Successfully Managing Organizational Change

6 minute read

Upland Admin

In order for organizations to continue to move forward and grow, change is inevitable. Whether your organization has already made the decision to implement a solution or is still investigating the various options, one thing is for certain. There will be organizational change.

There are 2 types of change: technology change, which involves implementing new systems and/or processes, and behavioral change – getting people to change how they act. Both of these changes could be no further from each other in their approach and management, but both are required and equally important in the seamless implementation of new tools and processes for any team.

The Change Management paradigm, bringing individuals and teams to a desired future state, has been well documented over time and continues to be assessed and redefined. But despite the numerous views, there is one constant across them. Technology change can only impact the business requirements positively if met with successful implementation and behavioral adoption by the users. And let’s be honest, I know it isn’t just me that wants to run in the opposite direction to avoid uprooting my routine and consider buying into change.

Working in Customer Success, I know that introducing a new computer telephony integration (CTI) application like InGenius Connector Enterprise is no different. Our value proposition speaks to the business unit improving productivity, increasing data consistency and better customer satisfaction. So what can organizations do to realize these value propositions? As wonderful as InGenius Connector Enterprise is, simply deploying our solution into a contact center environment will not suddenly create value.

Once a decision is made to adopt a CTI solution, financial, structural and data management decisions will need to be considered. The next course of action is to make plans for the technical deployment. However, change occurs not on the organizational, technical level alone but also very much so at the individual level with adoption by each contact center agent. So now what? How does a company bridge the gap between just implementing a new technology and setting the tone for a successful onboarding and full end-user adoption?

I’ve gathered some tips on how you can prepare and support your front-line users and what InGenius can do to help.

Identify and Share the Improvements of InGenius

During the implementation phase of InGenius Connector Enterprise, your dedicated Account Executive will take time with you to review the requirements and business objectives your organization has identified as critical to the success of a CTI integration. Being able to clearly identify these requirements is paramount to helping your users understand and buy into why the change is crucial for business growth and success – and how it will make their own jobs easier. This will provide clarity and ease of adoption for your users.

Identify Documentation and Support Resources

Throughout the decision-making phase, the technical deployment and the configuration phase, InGenius will provide ongoing documentation that will ensure you understand the benefits of CTI, have a successful technical launch and achieve the full configuration of your solution. We have a technical readiness guide, admin guide and end-user guide so there is information available every step of the way. Need a little extra assistance? No problem, InGenius is equipped with a full team, including your aforementioned Account Executive, Deployment Specialists, Customer Solutions experts of and course, our Customer Care representatives (that’s me!), that will all be more than happy to answer any further questions that you may have during the onboarding of InGenius.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

It’s important to be providing information to the teams involved while also being open to feedback in an intraorganizational, 2-way feedback loop. This also means keeping the lines of communication open with our team here at InGenius as well. InGenius truly values all feedback and suggestions, as it allows us to build a solution and supporting documentation that addresses as many points as possible. The end-user experience is highly valued by our teams, so we use real-world feedback to help us provide the best support for our customers’ ongoing development.

Monitor and Manage Resistance

It is imperative that there is an expectation from supervisory staff that they will monitor ongoing adoption and manage any resistance from end-users by coaching, following-up and providing encouragement. Your organization should be clearly sharing the adoption expectations with the phone agents, supporting them as they learn the new processes and ways of working with the CRM. Do not hesitate to reach out to the InGenius team to learn how other customers have solidified adoption, or for tips and tricks, like shortcuts and other ways to reduce clicks, that will make the lives of your agents that much easier.

Celebrate Success

Ensure that the leaders of the contact center departments are celebrating transitional milestones and share these successes with the entire team. By making specific, measurable goals throughout the implementation and adoption phase of the rollout, your team can celebrate each milestone reached. Breaking the process up into steps lets the entire team know they’re doing well and helps them see the ongoing process. Through identifying a detailed onboarding plan, your InGenius resources can help suggest realistic milestones for your team. We want to celebrate your successes as well!

Review Goals & Revise Plans

Even the best-laid plans are rarely perfect right out of the gate. Once you factor in unidentified workflow processes and miscellaneous technical mishaps, it can be a challenge achieving a seamless implementation. Being flexible and making use of our talented InGenius support team will help you adapt to new requirements and get quickly back on track with no cycles missed in the implementation phase.

Handle Organizational Change with Preparation and Support

Any sort of organizational change is never easy, but navigating behavioral change can be a very daunting task. It requires foresight, feedback acceptance and ultimately, a flexible plan. When dealing with behavioral change management, even the best preparations will often be met with resistance. But with the support of the InGenius team, your launch of our CTI connector to your contact center agents can be completed with less friction than you ever thought possible, for faster adoption by end-users and a quicker path to value. InGenius honestly believes that your success is ours as well and we look forward to working with you and your team by providing support, suggestions and encouragement along the way.

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