Overview and Challenge: Missed Opportunities
Two failed CRM implementations had left a multi-million dollar manufacturing company with a set of disparate, frustrating sales processes. As a result, their sales reps created a number of workarounds to fill the gaps, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities with contacts.
For example, while at industry conventions, reps would meet hundreds of potential contacts — but they didn’t have the ability to log these contacts into a mobile CRM. To overcome this, many reps would record contact information in Word documents or Excel sheets. The implications were twofold:
- It was impossible to know if new contacts had interacted with the company before
- Reps would cherry-pick which contacts to subsequently load into the CRM later, leading to missed opportunities and wasted time recording contact information twice
For sales managers and executives, the fractured and inconsistent data made it difficult to see how their teams were doing in reports. The company needed a way to centralize their national, regional, inside and partner sales reps, and implement one method for managing CRM at the corporate level.
It was time to try another CRM. To ensure complete adoption this time, they needed to start with strong training.
The Solution: Salesforce training with ScreenSteps
After reviewing their options, the company made the switch to Salesforce CRM. Because of its complex capabilities, they needed a training solution that could get everyone up to speed quickly.
With the help of a dedicated trainer, the company identified weaknesses in their current sales operations, and mapped out a solution to reach their ideal state with Salesforce.
Next, the trainer created a series of how-to guides in ScreenSteps that would show reps how to achieve every desired outcome. This included everything from simple tasks like making a new opportunity to complex actions like reporting and pricing.
Finally, it was time to train the reps on how to use Salesforce.
During a week of live, scenario-based training, the reps leveraged the how-to guides in the knowledge base to problem-solve in real time. These problems were based on scenarios they would actually encounter in the field, and gradually became more complex over the course of the week.
Once the live training finished, the reps wrapped up with a 90-minute virtual training course within ScreenSteps. Supporting knowledge base articles, how-to videos and knowledge checks were linked directly to the course material, continuing to reinforce what reps had learned from the live training.
The Results: Faster Time-to-Value and Better Processes
With the support of ScreenSteps training solutions, the company reached 99% adoption among their sales reps before CRM launch day.
Throughout the training, the reps had become completely familiarized with the knowledge base. This enabled them to hit the ground running and start problem-solving from day one.
Additionally, the company was able to save money by:
- Cutting down training by a full day
- Eliminating the need for ongoing live support post-launch
- Achieving full productivity immediately post-launch, rather than having to wait for widespread adoption
Finally, with the knowledge base as a single source of truth, the company no longer had to worry about processes becoming diluted or decentralized over time — saving everyone time, money and frustration in the long run.
