CRM Stickiness–Increase User Adoption with Images
Taking a cue from Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer - which is a book that I’ve barely begun but has already sparked some ah-ha moments – it occurred to me how much easier it is to remember images rather than words. While words can do wonders to illustrate a point, images stick with us. It’s just how our brains work. Read the first 20 pages of Foer’s book and you’ll get what I mean.
Why am I blogging about this on our CRM team blog? Because, fortunately, for us humans who use CRM, CRM 2011 is chock-full of potential areas to imbed images. We’ve got dashboards. We’ve got inline charts. Sub-grid charts within record forms. IFrames everywhere. Web resources. Partner solutions that allow us to embed contact photos. We have many of these tools at our fingertips that allow us to incorporate images into our daily use of CRM. So why take the time to do this?
Simply: your users will thank you because they will be happier to look at pictures rather than data. And happy users are more likely to use CRM, which makes you really good at your job, Mr. or Ms. Administrator.
Consider this side-by-side comparison of an Account. Which Account form do you find more appealing, and which one stays with you after you walk away from this blog post?
Chances are, it’s gonna be the one on the right. And you can provide this option by creating a new form that’s chock-full of chart images, in addition to the regular old form where you capture data (here’s how – scroll halfway down) . So the next time your sales manager asks you in the elevator, “How’s the Litware account doing?”, not only will you be able to pull this summary quickly and easily if you were in front of CRM, but it’s more likely that the image on the right will stick in your memory. You can say with a good degree of confidence that things are going great because you’ve got an opportunity in the final phase of the sales process (image top left), which you’ll need because last month’s sales took a dip (image top right).
Here are some more examples (click for the links):
What are some of your favorite images you’ve created within CRM to make CRM more sticky? Do share.
Cheers,
Laura