Everyone handling enquiries for the analytics reporting service has completed training on a new CRM. In the training session, they can create a record and assign a task. After a customer call, however, a salesperson returns to a spreadsheet: the manager still expects the daily report there. Some open tasks did not survive the migration, and choosing the next action on a phone is awkward.
Another training session will not restore the missing tasks. First observe what prevents someone from completing the work, then fix the transition and test it with real enquiries. The project is complete when the team can handle customers through the new process and the manager uses its data to make decisions.
Start with the action after a conversation
For our service, the working rule is specific: after contacting a customer, the salesperson records the agreement and assigns the next action and deadline, or marks the deal as closed. A colleague should be able to understand what was promised and what happens next. The manager uses these records to allocate work.
This rule names the person, the moment and the recipient of the result. “Use the CRM” specifies none of them. Login counts say little about the work either: someone can open the system, check a contact and save the conversation outcome in a personal file.
Ask a salesperson to walk you through a recent enquiry. Where did they establish which accounting system the customer uses? Where did they record the agreed pilot date? What will a colleague see during their holiday? Observe the whole journey, including inconvenient exceptions. Creating an empty record quickly can hide substantial manual work elsewhere.
Choose fields around these actions. If nobody uses a piece of information, establish why it is collected. If a required answer is not yet known, allow a “needs clarification” state and a follow-up task. Inventing a value to satisfy a completion target damages decisions.
Identify the obstacle before prescribing training
Prosci's ADKAR model considers awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement. These provide useful areas for discussion. A missing record does not reveal which obstacle occurred.
| Observation | What to investigate | Possible correction |
|---|---|---|
| A salesperson does not understand a required field | Which decision uses it | Explain its purpose or remove the requirement |
| An agreement is recorded in the wrong place | Whether the location and example are clear | Work through an actual conversation together |
| A task disappeared during migration | Whether source and destination records match | Restore it and check the other tasks |
| Updates are postponed until the evening | Whether the mobile workflow is usable | Fix the form or the working procedure |
| A deal is maintained in two places | Which report the manager demands | Agree on the reporting transition |
An employee's objection may expose a project error. It does not remove their responsibilities, but it helps the manager choose a response. After fixing access, data and instructions, the manager can address repeated failures to fulfil agreed duties using specific examples.
Ask what the manager will change as well. If they trained the team on a new process but still review only the old spreadsheet, employees face conflicting demands. Appointing another person to enforce compliance will not resolve that conflict.
Calculate the cost of duplicate entry
Use illustrative figures. Three employees each spend 20 minutes per working day entering information that already exists elsewhere. Across 20 working days, that is 3 × 20 × 20 = 1,200 minutes, or 20 hours. The internal hourly value used to assess workload is 5,000 ₸. Duplicate entry occupies 100,000 ₸ worth of staff capacity each month.
This values time already being used. In the service's shared financial model, fixed costs of 400,000 ₸ already include fixed marketing, sales and management pay, premises and shared services. Deducting another 100,000 ₸ from the P&L would count the same cost twice. Salaries may remain unchanged after the transition, while employees gain time for other tasks.
The team estimates ten hours of one-off transition work, valued at 50,000 ₸ using the same internal rate. This covers data reconciliation, report setup and exception handling. If the work fits within time already paid for, the amount does not become an additional cash expense. If a contractor or paid extra hours are necessary, the budget records the agreed additional cost.
Suppose four hours of monthly quality checks remain after the change. Net released capacity would then be 20 - 4 = 16 hours, valued at 80,000 ₸ a month. The team must measure both parts: whether duplicate entry has actually stopped and how long the new checks take. The expected time saving is still a forecast.
Do not immediately convert it into revenue growth. The manager could assign the available hours to overdue contacts, but sales also depend on demand, the offer and customer handling. Test the connection through results while keeping time, expenses and income separate.
Pilot the complete customer journey
Choose a small stream of enquiries and agree who will help when a problem arises. The pilot should include a new enquiry, a compatibility check, a meeting booking and rescheduling, a rejection, a repeat enquiry and a handover to a colleague. This reveals whether the data and rules support ordinary work.
Before starting, preserve a source list of open deals with stable identifiers. After migration, compare owners, statuses, the latest agreements, open tasks and deadlines. Manually inspect a sample of difficult cases. Matching the total row count does not prove that tasks were attached to the right customers.
Plan for a failure separately: where will someone temporarily record a new agreement, who will transfer it into the system afterwards, and how will they mark reconciliation as complete? Establish this route before a problem occurs. Otherwise a temporary personal file can easily become a permanent second source.
Both sources may be needed during the transition. Name the person responsible for reconciliation and the conditions for ending parallel entry. Do not switch off the spreadsheet on a date without reconciling the data. An indefinite instruction to “keep everything updated in both places” undermines the change as well.
Remove the old requirement after checking the replacement
The manager checks the new report against agreed definitions of an open deal, an overdue next action and a completed task. They hold a working review using the CRM, test colleagues' access and confirm that unfinished customer commitments have been preserved.
The old spreadsheet can then become a read-only archive retained under company rules. Its history remains available for reconciliation, while daily updates stop. Deleting the source file is not a required implementation step.
Document where to find answers now and who can change fields or statuses. Update onboarding for new employees. Otherwise, a month later, one new hire may revive the old spreadsheet from an outdated instruction while another invents a different recording method.
Measure adoption separately from training attendance
Suppose all three employees completed training. In a review of 100 open deals that require a next action under the agreed rule, only 60 contain a current action with a deadline. Training coverage is 100%; completeness of this particular working requirement is 60%. Further investigation is needed.
The remaining 40 records have different causes: lost tasks, wrong statuses, missing access, an unclear rule or a salesperson's failure. Separate the causes before correcting them. A token entry such as “contact later” without a useful deadline does not make a record ready for handover.
In the next period, a comparable review of 100 eligible deals finds 85 usable records. Completeness has risen by 25 percentage points. That is record quality; sales are counted separately.
Exercise: can the project be closed?
The team has trained everyone and reports that duplicate entry has stopped. The review finds 85 usable records out of 100. Measurement confirms the previous 20 hours of duplicate work a month and the current four hours of checks. The manager wants to record 80,000 ₸ as additional profit. What should change in the report, and what must be finished before closure?
Sixteen hours have been released, valued at 80,000 ₸ of internal capacity. If pay is unchanged, this amount does not increase profit as a separate line. Report time, actual additional expenses and work outcomes separately. The team must also investigate the 15 records that are not ready, confirm that the manager uses the new report, retain access to the archive and ensure that duplicate entry is no longer required. Closing the project means handing a functioning process to an owner who will continue monitoring its quality.