Feb 25 2008
Best Practices: Increase User Acceptance of Your Implementation of Microsoft CRM Part II
Visibility
A major reason organizations decide to implement a CRM system such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is to gain visibility into customers, their buying behavior and the sales process. This visibility is gained through collecting data and reporting on it.
Need Data
The company’s need to collect as much data as possible and the sales people’s need to not “waste” their time on what they consider administrative task can give rise to a battle between the company and the sales people. At the end of the day if sales people are frustrated with a CRM system and consider the system a hinder rather than an aid to their sales efforts, they will not use it. Without user acceptance and consistent use, an organization will never be able to realize the fantastic benefits of a CRM system.
The “Business Required” Option
Microsoft CRM 4.0 provides the ability to make populating a field mandatory. In Microsoft CRM 4.0 this is accomplished by setting a field to “Business Required”. “Business Required” fields will show up in RED on their associated entity forms. This means that users cannot save records unless the mandatory fields are populated.
This is a very useful capability
- It helps an organization to collect the data at the point of contact
- Insures that records have useful information
When to use “Business Required” Option?
It is tempting to make majority of the information Business Required. As a Microsoft CRM consultant, I always recommend against it. My recommendation is to pick three (max four) fields and make those Business Required.
- Last Name
- Source (the answer to “How did you hear from us?”)
- Product/Service interest
You might say, “Wait a minute! How about phone or e-mail information? What good is a record if it does not have any contact information?” Remember, you make fields that are of interest to the company “Business Required”. Your sales people will, on their own, make sure to get either a phone number or an e-mail address in order to be able to contact the customer.
Of course, you will not let these important fields stay empty. After X days, you can check these fields via workflow and if they are not populated send an automated notification to the sales person. Wait X days and check again. If these fields are not populated, they will lose ownership of the record.
Delicate Balance
Organization would have to work hard to insure a delicate balance is created between capturing all the data they would like to collect and demand on sales people’s time. Accomplishing this delicate balance is not going to be easy and is different from organization to organization. This is where a Microsoft CRM consultant, that not only knows technical aspects of implementing Microsoft CRM but also has sales and marketing domain knowledge and experience can add exponential value.
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If you have had user acceptance problems and overcame it, please share it so that everyone can learn from your example.
RM
Microsoft CRM Consultant
Unitek Microsoft CRM Services
