You’ve surely experienced a situation when, happily in the midst of a conversation, suddenly there’s radio silence. What happened to your conversation partner? Why isn’t he responding?
As an IT project manager, a solutions manager, or as director of your organization’s IT systems, this might be an everyday occurrence with your users. This daily experience is surely also punctuated by numerous attempts to get your users not to ignore the software you’ve made available to them. Better yet for them to use it, and use it well.
But when your users aren’t receptive to your suggestions, can you rely on your tools’ intuitive nature?
Here are all the reasons why your users are uninterested in your tools and, of course, what you can do to fix it. Applied GPS, ongoing interaction, feedback, and microlearning are all possible options to explore…
Digital Transformation: More than a question of software
In the last few years, digital transformation and software adoption have become a growing part of the business world. Being able to access the products or services of your choice when and where you want has become an imperative for many people. And this is certainly true for your employees, too.
You may have already considered implementing a new tool in your organization, ergonomic, well-designed, with a UX that’s sure to respond to your team’s demands. It’s a great idea! However, the challenge of the digital transformation is much more than just putting a few digital tools and processes in place. It’s a great start, but more than anything the digital transformation is a change of mindset that impacts every aspect of your organization.
Your employees are those most impacted by your organization’s digital transformation, and they’re also on the front lines of the new tools you put in place. These team members, depending on their experience, roles, and strengths may have widely varied interest levels in new technologies.
A tool is only as good as its user
So, as intuitive, innovative, and ergonomic as your new software may be, you still need your employees to understand and use them. Badly entered data, only partially used functionalities, or even lack of activity on the tools that you put in place are all common obstacles encountered by companies when they deploy new solutions. Understanding the reasons for these challenges is the first step towards better adoption of your software.
4 Reasons Users Avoid Your Tools
The motivation that pushed you to set up a new collaborative platform, a new intranet or a new purchasing tool was surely well-intentioned; wishing to facilitate collaboration on projects, to simplify your various business processes, or to better manage workflows and resources.
However, many of your employees still wonder: “What do I gain from this?” To help you overcome their reluctance to use new software and tools, we’ve identified a few of the main obstacles to the adoption of your digital tools.
Resistance to Change
70% of change management projects fail, essentially due to the resistance of employees. Fear of the unknown, no perceived value, “yet another tool”, lack of skills, or bad timing are some of the many, many reasons employees dig in their heels.
In other words, your employees don’t see the interest or value in abandoning old processes, and aren’t pushed to familiarize themselves with new tools.
Lack of Management Involvement
“Lead By Example” is highly regarded as a way for managers to encourage their teams, and is one of the keys to robust user adoption. The numbers speak for themselves: only 26% of employees believe their managers lead by example (RootInc).
Adoption of new software and successful change management therefore require the involvement of all the players in your organization, starting with those who are driving this change.
Lack of Communication
1 in 3 projects fail thanks to inefficient communication (Project Management Institute). Your employees are the end users of your internal tools, and therefore the first to experience when a new feature appears, an application is replaced, or new processes are implemented.
Frequent communication isn’t enough. Your users will be more invested in their tools if you send the right messages, at the right time, on the right tools, thanks to push notifications for example. And they’ll be all the more invested with the ability to interact in return, directly from their tools, via surveys, quizzes, or simple feedback.
Lack of Training
Even the best tools for billing, ticketing, or project management are ineffective if your teams don’t use them. Only 50% of employees and 64% of managers are satisfied with the materials made available to learn how to use new technologies (PwC).
Though many SaaS tools offer technical support, very few offers a complete training program. Rare too are those that include interactive guides available directly within the user interface. The more at ease your users are with their tools, the better their adoption of those tools will be. Even better? They will be all the more efficient with their workflows left uninterrupted thanks to integrated support directly within their tools.
The Solution? (Re)engage inactive users from inside their tools!
Training, yes, but at what cost? While nearly everything seems to be automated at work these days, training your employees in new digital tools and new business processes can quickly become expensive and time-consuming, especially with SaaS applications which are frequently updated with new features, new modules, a new UI, or new collaborative functions… All of which require ongoing training and can negatively impact the productivity of your employees.
Integrated directly within your users’ tools, digital adoption platforms (DAPs) like Lemon Learning are one solution to this problem. Lemon Learning streamlines your advancement into the digital age thanks to automation of many features and the ability to create – and update – training content in just a few clicks, without any technical skills. As a result, your training and support costs are dramatically reduced – and employee productivity skyrockets.
Lemon Learning is essentially GPS navigation for digital tools. Beyond interactive guides, the solution offers your users real performance support (ePSS) as well as a way to interact continuously with them (push notifications, feedback, quizzes, etc). In short, with a solution like Lemon Learning, you’re always in touch with your users.
You simply can’t rest all your hopes on the intuitiveness of your software! Implementing a new CRM tool, onboarding new arrivals on your ERP, or expanding the use of your purchasing tool across the organization means implicating the necessary human resources, developing relevant training, choosing the right timing, and adopting the leadership and vision to encourage the involvement of everyone in your organization.
