Building a Value-Based Adoption Plan for CRM Implementations

The success of a CRM isn't measured at go-live - it's measured in sustained user adoption.

How can you effectively build value in a way that results in high usage of your technology investments?

Let’s dive into two tried-and-true methods the Denamico team employs on every HubSpot CRM implementation project.

The ADKAR Framework for Success

According to Prosci's 12th Edition of Best Practices in Change Management study, projects with excellent change management practices in the U.S. are 8x more likely to meet or exceed project objectives compared to those with poor practices.

Prosci helps leaders drive lasting and effective change in many areas of organizations. 

One piece of the methodology is the ADKAR change management framework, which stands for: 

• Awareness of the need for change
• Desire to participate and support the change
• Knowledge on how to change
• Ability to implement required skills and behaviors
• Reinforcement to sustain the change

Awareness

Brinkman encourages leaders to move beyond just announcing changes, "Take it one step further. Dig into why now? Why is this occurring this year, instead of in two years? What is happening in the business? What is happening in the economy? Bring that to your team. That really helps with that awareness piece."

Clear communication about timing and motivation builds understanding.

Bishop adds, "It also involves getting a key stakeholder or project sponsor involved very early on in the process. So someone that is really going to be very visible during the engagement and someone who is really going to drive why this is important for the organization and what the benefits are going to be for the individual user."

Desire

"Desire is when you make that individual choice to engage with this change. It's really about the person," says Brinkman.

Focus on personal benefits and the value each person will get from the implementation. Create use cases for each team and role who will use the system. 

For example: With a new CRM, salespeople might get automated daily action items to follow up with highly qualified leads. Spending their time with the right people will help them reach their sales targets. 

Knowledge

This phase involves training teams on the new tool, which should be role-specific. 

"The training is not always effective when you say, 'here is the platform in all its glory,'" explains Bishop. Instead, show how it supports your team's daily workflows and processes.

She continues, "When we talk about training individual users and individual teams, we really want to make it very functional and very role based. Typically the user is served best when I'm saying, okay, this is how your day is structured, this is what you're doing first and we're going to walk through how the platform supports your work processes."

Ability

Provide dedicated practice time. "Make sure that your team has time to go in and play in the platform," advises Brinkman.

This builds confidence through hands-on experience.

Reinforcement

"Reinforcement is the stage that never ends," says Brinkman. Use adoption dashboards to track engagement and address gaps by revisiting earlier ADKAR stages.

Remember: Measuring usage isn't about checking a box. It's about understanding WHY team members might be struggling with new technology and whether it's actually helping them with their day-to-day work. 

Reinforcement could include: 

• Monthly user group sessions where teams share best practices
• Office hours where users can share their challenges and wins
• Recognition programs celebrating innovative uses of the platform

It’s important to note: you can’t skip steps in the ADKAR framework. 

It’s especially common for people to jump right into the Knowledge (training) piece, but Bishop emphasizes, "All of these stages have merit and you can't really skip over any of these and expect to have successful adoption."

Building a Value-First Mindset

Organizations often deploy technology for organizational needs without considering individual user value. Creating a value-first mindset for changes leans heavily into the Awareness and Desire phases of the ADKAR methodology.  

Sam Annala, Director of Business Development at Denamico, is especially passionate about these phases. 

"Often organizations deploy technology for organizational needs. We need to capture this data. That is not an incentive to the salespeople. The why is: we're implementing a CRM to make your worlds more joyful, to make you more efficient, to take away those manual tasks, to automate these things, to offer you up the best insights for engagement and next steps. It's all about why they are getting value, how they're going to get value. And then the desire comes from, 'I want that!'"

She reminds us that this is true because every person on a team has specific goals. If they don’t see how a CRM directly supports that goal, no incentive or reprimand will effectively encourage them to use a specific technology.

This applies to any team and any technology—adoption starts with understanding the why.

The most common challenges Annala sees behind low CRM adoption are:

1. No team-specific value proposition

The CRM was positioned as a tool for data collection rather than a tool to help them do their jobs more effectively.

2. Poor communication of the value proposition

The focus was on what the organization needs, not on how the CRM benefits each person’s day-to-day work.

3. Failure to prove the value

Even if a value proposition exists, it wasn’t demonstrated in a way that resonates with the team or their goals.

Here’s how Annala advises leaders to turn this around:

1. Build a clear value proposition for each team.

Today’s CRMs can drive real value if the team understands how it works for them. Focus on tangible use cases like:

• Triggering reminders and tasks to simplify to-do lists.
• Faster service ticket response time because all customer information is visible.
• Prioritizing prospects by identifying who’s engaging with marketing materials.

2. Communicate and reinforce the why.

CRMs help sales, marketing and customer services teams work smarter, not harder.

They improve efficiency, automate tedious tasks, and provide insights that help reps focus on what matters most. When people see how CRM makes their work easier, adoption becomes a natural choice.

3. Tie adoption to measurable success with reporting.

Shift the focus from compliance to outcomes. Use CRM data to show what successful team members are doing and how those behaviors lead to wins.

This approach allows for impactful coaching and highlights winning strategies that others can replicate. Celebrate and share those successes as examples of how the CRM enables better performance.

Annala puts it plainly, "CRM adoption isn’t about carrots or sticks—it’s about relevance."

When a team sees the CRM as a tool that helps them work more effectively and efficiently, adoption stops being an issue and becomes a competitive advantage.

Building & Sustaining User Adoption

Leading a successful CRM implementation hinges on remembering that technology adoption is fundamentally about people. 

Most organizations think about change management last—or not at all.

In reality, it’s best to start with the end in mind.

Whether it’s implementing some of the principles from this blog or hiring a partner to guide your team through a large change, you're taking one step in the right direction. 

When you focus on building value for change, the process or technology becomes a natural enabler of their success rather than another compliance requirement.

Steps for putting this in action:

• Document current pain points for each role
• Create role-specific value propositions
• Train each role for how they will use the process or system 
• Schedule dedicated practice time
• Build adoption dashboards to track usage
• Plan ongoing reinforcement activities

Annala sums it up best, "You'll know your CRM implementation is successful when users say 'I cannot do my job without it.'"

Leading Change Successfully

Dive deeper into change management and learn actionable ways to implement this methodology from the RevOps Champions podcast. 

Effective User Adoption and Role-Specific Training

Tina Bishop, Functional Consultant at Denamico, breaks down each step of ADKAR in detail and shares practical user adoption strategies for CRM implementations. 

Leveraging CRM for Superior Sales Coaching and Insights

Sam Annala, Business Development Director at Denamico, shares how she builds value for CRMs within sales organizations. 

The Crucial Role of Change Management in Successful CRM Implementation

Therese Brinkman, Chief of Staff at Denamico, zeroes in on the integral role CRMs and change management plays in improving marketing and sales alignment.