Share your story - All Comments

RE: SugarClub Champion : Great to hear from Kristjan explain how he uses Club on a regular basis

Kristjan Geir Mathiesen — Tue, 10 Nov 2020 17:13:49 GMT

Thank you [mention:da587f980d3141858f7131a0b8f9a178:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] , I appreciate this. I really do owe so much to the SugarClub so I am happy to "pay it forward" a bit.

RE: SugarClub Champion : Great to hear from Kristjan explain how he uses Club on a regular basis

AJ Traver — Tue, 10 Nov 2020 17:05:59 GMT

Agree! Thank you so much [mention:292a50ea7b254b28b94db30c4c8f907b:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05]! It was awesome to hear how you use SugarClub and we look forward to that day in the future when we can connect in person at a customer event!

RE: SugarClub Champion : Great to hear from Kristjan explain how he uses Club on a regular basis

Jana Ferguson — Tue, 10 Nov 2020 17:04:28 GMT

Thank you so much [mention:292a50ea7b254b28b94db30c4c8f907b:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05]! We loved having you!

RE: 5 Customer Service Tips for the New Normal

Natalie Girmscheid — Tue, 10 Nov 2020 16:20:35 GMT

This is great. Thanks for posting it.

RE: A GREAT CRM STARTS WITH GREAT DATA

Mykola Bulava — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 08:53:51 GMT

Hi Michael,
Thank you for the additional comments. I totally agree with your opinion about the usage of hard input restrictions. In many cases, it leads to users' resistance.

In my opinion, much more efficient to use not only "hard" but and "soft" validations with notification and the possibility to save data.

"Soft" validation helps to pay user's attention to possibly bad data and correct if it's necessary but at the same time gives a chance to save data if everything is correct or data can't be entered by objectives reasons (like your case with a phone number).

Of course, it opens a way to save bad data but works well in combination with user training and following some technical rules:
- show the clear and useful for user notification on "human language."
- use one notification about all identified situations before data save because often data of one field should be analyzed in combination with other fields, especially for forms with many fields
- grant a way to see a text of notification during data editing after getting of notification

RE: A GREAT CRM STARTS WITH GREAT DATA

Michael Baecker — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 08:37:54 GMT

Hi Mykola,

Thank you for your comment.

Input restrictions on data fields can be very helpful to omit user errors, however, can create a negative impact on user acceptance on particular occasion. Let me give you one example:

I have just been in France for vacation and wanted to purchase a local prepaid sim card for my cell phone. The online order form included a field to be filled with my current (German) telephone number.

IMPOSSIBLE TO ENTER A GERMAN NUMBER resulting in “no purchase”. To include a field validation on the field “telephone” number makes it impossible for any tourist with a non-French number to make a purchase.

As to automated input on calculated values absolutely makes sense if the underlying rules are unambiguous and do not change too often.

Regarding intelligent notification about the necessity to verify the actuality of data: Yes, this falls under possible cleansing activities. However, as a first step users should be trained and constantly reminded that quality depends on their input and that other colleagues are relying on it. The cleansing activities might be needed in conditions where you have e.g. an inbound call center, where agents are urged to work fast (with a time limit per call) and where often data quality suffers. In those cases it is recommended to run regular cleansing efforts. They could of course be triggered automatically assigning records to a dedicated “data officer”.

The design of the user interface always depends on the individual use case and needs to represent a fair trade-off between too many restrictions of any kind that may frustrate users and – subsequently - their awareness for data correctness.

Under the bottom line: When a user interface and underlying logic are defined it needs to include human-centered design, incorporating human factors and ergonomic and technical reasoning with the objective of raising efficiency and effectiveness, improving human working conditions, and opposing possible unfavourable effects of use on user acceptance or performance.

RE: A GREAT CRM STARTS WITH GREAT DATA

Mykola Bulava — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 11:58:34 GMT

Thank you, Michael. Useful recommendations.

What is your opinion about the impact on data-quality and user adoption of the following:

intelligent cascading data update in related objects not only accounts and contacts
various data validations (on editing, after and before save),
calculation and automated fields filling, like "Stage," "Status," "Type," "Tags," etc. based on whole information not only data of current record, and not only for a current record (in some sense this is a part of cascading data update)
timely and intelligent notification about the necessity to verify the actuality of data

In most cases, this requires adding custom logic that is totally automated mostly but sometimes with users' actions.

Definitely, this has an impact on the budget and time of initial implementation. Still, maybe the biggest challenge is that many such algorithms will change in time and have to be reconfigured quickly and cost-effectively to stay useful.

RE: Marketing the CRM Project

Dmytro Chupylka — Fri, 02 Oct 2020 23:03:48 GMT

Hello Erik,

Employees face challenges and articulate user stories, so whenever CRM or other project starts, future users always have expectations from the upcoming solution they will adopt

From the personal perspective the result is simple - solution either address my challenges and helps with my user stories or not - that evaluation always happens, while criteria and conclusions are always subjective.

Therefore, if the management and implementation team expect someone participate the party but themselves and maybe champion [emoticon:d92370a45f4a4771bae3934b4fb90cdb], they have to take care of implementing user stories rather than forcing others to use smth that does not really fit well...

I'd agree, that having been successfully implemented, the user story cases become best messages for the internal "drip campaigns" that really "sell" project to customer teammates sharing hope and encouraging to support implementation team efforts

I hope that makes sense

All the Best,

Dmytro

RE: Marketing the CRM Project

Alex Gadd — Fri, 02 Oct 2020 14:30:43 GMT

Erik - I think this covers a lot of the best practices we preach really well - but there's more to discuss here! A second post perhaps? We need to consider the differences between a first-time CRM implementation and a replacement CRM implementation. The "sales" activities are slightly different. The level of awareness is different. But the top-down support and the need to get people educated and excited over time are the same. I have a nice presentation from SugarCon 2018 that speaks to this. User Adoption is the key metric to any new CRM implementation, at least initially. You can't start expecting better company metrics (revenue growth, increased lead conversion, customer engagement, etc) until the employees are embracing the new CRM platform and using it to the level needed.

This is a great conversation starter - I look forward to seeing more comments!

RE: Is your CRM like a can of Coke?

Nancy Sommer — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 16:29:22 GMT

tssSSS kr-Pop... exactly ;)

I'd be interested in learning if anyone is using a digital adoption platform in combination with SugarCRM or if it would be possible to create something like a user guide wizard, not only the default one but a customized wizard that guides new employees through the more tricky bits.

Any feedback welcome,

RE: Is your CRM like a can of Coke?

Chris Pennington — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 14:04:01 GMT

Great read [mention:786d8418df254455a70f82b2e442d767:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] good, sound advice

RE: A is for Adoption

Adam Frank — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 13:06:04 GMT

Great post! I like the point about varying communication modes. Having a comms strategy can feel obvious, but it is less obvious to acknowledge that people are more/less receptive in different channels - reflecting our learning preferences and where our attention is... its just so human to miss things in an email even if its blasted several times.

Particularly rate the usage of lunch&learns - but am curious - what sort of experience everyone has had with running these types of sessions virtually? Real time+visual is a great way to validate if people are actually "getting it", and many change management strategies are too focused on one-way communication - and hence miss this.

PS [mention:da587f980d3141858f7131a0b8f9a178:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05], if A is for Adoption, what does B stand for? I look forward to the rest of your 26-part series [emoticon:c4563cd7d5574777a71c318021cbbcc8]

RE: How Qlik and Business Intelligence leverage the potential of SugarCRM

Darren Flood — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 23:23:08 GMT

Hi [mention:f993fdbb8f9b4f2d98fb15e6e01b8f8a:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05],

Thanks for posting this. We have a client that is using Qlik and has expressed interest in integrating it with Sugar. What is the best way to connect to get some further information?

Thanks, Darren

RE: Get tech adoption right and your team will love you

Lizzy Overlund — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 14:31:06 GMT

Yes to all of this! Well-written, Adam. I also find that the communication should continue post-release/post-launch of any project to keep the momentum alive.

RE: Get tech adoption right and your team will love you

Jana Ferguson — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 14:20:24 GMT

Great read, Adam! Thank you for posting. Part of my role is to help customers drive adoption of our products - as I look to build out more programs to help customers I'd love to hear from anyone regarding the adoption challenges they have faced. Feel free to respond here, @ mention me, or message me directly.