Orange case study

Reading extract

The deployment of a new CRM is a strategic and delicate project

CRM deployment projects fail because of non-adoption by users. It’s not uncommon for customers to come to us to re-launch Salesforce two or three years after the initial launch because the tool isn’t being used in the field. Is it a matter of salespeople being unwilling? The Salesforce tool is no good? A lack of training at deployment time? The problem is a little more complicated. Let’s try to understand what happens at the time of deployment to your sales force.
A radical change in salespeople’s habits
Salesforce CRM is a powerful tool, and the Lightning upgrade, now well underway, has brought real improvements in interface usability and user experience. Even so, a Salesforce deployment represents a major shift in your salespeople’s habits. They were used to working with your old in-house CRM, where everything was tailored to your organization. With the deployment of Salesforce, your organization will likely take the opportunity to revisit some of the sales processes to bring them up to date. Your salespeople will have to adapt to new processes in addition to a very different usability than what they were used to.

Knowing that the CRM is their main work tool on a daily basis, and that your sales representatives have been using the old tool for years, even decades, understand that the magnitude of the change for them is colossal.
Sales people who on an individual level can do without CRM
CRM is a tool that was designed for management and for the organization. Historically, the primary value proposition of CRM is to help top management make more reliable forecasts for the coming quarters. The use of a CRM therefore makes sense in a multi-level sales organization.
But on an individual level, a sales person could do his job without using a CRM, using the means at hand (notes, Excel file, his mailbox, his memory…).
From his point of view, it’s not surprising that the salesperson is critical of CRM tools: they require time to input data, and at first glance he thinks he could do his job without them. There is therefore an educational effort to be made throughout the organization to convince the teams of the merits of the approach, to get them on board.
Traditional” training is not adapted to the use of a tool
Training for a new tool as rich as Salesforce and its 1001 possibilities is not done in one day. It takes time for salespeople to get the hang of it, and above all, it has to be gradual so that users can discover the tool and its possibilities step by step.