CRM - A strategic pillar for a high-performance, sustainable customer experience

Understanding CRM beyond the tool

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a strategic approach to customer relations, combining technological tools, business processes and organizational posture. The objective of CRM is clear: to optimize interaction between the company and its customers, at every stage of the customer lifecycle - from prospecting to customer loyalty.

A CRM system centralizes and structures customer data, provides a 360° view of exchanges, and facilitates collaboration between sales, marketing, customer service and technical support teams. Today, it is an essential vector for growth, in an environment where personalization, responsiveness and omnichannel consistency have become the norm.

However, a CRM - no matter how powerful - can only live up to its promise if it is truly adopted by its users. And this is precisely where the key to a CRM project's success lies.

Why CRM adoption is the real challenge

Implementing a CRM is an ambitious project, involving many different players: senior management, IT teams, sales, marketing, HR and, of course, end-users. And yet, according to various studies, almost 90% of companies believe that their CRM does not fully deliver the expected return on investment.

This underscores an essential point: the success of a CRM depends less on technology than on people. A tool that is misunderstood, misused or perceived as a constraint generates frustration, loss of productivity and rejection. Conversely, a CRM that is well integrated into day-to-day practices becomes a powerful lever for efficiency, collaboration and customer satisfaction.

CRM adoption cannot be a secondary objective. It must be considered from the outset of the project, and supported over the long term.

The importance of onboarding and ongoing training

User onboarding - i.e., the initial acculturation and development of skills - is a decisive step. All too often neglected, or limited to a one-off training session, it is the key to getting teams on board.

Good onboarding rests on several pillars:

• Business understanding of CRM: users need to see the benefits of the tool in their day-to-day work, and not just its functionalities.
  
• Contextualized training content: each user profile has its own specific uses. A field sales rep will not have the same expectations as a customer service manager.
  
• Progressive, hands-on learning: learning paths must be immersive, interactive and directly applicable.
  

But onboarding is not enough. Learning must be continuous, especially for :

• Training new arrivals in a context of regular turnover;
  
• Supporting tool upgrades: updating functionalities, integrating new applications, changing processes, etc;
  
• Reinforce good usage practices, with targeted reminders or occasional training.
  

In this context, digital digital adoption platforms like Knowmore's play a strategic role: they enable users to be trained in the real environment, without interrupting their activity, with interactive, contextual guides.

Long-term support, a guarantee of performance

The classic mistake in a CRM project is to consider that everything stops at the moment of technical deployment. But it's precisely after this phase that everything begins.

Companies need to provide long-term support, which includes :

• Regular analysis of usage: which modules are really being used? What irritants are holding back adoption?
  
• Active listening to users: gathering feedback, identifying needs, adjusting supports and paths.
  
• Regular educational updates: incorporating feedback from the field to improve the experience.
  

This post-deployment management is essential to maintain a high level of satisfaction and commitment, and to make CRM a real lever for transformation.

Use case: How Orange optimized training on its OMEGA ordering tool

The case of Orange perfectly illustrates the challenge of large-scale adoption of an integrated business application in a complex environment.

Background

At Orange, more than 5,000 customer advisors use the OMEGA application, dedicated to taking cell phone orders. This application is interconnected with several other systems (billing, SIM card management, etc.).

Due to high internal and external turnover, Orange needed to train around 500 new employees each year. Historically, this training was carried out on a classroom basis. But this approach proved :

• Costly, due to maintenance of the complex technical environment;
  
• Limited, as it was impossible to simulate all processes end-to-end due to the multiple interfaces ;
  
• Inflexible, because it didn't allow for repeated scenarios or easy adaptation to the user.
  

The Knowmore solution

Orange called on Knowmore to rethink the pedagogical approach and optimize the user experience. Together, we designed a "simulated school base", i.e. a realistic replica of the OMEGA application, integrating the thirty or so critical business processes.

Thanks to our K-STUDIOsolution, we were able to create an immersive, interactive and 100% simulated environment in which the user can :

• Follow the entire order process from start to finish;
  
• Simulate key actions, such as signing quotations;
  
• Replay the scenarios as many times as necessary, with no technical constraints.
  

The results

The benefits were immediate:

• Eliminate database-related technical constraints;
  
• Improved business understanding thanks to a complete view of workflows ;
  
• Learners are empowered to practice at their own pace;
  
• Reduced training costs and improved content availability;
  
• And above all: increased adoption and user satisfaction.
  

This case study illustrates the importance of an intelligent, sustainable training system that places the user at the heart of the transformation.

CRM and user experience: towards a strategic convergence

CRM is no longer just a sales tool. It has become the central core of the customer experience, and therefore a cross-functional tool that concerns all departments. As such, it must be conceived as a service for both internal and external users.

A successful CRM project is one that :

• Implement a user-centered adoption process, right from the design stage;
  
• Offers accessible, continuous and contextualized training;
  
• Provides long-term support to employees inassimilation the tool;
  
• Make user satisfaction a key performance indicator.
  

Knowmore, your CRM adoption partner

At Knowmore, we see adoption not as a one-off event, but as an ongoing strategic lever. Our solutions - K-NOW, K-STUDIO, K-VALUE - enable companies to :

• Integrate learning into usage, directly into applications;
  
  
• Create interactive learning paths aligned with business realities;
  
  
• Monitor usage in real time, and adapt content according to user feedback.
  
  

Our conviction: a CRM can only transform a company if it positively transforms the daily lives of its users.

Conclusion

CRM is a formidable catalyst for sales performance, loyalty and improving the customer experience. But its real value lies in the ability of users to appropriate it, take advantage of it and adopt it over the long term.

Onboarding, ongoing training, individualized support and user satisfaction are not bonuses: they are the foundations of a successful CRM.

When you work with a partner like Knowmore, you're doing much more than just deploying a tool: you're creating the conditions for a successful, humane and sustainable digital transformation.

💡 Ready to boost your CRM adoption?

Do you want to maximize the impact of your CRM, facilitate its adoption by your teams and improve the user experience from the very first interaction?

Contact Knowmore today to find out how our digital adoption solutions can transform the use of your business tools.