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Searching “how to increase digital adoption”? Then you’ve landed in the right place.
In the enterprise world, this is fast becoming the most Googled question.
In this step by step guide, we’ll outline 7 steps to success, whether your end users are customers or employees.
Clear signs you need to increase digital adoption
The consequences of poor digital adoption in today’s enterprise landscape are severe. But before you can tackle how to increase digital adoption, you need to assess your current state.
Here are some clear signs that you need to increase digital adoption, whether your role is customer-facing digital or internal technology implementation.
Employees:
- Lack of productivity using digital tools
- Low employee performance
- Rising employee frustration and dropping morale
- Poor return on your software investment
Customers:
- Long and expensive training process
- Rising customer frustration
- Churn
- Poor return on digital investments/improvements
How to increase digital adoption: 7 steps to success
STEP 1. Define what success looks like
The first step of any initiative is to work out what success is going to look like. Asking yourself how to increase digital adoption and then executing one or two ideas at random is not a good approach.
Clearly define what you are trying to achieve, what the goals are, and how your digital adoption plan is going to get you there.
STEP 2. Research and communicate
The next step is to research your user’s needs. What are their current pain points? What is their feedback on the existing technology? This information will help you to form your digital adoption plan.
Open communication is essential between you and your end users. The more involved they are in the process, the more invested they will be in its success.
Digital adoption is a process of change. So users need to be made aware that change is coming, why it’s necessary, and what to expect.
This is critical to reducing anxiety and boosting receptibility to whatever technology or changes are coming their way.
STEP 3. Create a plan
Now you need to document your digital adoption plan. Make sure you include a realistic (but as short as possible) timeline.
Go into detail about every step of the process. Is new technology needed? How long will the transition take? How will you measure adoption rates? What steps are you going to take to cement a mindset into user culture that’s digitally forward and embraces change?
STEP 4. Be ready to flex and adapt
Now you’ve got your plan, you need to create processes that allow you to be flexible and incorporate necessary adaptations or feedback.
The process of digital adoption should be an agile one.
STEP 5. Use a Digital Adoption Platform
Training brings with it a whole host of barriers to successful digital adoption, including:
- Forgettable, un-engaging training: Remember how the “forgetting curve” works; it’s more effective to “learn as you do”.
- Time constraints: Traditionally, it takes a long time to train people how to use technology so that they’re truly proficient. In the meantime, users are less productive and more money is swallowed by the training process.
A Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) avoids both these issues and many more. The DAP is a software layer that merges with the digital system to which it’s applied. It then improves the UX for individual users by providing contextualized guidance.
This dramatically shortens training time and associated costs and improves ROI by educating users about the tool they’re using, as they’re using it.
STEP 6. Recruit adoption influencers
Strong, positive leadership is essential in overcoming resistance to digital change — one of the biggest obstacles to successful adoption.
“The crucial thing if you want to embed change in your company is to have not just the support but the active involvement of senior management. It’s all very well ‘talking digital’, but this has to be matched with digital action…”
Mott Macdonald
It’s important that not only managers and executives lead by example, visibly demonstrating their commitment to the adoption process, but influencers at all levels.
So, recruit an “army” of change champions and digital influencers that embody the adoption goals you want to achieve and help turn the initiative into a movement.
STEP 7. Make the desired behaviors easy
The final step in our “how to increase digital adoption” mini guide is to make the behaviors you want perfectly easy for users to achieve.
This means assessing any hierarchies, processes, and tools associated with the adoption issue you’re tackling and removing any barriers that make life difficult for users.
This can be complicated because invariably within an enterprise context, there’s an overlap between teams, processes, and projects. But on the plus side, your investigation may lead to digital adoption improvements in previously unidentified areas of the business.
Final words
A successful digital adoption process requires:
- Planning and coordination
- Consistent and clear communication with users
- Support, tools, and resources
- Agile execution
If you still don’t know how to increase digital adoption, dive deeper into our platform as it’s filled with tips, plans, and advice designed to facilitate your digital transformation.
