Help everyone understand the “why”
You need your employees to feel like this new solution is going to improve their lives. And that means understanding what they actually want and need.
For successful technology implementation, you need to first open up the lines of communication. What are your employees’ pain points? If you can, try to get in the trenches (e.g., actually use the tools in your current martech stack) to better understand what they’re up against.
If it’s possible, it’s best to take steps toward empathy before you choose a new technology. Employees are going to be much more open to (and hopefully even excited about) a new solution if they feel like it’s being introduced for their benefit. By connecting their struggles to the new technology, you get two critical things.
- A higher level of enthusiasm for the solution
- A way to show that you hear your team and work to respond to their needs
This all should happen well before you expect your team to start using the solution. Once you’ve shown your employees how the new tech benefits them, you set the stage for successful implementation.
Create a game plan
Speaking of implementation, it’s time to get a strategy in place. Simply putting a solution on your employees’ computers or giving them logins to a tool is not the same as implementing the new technology.
Your implementation plan should include structured, clearly defined processes for rollout to your employees, and it should usually happen in phases. Here’s an example:
- Phase one: After getting training on the solution, a group of volunteers from your team beta test it, identifying what works and what needs to be fixed to make the tech function better for the work they do.
- Phase two: All employees who will be expected to use the solution get a presentation about it and training on how to use it. They leave the training with a guide on using the solution and best practices for it.
- Phase three: All employees start using the solution, ideally with a place to input any suggestions they have or challenges they experience as they adopt the new tool.
- Phase four: As employees continue to use the new tech, leaders work with the solution vendor to refine it to be the most effective tool possible for their team.
- Phase five: A new training takes place to get employees up to speed on the latest refinements. The training ends with a Q&A session. Afterward, leaders immediately get to work addressing any outstanding concerns.
Clearly, you need to make sure your game plan doesn’t stop when the solution launches.
As part of formally introducing your new technology, it’s important to truly commit to the solution, and to do so long-term. If employees have a sense this is just the latest, flashy new thing and it will soon get replaced, they’re not going to invest in learning the new tool or its surrounding processes.
Yes, that makes implementation a more arduous process. But training your team and refining the solution to meet their needs makes you much more likely to find success with the tech long-term. And that can save you from ending up with a bloated, patchwork stack.
It's also important to budget with the same mindset. Don't just budget for the implementation, aiming for approval so you can check the project off your list. It's just as important to budget for the post-launch enhancements, ongoing support, training material maintenance, etc. When the employees see that your company is invested in this long-term, they're much more eager to follow suit.
Find people to act as teachers and role models
No tech implementation should go forward without support for your employees. A clear implementation plan makes a big difference there, but employees need that support outside of the formal trainings you offer, too.
Identify teachers who can be available to answer questions and provide guidance on how best to use the new solution. If you don’t have people available in-house, you may be well-served by bringing in an outside support team.
Your teachers might be the leaders in that department. But even if someone else will be doing the teaching, make sure your leaders act as role models. At its core, that means they use the solution. If they skirt around it and continue to use old tools, your employees have good reason to do the same. Your leaders need to champion the new solution and, at the end of the day, that means truly engaging with it.
Then, even when the formal implementation phase of your new tech has ended, it’s important to keep those teachers and role models in place. As your business changes, your employees will likely want to use the tool in new ways. They need support for any questions that may arise.
By introducing new tech in alignment with your employees’ needs, following a strategic implementation plan, and providing ample support, you dramatically increase your chances of success. In fact, you might just find that your team is actually excited about the new solution you roll out.
If you want help in any of these areas, we're here.