THE Challenge
Achieving efficient training and consistency
Thermo Fisher Scientific relies on a small and efficient IT team to support a large group of employees. To allow the IT team to focus on strategic issues, however, the company needed a way to drive user adoption of its digital tools—to boost productivity while reducing repetitive, process-related questions. This was particularly true in relation to Salesforce®, which more than 3,000 Thermo Fisher employees use daily. The company’s traditional training resources, an ad hoc collection of hands-on tutorials, webinars, and static work instructions, weren’t scalable.
“We wanted to make sure users fully understand the processes they were expected to do daily,” says Michele Giacomuzzi, Thermo Fisher CRM training and engagement specialist. “Our end goal was to reduce the amount of support tickets, whether they came through email, a phone call, or via a case module on Salesforce®.”
The company also needed a tool to improve its change management strategy in regards to communicating new Salesforce® features or updates. Email and other traditional internal communications often went unread.
“We want our employees to have a resource at their fingertips in case a process has changed, or they forget how to do a process, or don’t know how to initiate a process,” Giacomuzzi says.
As a final pain point, many Salesforce® users were inconsistent in how they named their sales opportunities, contributing to an unorganized database. Ensuring all users adhere to a standard naming convention would lead to better data control, customer management, and more effective sales follow-up.
THE Solution
Intuitive guidance for proactive communication and data verification
Thermo Fisher turned to WalkMe’s Digital Adoption Platform to simplify training and communication directly within Salesforce®. WalkMe functions as an invisible overlay on top of the Salesforce® platform, offering real-time communication and assistance exactly at the point of need.
Working with WalkMe, Thermo Fisher built more than 40 customized Smart Walk-Thrus to guide users step-by-step through Salesforce® processes. Now, when Giacomuzzi and her team want to highlight new Salesforce® features or updates, they use strategically placed SmartTips (tooltips for guidance or validation) or ShoutOuts (custom text balloons) to draw users’ attention to the information they need, exactly when they need it.
“WalkMe’s on-screen support allows us to preempt or predict questions and concerns, instead of reacting to them,” says Giacomuzzi. “That encourages users to engage directly with Salesforce®, and increases their comfort level with the platform.”
Thermo Fisher employed WalkMe’s validation feature to verify that all new sales opportunities are named according to the set conventions. Real-time feedback ensures incorrect names cannot be entered and the user is informed on what the correct process is. “The interactive guidance simplifies and clarifies the processes for creating, naming, and editing information about opportunities,” Giacomuzzi says. “Now users don’t have to reach out to their colleagues or to the CRM team for support.”
THE Benefit
In-app training alleviates support burden, boosts productivity
Thermo Fisher reports that its Salesforce® users have embraced WalkMe with an engagement rate of 90%. Furthermore, since implementing WalkMe, Thermo Fisher has seen a 20% reduction in support tickets from Salesforce® users.
“WalkMe gives users the confidence to go and find answers to their questions themselves, reducing the amount of tickets that come in,” Giacomuzzi says. WalkMe’s in-app resources have replaced many time-consuming in-person training sessions, she adds, saving CRM team members between 3 and 4 hours each a week. “That’s time the support team can spend on more important things,” she points out.
Employees, too, are more productive: using on-screen self-help support saves users 2 to 3 hours a day, compared to using traditional job aids, webinars, or workshops.
WalkMe has also transformed the internal communication with sales reps. “Some of the users didn’t even know that so many changes were going on,” says Giacomuzzi. “But when WalkMe showed up on their screen, bringing the functionality right in front of them, they knew exactly what the updates were and how they were relevant.”
The validation feature that helps users spot inconsistencies or incorrect names at the point of entry prevented more than 3,000 entry errors within the first 6 months of use. “The SmartTip on the opportunity naming convention has been used more times than any other process or concept that we’ve built,” Giacomuzzi says. “Corrections are now made immediately, saving us a lot of time and frustration”.
“Most importantly, instead of waiting on IT to conceptualize a fix, build it, and deploy it, which could take months, I am able to build out a WalkMe solution in a matter of hours” says Giacomuzzi. “This was critical during the global pandemic. We were able to deploy a simple yet elegant solution to encourage reps to use a specific naming convention when creating COVID related opportunities, resulting in a 2000% increase in documentation of those opportunities”. WalkMe gives Thermo Fisher the ability to act and react quickly, creating more effective solutions to empower their organization, at times where it’s most important for their business.
Looking ahead, Thermo Fisher plans to expand its use of WalkMe for Salesforce® to other groups across the organization. WalkMe will also be key in its upcoming migration to Salesforce® Lightning.