At Echo AI, we’re very familiar with the number of tools that teams, managers, and companies often juggle—on average, a single department within an organization will use 40 to 60 tools to manage their work. But we also know that a high number of tools does not equal a high understanding of the data they provide. That’s one of the reasons we built Echo AI: to help teams understand how to improve performance by gathering data from many of their tools in one place. 

In our experience implementing Echo AI at numerous brand name customers and some of the most notable enterprise companies, we realized the importance of communicating the deep value of performance intelligence, getting team buy-in, and driving engagement during the implementation phase. After all, a new technology that’s poorly implemented could remain untouched in an employee’s proverbial toolbox. The initial phase of rolling out a new technology sets the tone for its future use—and can mean the difference between it being fully leveraged or underutilized.

Within one week of implementation, a recent customer saw a 43% increase in Health Scores – a weighted average of an organization’s prioritized metrics and goals (e.g. revenue, NPS, pipeline, CSAT, etc.). After a month, they saw scores increase by 78%.

This is why we’re steadfastly committed to partnering with our customers in the implementation phase for a quick and low-effort rollout. We, strive to get teams and leaders set up quickly—typically in under a month—and ensure better employee and customer outcomes in the long run. Within one week of implementation, a recent customer saw a 43% increase in Health Scores – a weighted average of an organization’s prioritized metrics and goals (e.g. revenue, NPS, pipeline, CSAT, etc.). After a month, they saw scores increase by 78%. We believe that it’s increasingly important that your employees feel not just comfortable with the tools they’re using and the data they’re getting from them, but also empowered by them; that process starts with a successful rollout. 

Here’s a look at how we think about implementation for quick and easy ROI, the process it involves, and some key considerations to think about as you roll out Echo AI on your team. 

Successful Implementation = Quick and Future Wins

First and foremost, any implementation starts with the customer—you. So we begin by understanding your goals, pain points, and what business objectives you’re trying to achieve or challenges you’re trying to solve. At the ground level, we’ll look at your business—your KPIs and the metrics you use to track success—and how you’d like to improve. We’ll get to know your existing tools and metrics, and work with you to strategize about productivity and performance within your business so that Echo AI can deliver the most value to you and your team. 

"My team is familiar with and has been exposed to many technology solutions. By far, Echo AI was one of the easiest to implement. Their team was invested in our success and very easy to work with. They understood our business, and, considering we gave them 30 days to prove value from the platform, quickly customized the solution to meet our specific KPIs." - Brett Frazer, VP of Customer Service at Sunbasket

When we kick off a new implementation, we take a similar approach to how our product works: we establish a timeline, milestones, metrics of success, and our goals for performance, including engagement following launch. 

Beyond the timeline, once your team launches Echo AI, we’ll measure engagement levels to see who’s signed up, logged in, and how different members of your team are using the platform. Of course, we’ll work with you to help kickstart team engagement by providing templates and training so that jumping right in is a breeze. Finally, after launch, we’ll check in with you and review the real time dashboards in Echo AI that track user engagement and performance against your goals, so you know how successful your implementation was.

Setting Up for Success 

The process of implementing Echo AI focuses on taking the necessary steps to get set up for engagement and success before launching to the team. Communication is key during implementation, so the process will start with that: understanding your needs, goals, requests, and how we can support you. 

In the initial phase of implementation, we’ll understand what datastores you’re using, which metrics you’re measuring, and your org chart structure. Then, based on that, we’ll estimate a timeline and set milestones for the rollout. With initial specifications mapped out, we’ll get into the technical requirements of getting your team set up in Echo AI, any custom engineering needs, and the metrics to configure for your account. We’ll build out your key Echo AI metrics and insights, validate data with your integrated tools and apps, and make sure all data is correct. 

We know that laying a foundation for solid engagement before launch is critical to getting people excited and on board with any new technology, especially one that stands to improve performance drastically, like Echo AI. We structure our training specifically to get buy-in from managers first, then frontline employees, and we’ll help you engage users with messaging and one-on-one templates, so team leads are set up for success. We’ll also share resources, like tips on integrating with your calendar and Slack, to help everyone get the most out of Echo AI. 

Integrating Your Data Sources

Integrating the software and applications you use with Echo AI is critical to getting the most out of the platform. Many of our customers have dozens of data sources and ways to measure KPIs, but they lack one place to see all the data at once—Echo AI becomes that single source of truth. To that end, Echo AI offers seamless integrations with dozens of applications like Salesforce and Zendesk to make sure we’re gathering all of your relevant data. 

During implementation, we’ll work with you to make sure all of your data source integrations are successful and that all the data represented in Echo AI is accurate. We’ll also provide you with capabilities that don’t exist or aren’t easily done in things like Business Intelligence (BI) tools, such as the ability to roll up individual data to see performance on a team level and make adjustments or see historical performance when team structures might change. Because our data attribution is flexible, we can show you different levels of data and help you make meaningful decisions for your team.

Thinking Strategically About Metrics

During the entire implementation process and beyond, one of our goals is to help you think strategically about which metrics matter to your employees and your business—and then help you track them. Whether you’re already clear on what you want to track or just getting a handle on it, we can help by giving you recommendations based on data source availability and your business goals. 

Then we’ll set your Health Score and priority metrics in Echo AI. The goal of these data points is to help you focus on the most important KPIs and not get bogged down in metrics. We recommend having 5-7 high priority metrics (but we can track and analyse dozens of metrics) in order to keep employees focused on the metrics that drive performance (and to avoid being overwhelmed by data). 

Did you know: Unlike other data platforms that provide blanket metrics with little visibility into how they’re being calculated, you can fully customize your metrics in Echo AI. Health Scores are completely configurable based on the metrics that matter to your business and employee success. Within your Health Score, metrics can be weighted, allowing you to focus on specifically what drives outcomes for your business, not some generic list of data points. 

The level of customization of metrics Echo AI enables may be new to you, so we’ll guide you on how to think about what you’re measuring and everyone has  transparency around how every number is calculated.

A new level of transparency

The new level of transparency Echo AI will provide your team is entirely customizable to your organization’s culture and desires. During implementation, our goal is to understand how visible you want your data to be and make sure Echo AI reflects that. For example, you might want employees to see their own data only or to see parts of their teammates’ data, too, or to limit visibility to within or across teams. 

The flexibility of transparency settings is meant to support you and your team’s culture. For example, in a recent survey, we found that 35% of employees think they would perform better knowing how they compare to their peers, so we make it easy to provide that visibility to the teams that want it and control for those that don’t. For instance, you might have a highly competitive and transparent field sales team but a customer support team that is less so—you can completely customize how much each employee and team sees to drive some healthy competition or keep performance private.

The Easy Button for Implementation and ROI 

To realize ROI quickly, the whole process needs to be fast and simple, and our customers see results within a week of launch. No matter how many data sources you have, applications you’re using, or customizations your implementation requires, Echo AI is capable of accommodating your team’s needs. 

Interested in seeing what Echo AI could look like for you? Click here for a consultation and demo!