules require lenders consider customers’ ability to repay a loan before extending credit

Yup, at the crux of the regulations, is the idea that lenders need to make sure they will be paid back for any money they lend – before they lend it. Hmmm, that's a bold concept. 
You would think that organizations would not need to be told that before they give away a pile of money they need to be sure they will get it (and more) back. Yet, this happens every day when it comes to organizations deciding how they will invest in CRM systems.

Lenders (and others) need to consider their ability to achieve ROI before investing in CRM systems

Organizations need to treat their CRM investments just like a lender approaches (or will, come January 2014) making a loan. They should:

1. Look at how much money you send out now (license and implementation costs) and how much value demand to get back (increase in sales, decrease in costs, or other measures of ROI on your CRM investment).

2. Critically examine and rate your ability to actually achieve the returns you require (ability to drive and sustain user adoption and benefits realization). 

3. Oh, and depending on the size of the investment, you may require some sort of collateral to help incentivize successful payback of your investment (for CRM investments, this may be tying executive compensation to CRM success).

Many organizations don’t do this – or at least, not really. They may say that they have defined a “business case”, but typically this is a largely fictional piece of work that is not based on a thorough understanding or assessment of the likelihood that the system will actually get adopted and used effectively by end-users. And as we all know, if a system isn’t used, it isn’t delivering any value.

Don’t invest in Sub-Prime CRM.
Require a User Adoption & ROI Plan before you spend a dime on CRM!

Before you write a check for any CRM system, make sure it is worth it. It is better to not make any investment than to throw away a pile of money and waste tons of time on a system that is doomed to failure before it even begins. 
Ask yourself these questions:
1. Is there a written plan for how we will ensure a positive ROI on our CRM investment? 
2. Have we done a thorough analysis to identify all the drivers and barriers that will affect user adoption (and ROI)? 
3. Have we defined exactly what ROI goals must be achieved in what amount of time before we proceed?
4. Is there a single, senior executive who will be held accountable (including having a personal financial stake) for meeting ROI goals on the CRM investment?

Jacklighting Executives – The question that always stumps them!

Here is a fun game to play – I call it “jacklighting executives”. The way it works is you ask an executive (the more senior the better) a question (often an obvious one) to which they have no answer and see how long they stare into space. You get 1 point for every second they are stymied. 

My record score is 4 years, 8 weeks, 14 days, and approximately 11 hours. 

Just kidding. (Sort of.)

The question that gets me this result is simple. I ask, “Who owns CRM user adoption in your organization?”

Immediate supervisors are the biggest drivers of CRM user adoption

Many organizations spend millions of dollars on CRM implementations without having thought about what it takes to ensure success and whose job it is to make it happen. This, as history has shown, is a great recipe for disaster.

If you want to improve effective CRM adoption within your organization, don’t just look at the end users. Look at their immediate supervisors. Managers and direct supervisors have the biggest impact on making sure CRM systems are used consistently and effectively. If the manager insists that their team use the system, it gets used. If they don’t, well, I think you know what happens.

Manage your managers for improved CRM adoption

When I work with clients, I often ask them, "what role do you  expect your managers to play in driving CRM adoption?"   Often times the answer is, “we hadn’t thought of that”.

It turns out that direct managers, those who are the most influential in driving CRM success, are typically not even asked to make sure their team uses the system. Managers typically don’t have this as one of their official job responsibilities. And they are often not given the tools and support they need to ensure their team adopts the CRM system.

Managers need to be held accountable for CRM use within their team

If you want to maximize CRM adoption in your organization, don’t just focus on the end-users. Target some of your efforts on their managers. Let managers know that this is an important part of their jobs. Set them specific targets, measure results, and hold the managers accountable for ensuring their team consistently and effectively uses the CRM system.

If you do this, you will be amazed at the results you get.

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How IT user adoption affects your business case