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Building Your Enterprise CS Framework: From Strategy to Scale Part 6

Building Your Enterprise CS Framework: From Strategy to Scale Part 6

Change Management – Getting Your Adoption Strategy Right

Tomas
May 13th, 2025

Featured Article

So, you’re rolling out a new system. A world of opportunity is sitting right in front of you! But the team isn’t transitioning like you hoped. If that sounds familiar, you’re probably in dire need of a different strategy.

It’s Part 6 of 7 and we’re getting into that crunchy part of the implementation journey – training and adoption.

“Don’t just train the team – make them obsessed with your product.”

Successful implementation is all about buy in. Engineer everything around usership, and you’ll start to see way more engagement. Here’s how to go about it.

1. Understand what’s actually going on

Way too many implementation projects fail. I’m talking upwards of 74% according to some reports. Yikes.

The leading causes?

Employees cling to legacy tools too long
“Comprehensive training” that’s really just a 90-minute snoozefest
Leaders measure “completion rates” instead of actual usage

To tackle it, get super clear about your strategy to get as much of the team excited about the change as soon as possible.

Easiest ways to get there?

Fix what people care about. Find out what workflow users hate about their current system – then give them a solution to it right away.
Sunset the legacy tools fast. Set hard dates for the switch over and don’t look back.
Get people motivated. Bribe them if you have to! One team reported an 80% adoption rate in the first 30 days after offering $500 Amazon gift cards for the first 10% who hit usage milestones.

2. Make the training process easy and fun

Forget “LMS completion rates.” Who cares if no one’s actually checked in?

Instead, make it feel like a game:

Micro-learnings: Deliver 3-minute “how-to” videos via Slack during workflows. Something like: “Hey Sales Team – here’s how to cut proposal time by 70%.”
Make a leaderboard: Which departments are saving the most time? Bring out a bit of competition to get the usage rates up.
Give incentives: Figure out what your team cares about and then tie it to adoption stats. One CSM boosted compliance by 45% after offering up bonuses based on training completion.

3. Communicate how it’s going

Are your weekly updates getting ignored? You might have to get a little more specific about how you iterate adoption wins depending on who you’re talking to.

Execs → Take 5 minutes in your monthly meeting to show the big picture ROI.

Think: “This tool saved you $1.2M in contractor costs last month.”

Departments → Send wins that push the leaderboards.

Think: “Finance saved 200 hours this month – see how.” or “IT reduced ticket volume by 60% – steal their playbook.”

4. Use AI to predict resistance

You don’t have to wait until you get a complaint. Get ahead of pushback by addressing the issues first.

Try these tactics:

Locate signs of frustration: Use AI to Slack comms for phrases like “this sucks” or “too complicated.”
Look at the data: If a department’s usage drops 10%, swarm them with support before they complain.
Automate support systems: AI detects risk → personalized training paths get triggered.

Where to start

Get on top of adoption strategies this week with these three key focuses:

Purge something old: Disable one redundant feature in the old system.
Lean on your obsessed users: Figure out who they are, then give them budget to host an “lunch and learn.”
Set up a leadership board: Show each team how their stats compare to the others.

Slow adoption and change resistance are normal – but left alone too long and you’re going to see things fail. Get strategic about adoption. Re-think your training process. And don’t underestimate the power of a little competition.

Next week, we’re wrapping up our series on enterprise CS with a deep dive on how to measure success and lean on the right metrics.

Tomas

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