Countless enterprise messaging platforms fall short of delivering the maximum ROI due to poor user adoption rates and users who fail to use the app to its full potential. The solution? User training. It’s an essential but often-overlooked component of a successful business messaging app deployment.
Some organizations are reluctant to invest the time and money in user training, especially when they’re so close to deployment! But to skip the training is to place your organization at high risk of seeing low1 user adoption rates and the under- or mis-utilization of your new messaging platform. The end result: a poor ROI.
The benefits of enterprise messaging platform training are many and varied, effectively creating conditions that promote greater profitability and a strong ROI.
Getting Started With User Training Sessions for an Enterprise Messaging Platform
Timing is everything when it comes to user training sessions for a company’s new business messaging platform. User training should begin prior to deployment, but after you’ve performed comprehensive user testing. The platform that users are trained on should reflect the finished platform. You want to avoid a scenario where significant changes are implemented and deployed after training sessions are complete, resulting in a platform that feels unfamiliar and very different from the one that was used for training.
As you prepare to conduct user training sessions, remember to consider the impact on scheduling too. Some positions must be filled at all times. In these cases, you’ll need to ensure that employee schedules are modified to allow for uninterrupted coverage during training sessions.
The Benefits of Business Messaging App Training Sessions
By providing in-depth training sessions for an organization’s new business messaging platform, you maximize your chances of seeing a 100% user adoption rate. Change is difficult and people are quite reluctant to replace a familiar messaging platform with something new and unfamiliar. Mandatory training compels employees to familiarize themselves with the new messaging platform, effectively removing this user adoption barrier.
Other user training benefits include the following.
- Everyone is ready to get to work with a new messaging platform on deployment day. There’s no awkward period where users are figuring out how to use this new technology. Everyone has been trained and they’re ready to put the new messaging platform to good use. In fact, this aligns well with a phased deployment strategy.
- Users know how to leverage all of the messaging platform’s features and tools. This means that users can get the most out of the new messaging platform on day one. You avoid the alternative: leaving users to figure it out on their own, missing out on potentially-useful tools and features. This translates into under-utilization, which has an adverse impact on key performance indicators (KPIs) and ROI.
- Users will have the tools they need to message clients / customers in a manner that complies with laws and regulations, helping the company to avoid costly fines and penalties. This is especially important for organizations in the healthcare space, finance, insurance and other highly-regulated industries.
- Training serves as an additional opportunity to get important user feedback. This feedback can be used to make additional modifications and customizations to the platform. While the user testing phase of development generates a vast majority of change recommendations for the platform, you may gain additional insights as users put the messaging app through its paces. It’s not uncommon to have several different types of users, with each user type having a unique set of needs in terms of tools, features and functionalities. As users train on the new messaging platform, you’ll gain insights into their needs, which may demand new user roles, along with new capabilities, features and tools.
Notably, the best business messaging apps are backed by a responsive development team that’s willing to make modifications or customizations to accommodate an organization’s needs.
The Advantages of Super User Training
Enterprise messaging platform deployments can benefit dramatically from super users — individuals within the company who receive comprehensive training in advance of the more general training sessions that are held for all of the other users within the company. Super users are trained to be the “experts” on an organization’s new messaging platform, long after the developers and training staff have left the building (literally and figuratively).
Super users play a key role during the training process and beyond, as their colleagues begin to use the messaging app both in the office and in the field. They’re available to answer questions and address concerns, providing much-needed post-deployment support. This, in turn, increases long-term user adoption rates.
Super user selection must be carefully considered. The best choice is an individual who is in a leadership role within their assigned team, group or shift. Each group should have at least one super user so colleagues have someone to turn to if they encounter an issue or question while using the new messaging platform.
The High Costs of Using the Wrong Business Messaging App
As a company is in the process of deploying a new enterprise messaging solution, it’s not uncommon for a business leader to discover that their employees are using numerous different messaging apps. This contributes to the formation of dreaded information silos. An information silo holds the power to decrease productivity and profitability in some significant ways, making for a significant risk management issue.
All this says nothing of the potential for regulatory non-compliance — a very risk management issue that can carry a tremendous cost. You only need to look at the case of nearly a dozen major banks which were recently issued fines totaling almost $2 billion dollars. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined the banks after it was discovered that they were using non-compliant messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and iMessage. These consumer-grade messaging apps fell short due to their data handling capabilities — or lack thereof — which resulted in recordkeeping violations and $1.8 billion dollars in fines.
The wrong messaging app can be quite costly — financially, operationally and in terms of reputation — underscoring the importance of finding the right enterprise messaging solution for your business. SayHey Messenger® is designed with business users in mind.
7T’s business messaging app, SayHey Messenger® is available in two deployments. An organization can choose between a web app and mobile app for iOS and Android. This user-friendly text messaging platform can also be integrated into a company’s existing enterprise software systems.
Despite the potential challenges of deploying a new business messaging solution, instant messaging remains an key component of the corporate landscape, with instant messaging being one of the most effective tools for business communication. SayHey Messenger® includes the following features and capabilities.
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- Data sovereignty for control and ownership of all messaging data;
- Fully compliant instant messaging for regulated businesses;
- Seamlessly integrates into existing company software platforms;
- Admin portal for moderation, auditing, and inclusivity;
- SayHey Spaces for company-wide broadcasts and team collaborations;
- Engaging, intuitive user interface for incredible adoption rates;
- Send compliant SMS messages to external users with full data retention; and
- Custom UI with your logo, colors and branding elements for a style that’s all yours.
SayHey Messenger® can be deployed in a matter of days too! Contact us today to learn more about SayHey Messenger® and how this business messaging app can help your organization to streamline and supercharge its communications.
