Deployment of a new CRM system with Varma

Assessing the effects of the change began the journey

Work began in the summer of 2020, and involving the personnel in the preparations for the change began in practice in early September. 

‘At first, we interviewed the account managers and sales management to find out how things were going in their day-to-day work. Through interviews and workshops, we were able to form a good and comprehensive view of the current situation and at the same time assess the change that will affect the personnel’, says Juuso Pietilä, who supported the change project as a PwC consultant. 

In the remote working world, it quickly became clear that we could not rely on conventional classroom training and email. We had to come up with something new and inspiring to get people involved and interested in the change.

Because the involvement of business representatives right from the start was so important, we set up a Salesforce coach network consisting of account managers. These enthusiastic and experienced professionals brainstormed about the tool, talked about their own needs and practised using the tool before its deployment. 

‘Working as a coach has been interesting and rewarding. I’ve been able to practise and ask even silly-sounding questions in a safe environment’, commented one of the coaches. 

Later in the deployment, three to five colleagues were assigned to each coach, so that they could practise using Salesforce together.

User experience and playfulness at the heart of training

We also designed an experiential ‘escape room’ training for Varma’s end users to be used as part of the training programme. In the escape room training, end users gather in small groups in a closed room from which they ‘escape’ using Salesforce, searching for and solving clues and working as a team. However, this activity came to an end early due to the restrictions on gathering in groups that were put in place to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Instead, we quickly designed and implemented a virtual treasure hunting concept called ‘Kadonneen kaupan metsästäjät’ (raiders of the lost trade), where the user navigates between the game environment and Salesforce, searching for information and advancing in the game. The game was very well received and something genuinely new and special compared to conventional training methods.

In addition, the change journey involved numerous team meeting discussions and demos, town hall events, management briefings, monthly newsletters and suitably brief virtual training sessions. At every step, everything was designed with the primary focus on the end user. 

When planning the training sessions with the team, we constantly asked each other questions such as What would the user want to hear? What is important to them? What benefits them the most? How do we get the users to interact during the training? This way, we avoided the pitfall of going through all the possible buttons and functionalities in the traditional system training style, with Zoomapathy taking an even stronger hold on everyone. 

Based on the feedback, we succeeded well with an overall grade of 4.3 for the training package (on a scale of 1 = poor, 5 = excellent).

How did the change go in the end?

After the deployment week, over 80% of all licensees had logged in to Salesforce, and after the first month, the figure had risen to over 90%. We also organised competitions related to the use of Salesforce among our personnel, and the most active users received product prizes – in addition to fame and glory.

Without a doubt, what made the project so successful was the positive spirit in everything that was done, the secret sauce  whose importance should not be underestimated.

Comments from people involved in the project: