In the Kevin Costner movie, Field of Dreams, a voice tells him to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield. “If you build it, they will come,” the voice says.
Unfortunately for scheduling software this is not true. Too many companies successfully implement scheduling software, but adoption falls flat.
Here are the top 7 mistakes companies make with their scheduling software adoption efforts:
1. Not naming an adoption phase sponsor
To ensure successful adoption, it is important to name an adoption phase sponsor.
This person is preferably an executive stakeholder who will be responsible for protecting the adoption budget, leveraging HR support, recruiting internal champions, and ensuring objectives are aligned with metrics. The most critical objective in this role is to ensure that there is executive-level support for the software solution across the organization to prevent any adoption roadblocks.
2. Not having a plan
This phase is even more important than implementation, considering employees and customers could choose not to use the software and use existing technology. It is vital to have an adoption plan that outlines the efforts to increase software usage, how you will measure success, and ensure that adoption is not failing.
3. Not having enough budget
Too often companies will spend budget during the implementation phase, and will have nothing left to spend during adoption. Plan on spending half of your total budget (or more) on adoption activities to ensure success.
4. Only doing employee training
Every employee is vitally important to the success of software adoption and just training them is not enough.
We recommend that you identify employees during training who are embracing the software and designate them as software champions. These champions will be crucial to raising awareness and adoption throughout your organization.
Strongly encourage all employees to share the availability of scheduling software with their networks.
5. Not getting to the adoption phase as quickly as possible
With software adoption, it is better to release a MVP (Minimum Viable Product) as soon as possible than to wait for a fully-baked solution. This allows the opportunity to gain valuable feedback from employees (and scheduling software champions) about the scheduling software and keeps enthusiasm strong for adoption phase.
6. Not promoting scheduling software across all of your marketing channels
Too often, companies don't do enough to communicate to customers and prospects that a new software is now available for use.
Use your website, marketing emails, social media, and mobile apps to promote availability. It's important to focus on the benefits that scheduling software provides. Remember that all of these promotional efforts take content, graphics, and lead time. Communicate with your marketing teams as soon as you begin implementation so they have proper time to ideate and prepare for an effective launch.
Learn more: Are remote appointments a part of your appointment scheduling solution? Don’t miss our helpful, industry-specific guides! Each has promotion ideas, industry examples, and tips to help supercharge your campaigns.
- How to promote remote appointments in retail
- How to promote remote appointments in financial services
7. Not tracking metrics
It's important to track the adoption of scheduling software across your organization. If internal and external usage does not meet your business objectives, then additional training and promotional efforts should be deployed.
Conclusion
Scheduling software has a tremendous competitive advantage for companies who implement it. This software allows your employees to be more productive and better understand their customers.
To achieve these results, take steps to ensure the software has been properly implemented and adopted. If you avoid these common adoption mistakes, we are confident your company is well on its way to success.
