Five Strategies to Increase Salesforce User Adoption

The Salesforce platform has revolutionized the business world by increasing revenue, ending manual processes, and centralizing data management. But Salesforce’s full power is still dependent on human interaction with the platform. Low Salesforce user adoption leads to low/negative ROI, missed opportunities, and wasted resources. To avoid these five pitfalls, follow these five strategies to increase Salesforce user adoption:

1. Prioritize and Simplify Salesforce Projects – User adoption starts at the beginning of a Salesforce project. When a project is initialized, each stakeholder group often has different priorities. Leadership stakeholders may prioritize large-scale projects that affect the entire organization. User stakeholders may want projects that will improve their day-to-day work life. To ensure project success and high user adoption, prioritize initiatives that are manageable, achievable, and scalable. In addition, try to keep projects as simple as possible. If projects are complicated or too much of a leap, there is a risk that stakeholders might become apathetic, leading to low user adoption with the final build.

2. Encourage Collaboration between Stakeholders – Project success requires collaboration from all key stakeholders, from senior leaders to users. Often stakeholder groups are unaware of each other’s pain points and goals, so it is imperative that all stakeholders collaborate and communicate with each other regularly. If a stakeholder group feels marginalized, this could risk the success of the project and/or lead to low user adoption later.

3. Perform Thorough User Acceptance Testing (UAT) – It is vital that all users take part in User Acceptance Testing (UAT), meaning each user group performs real-life test cases of how Salesforce will work for them. It is imperative that test scripts are written from each user group’s viewpoint to ensure Salesforce works as designed. The UAT phase is the time to make changes before a “go-live” decision, so users should be encouraged to voice their concerns if a feature is not working as expected. Low user adoption is often a result of insufficient UAT.

4. Invest in Training and Change Management – Training and change management are sometimes overlooked during a Salesforce project. To encourage strong user adoption from the beginning, it is imperative to have a thorough change management plan, including clear and concise training materials and sessions for users. In addition, encourage users to visit Trailhead to learn more about Salesforce and/or create a customized “trail” for them to complete. Other change management tactics, such as launch parties, incentives, and recognitions, are vital to encouraging user adoption when first learning Salesforce.

5. Monitor User Adoption – After the Salesforce project go-live, it is important to continually watch user adoption. Salesforce makes this easier with the Lightning Usage App. To access this app, type “Lightning Usage App” in the App Launcher as shown below:

The Lighting Usage app has the following user adoption metrics:
• Daily and monthly active users in Lightning Experience and the Salesforce mobile app
• Most Active Users by Profile
• Login Metrics
• Number of Active Users, Feature and Permission Set Licenses

With the metrics in the Lightning Usage App, you can access current Salesforce adoption and plan for user recognition or encouragement. For instance, if user adoption is beginning to decline, request feedback from your users via interviews, surveys or focus groups to understand their Salesforce experiences. By understanding users’ experiences, you can make minor enhancements now and add larger changes to your Salesforce roadmap plan.
In conclusion, keeping Salesforce user adoption strong is an ongoing process that takes planning, collaboration, communication, and patience. But with strong user support and encouragement, your organization will be able to use Salesforce to its fullest potential.