Salesforce, the leading CRM platform, has redefined how businesses manage their operations and customer relationships. While Salesforce offers robust functionality out-of-the-box, the User Experience (UX) plays a vital role in reaching the business objectives behind the implementation.

In this blog, we will delve into the importance of UX design throughout the lifecycle of Salesforce, exploring the best times to plan and implement UX improvements.

Planning UX as part of the initial Salesforce implementation

Planning UX design in the initial implementation project is the optimal approach to minimize implementation and User Adoption risks.

This is because, during the first stages of Salesforce implementation, organizations have the best opportunity to establish a foundation for a seamless and intuitive UX.

When planning UX design from the outset, collaborating closely with stakeholders, end-users, and UX experts is essential. A deep understanding of the business's specific needs and users' workflows helps organizations precisely align Salesforce with their objectives and create a (UX) that speeds up task completion while reducing mental strain and effort.

Planning UX as part of initial implementation also helps decrease training time and costs, ensuring high adoption rates from the beginning.

Improving Salesforce UX after the first release

The next best moment to consider salesforce UX improvement is when user feedback and adoption data start to flow in after the first release.

A convenient way to measure implementation success is using Salesforce Adoption Dashboards – a tool provided free of charge by Salesforce and available on its AppExchange marketplace.

These dashboards show key adoption metrics, such as user logins, data entry rates, and feature utilization. This helps to identify common use patterns, spot problematic areas, and take steps to enhance the User Experience.

Dashboards provide hard data about user adoption and engagement metrics, which are great tools for identifying issues. Data, however, only tells a part of the story.

To understand the root cause of problems of software adoption, running usability tests may be a good idea.

Usability tests provide a deep contextual understanding of user behavior and adoption barriers. In usability tests, users are given specific task and test facilitators observes user behavior and gathers user feedback.

This provides concrete inputs about users' challenges and allows to fix identified problems in UX design.

Improving UX when considering CRM migration

Some companies have used CRM systems for years, putting up with poor UX without considering potential improvements. Eventually, they may contemplate switching to another CRM system to achieve their objectives. However, migrating to a new CRM is a significant undertaking with its own set of risks.

Before committing to the time, effort, and costs of migration, organizations should consult with UX experts to assess whether UX improvements can offer a viable solution. It's important to note that UX design is crucial regardless of whether a company is enhancing an existing CRM implementation or transitioning to a different CRM product.

Simply copying current CRM processes to a new system will unlikely improve the UX. Task success (the time required to complete tasks and the ease of completing them) will not improve unless UX is considered.

Conclusion

Effective UX design is essential in achieving success with Salesforce throughout its lifecycle.

Organizations can create a solid user adoption and engagement foundation by prioritizing UX during the first implementation.

After the first release, adoption metrics and usability testing provide rich information about necessary UX design improvements based on first-hand data. This is the best time to plan UX design improvements.

Even when considering a CRM replacement, exploring UX improvements can provide a cost-effective alternative or help to implement optimal UX in the new system.

Are you interested in exploring ways to improve your Salesforce User Experience? In such a case, check out our FREE Salesforce UX workshop offering here.