Salesforce Online Training Best Practices
The training phase of an implementation of Salesforce is the best opportunity to encourage adoption by end users. To increase your chances of success, follow these good training practices:
1. Role-based training - training should not be the same for all roles. It should be adapted to each role and start with managers; focus on showing them the value of the tool and how to get the information they need; they do not need to know how to convert a prospect into an opportunity as much as they need to know which reports will be most useful to them and how to execute them
2. Scenario-based training - End users do not need to know * what * do all screens and features as much as they need to know * when * use salesforce.com; instead of describing each screen, take a concrete example and go through it together; it ends up being almost more business process training than it is software training
3. Training as a team - it is crucial that the manager is in training with the end users (after making sure that managers see the value of salesforce.com, of course); with their manager present, end users know that there is a buy-in and a wait on the part of management, and they are less inclined to say or think "it's a waste of time, I do not it"
4. Train on Live System - it's tempting to train on a fictitious organization org with fake leads and contacts and other data, but then you have to rely on users to take what they've learned and translate it into the real world; instead, have them do * real * work with * real * data (for example, bring their stacks of business cards into class and enter real leads during the training); In this way, they have already started using salesforce.com when they finish a day of classes; it's a lot easier to * continue * to use a new tool than to * start * using it!
5. Practical training - this may be obvious but should be mentioned: most people do not learn by listening to an instructor or watching videos and learning online; they learn by doing; every student should have his own workstation or device and should practice every process taught in class
6. Reinforce training over time - research shows that two weeks after training, people usually remember 2-4% of what they learned ... unless they actually use what they learned; a unique training strategy does not cut it, as even the fastest adopters will not likely use the evening taught during the first week after training; you have to review and refresh after a week and again after the second week
End-user adoption can be one of the hardest things to do with Salesforce, but it's also one of the most important things. With the initial and ongoing support of direct managers - with these best practices - any organization can truly expect and enjoy high rates of adoption by Salesforce users
