A well-implemented Salesforce CRM platform has the potential to create a superior customer experience. In this Salesforce implementation guide, we’ll walk you through best practices, why would you want to implement Salesforce, and walking through complexities while implementing, and how to avoid them.
What is Salesforce Implementation?
Salesforce Implementation is the process of setting up and customizing Salesforce, a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform, to meet the specific needs of a business. This involves configuring Salesforce to match the business processes and workflows, importing data, and training users on how to use the system effectively. The goal of Salesforce Implementation is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a business’s sales, marketing, and customer service operations.
Why Should You Implement Salesforce CRM? Top 5 Reasons to Consider
1. Streamlining Business Processes
Salesforce Implementation is an important investment for any business that wants to stay competitive and maximize its potential. Salesforce is primarily concerned with developing and streamlining company strategy in terms of customer retention and management. Additionally, Salesforce can keep track of multiple business processes like task scheduling, inventory management, marketing, business forecasting, production, and accounting. It can also provide businesses with valuable insights into their operations, allowing them to make data-driven decisions that can improve efficiency and profitability.
2. Improving Customer Experience
Salesforce implementation provides a unified view of customer data and interactions across all channels, which help businesses, make informed decisions and constantly live up to customer experiences. You can almost keep a finger on the pulse of your audience and understand their behavior, preferences, purchase pattern, and a lot more. It lets you go one step ahead and respond to what your customers actually by optimizing your marketing and sales efforts backed by real-time data insights.
3. Increasing Sales & Revenue
By implementing Salesforce, organizations can look to stay sorted and on top of their sales pipeline always. With real-time visibility into sales activities, businesses can quickly identify potential bottlenecks or areas for improvement and take action to address them. Salesforce, also enables businesses to automate time-consuming or mundane tasks, such as data entry, lead nurturing, and freeing up sales and marketing teams to focus more on high-priority activities.
4. Data and Powerful Customizable Analytics
Salesforce also provides powerful analytics in the form of customizable reports and dashboards that allow businesses to track metrics such as lead conversion rates, customer satisfaction, and a lot more, enabling them to continuously improve their business processes and strategies.
Know More:
- Salesforce Field Service Dashboards to Optimize Service Operations.
- Service Cloud Dashboards for Board Members.
5. Highly Scalable Cloud-Based Platform
In addition to these benefits, Salesforce is a highly scalable platform that can grow and adapt with a business over time. As a cloud-based platform, it requires no hardware or software installation, making it easy for businesses to get up and running quickly. Salesforce CRM implementation also offers a wide range of integrations with other business applications, such as marketing automation tools and accounting software, further enhancing its value for businesses.
Salesforce Implementation Checklist
Implementation can often be challenging for even the best in business. Check out our Salesforce CRM Implementation Checklist to learn the top considerations pre-, post-, and during Salesforce CRM implementation.
What are the Salesforce CRM Implementation Best Practices ?
Salesforce CRM implementation is a complex process that requires careful planning and execution. Here are the top 4 best practices to ensure a smooth implementation:
1. Create a Salesforce CRM Implementation Project Plan
Planning ahead of time is essential for a successful Salesforce CRM implementation project plan setup. Salesforce deployment planning steps include:
- Create a team structure
- Plan for an optimized resource allocation
- Have a well laid-out project methodology
- Create a roadmap (with deadlines) to track and accomplish implementation objectives at different stages
You must involve your staff members and important prospective Salesforce users to understand their needs and pain areas. Regardless of the implementation strategy, you must ensure that all issues are handled smoothly. Before you begin, form a team and assess the resources you will require throughout the implementation cycle. This can help you plan a more seamless Salesforce CRM implementation.
2. Take into Account Salesforce Customizations and Configuration
While in the solution-design phase or deploying phase, it is important to consider all the specific customizations and configuration that you look to achieve through Salesforce implementation. This might include but not limited to creating custom fields, page layouts, workflows, automation, reports, and dashboards. By meeting all the custom business requirements, you can rest assured that the implementation meets your business purpose and the org is tailored to deliver optimized results.
3. Ensure Integration with Existing Apps
Salesforce allows you to integrate third-party apps giving you all the freedom to bring in data from multiple systems. Make sure that you integrate your existing apps (AMS, LMS, ERP, etc.), and migrate data from legacy into the new system. What it means is that, you do not have to rebuild your data from scratch.
There are three ways of how the bi-directional data sync happens:
- Real-time integration (data is collected, merged, and analyzed in real time)
- Near-real-time (happens on a regular basis)
- Batch integrations (keeping all data in a single batch and only moving it when a certain amount is processed)
4. Migrate Data from Legacy System into Salesforce
Data migration means transferring data from your legacy systems to Salesforce. This is a critical aspect of implementation as it ensures that the organization has access to good data in the new system. Data migration requires careful planning and execution to ensure that data is transferred accurately and securely. This is usually not a one-day process and might take some time (depending on the complexity of your existing data). It is crucial to ensure that the data in your new system is accurate, complete, non-redundant, and properly mapped with proper fields.
5. Train Users on How to use the Newly Implemented Salesforce Effectively
Training and user-adoption, something that often companies tend to consider optional, is a deciding factor for successful implementation. It is important to train users on how to effectively use Salesforce to ensure that they can get the most of the platform. Adoption is equally important to ensures that users are using Salesforce regularly and effectively. It refers to the level of engagement and utilization of the Salesforce platform by your team members. Communicate to your team members, how the Salesforce instance can benefit them, what is expected out of the new system, and how their feedback can help further improve the system efficiency.
6. Perform Quality Checks
Quality Assurance is a vital best practice for Salesforce CRM Implementation. It is the process of ensuring that the implementation meets the organization’s requirements and specifications. This involves testing the system to ensure that it works as intended and meets the organization’s needs. Quality assurance is critical for ensuring that the implementation is successful, and that Salesforce is being used effectively. Quality Assurance involves testing the platform thoroughly, including all customizations, integrations, and workflows. It also involves ongoing monitoring and maintenance to ensure continued optimal performance.
7. Provide Post-Implementation Support
Implementation might look like a one-time thing but what comes next is equally important – Support. It is important to ensure that your newly implemented Salesforce or is running to its potential. For making that happen, you need technical support – either from a consulting services company or from your internal IT team. There are several key steps that need to be taken to ensure that the system is well-maintained and optimized for performance.
1. Maintenance and Support:
First, maintenance and support are critical components of post-implementation support. This involves regular updates, bug fixes, and troubleshooting to ensure that the system is functioning as it should. Support personnel should be available to address any issues that may arise and provide guidance to users as needed.
2. Performance Monitoring and Optimization:
Performance monitoring and optimization are important steps in ensuring that the system is performing at its best. This involves monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) such as system response times, server performance, and data throughput. By keeping an eye on these metrics, administrators can identify bottlenecks or other areas that need optimization.
3. Data Security Considerations:
The data security considerations are crucial in any CRM implementation. This includes ensuring that user access is appropriately controlled, data is encrypted when necessary, and backups are made on a regular basis. It’s also important to conduct regular security audits to identify any vulnerability and address them before they can be exploited.
4. Continuous Improvement & Innovation:
Finally, continuous improvement and innovation are key components of successful post-implementation support. As the organization’s needs evolve, the CRM system must evolve as well. This involves identifying new features or functionality that can be added to the system and continually looking for ways to improve processes and workflows.
By following these best practices, organizations can ensure that their Salesforce CRM implementation strategy is successful and delivers what is expected out of it. Customizing and configuring Salesforce to meet specific needs, migrating data accurately, training users effectively, and conducting thorough quality assurance testing are all critical components of a successful end-to-end Salesforce implementation.
What are the Salesforce Implementation Challenges?
Salesforce Pre-Implementation Challenges
Salesforce implementation can be a complex process, and there are several challenges that organizations may face. Some of the common pre-implementation challenges include:
- Lack of clear goals and objectives: Before starting the Salesforce implementation process, it is important to have a clear understanding of your organization’s goals and objectives. Without a clear direction, it can be difficult to evaluate features and functionalities that can best meet your business needs.
- Poor data quality: Data is the lifeline of Salesforce, so it is important to ensure that your data is clean, accurate and up-to-date before beginning the implementation process. Data cleansing is a major activity which involves identifying errors in existing data, rectifying them, and finally have right data in the system.
- Resistance to change: Implementing a new CRM system can be a significant change for many organizations, and some employees may resist the change or be hesitant to adopt new processes.
- Inadequate training: Proper training is essential for a successful Salesforce implementation. Without adequate training, employees may struggle to use the system effectively, leading to frustration and inefficiencies.
- Integration with existing systems: Integrating Salesforce with existing apps can be challenging, particularly if those apps are outdated or not compatible with Salesforce.
Overall, successful Salesforce implementation methodology requires careful planning, clear communication, and a willingness to adapt to and make changes as needed throughout the process.
During Salesforce Implementation Challenges
- Data migration: Moving data from legacy systems to Salesforce can be challenging, especially if the data is complex or stored in different formats.
- Integration with third-party systems: Integrating Salesforce with other systems can be time-consuming and require specialized knowledge.
- User adoption: Getting users to adopt and use Salesforce can be a challenge, especially if they are used to working with other tools.
Salesforce Post-Implementation Challenges
Salesforce implementation can be a complex process, and there are several challenges that organizations may face after the implementation. Some of the common challenges include:
- Maintenance: Keeping Salesforce up-to-date and running smoothly requires ongoing maintenance and updates.
- Training: Providing ongoing training and support for users can help ensure that they continue to use Salesforce effectively.
- Customization: As business needs change, customizing Salesforce to meet those needs may become necessary.
How to Overcome the Salesforce Implementation Challenges?
To address these challenges, make sure that you have a well-equipped IT team, capable of handling Salesforce implementation. While the process might look a walk in the park, there are challenges involved in each step, the fact that your company data is linked with the systems, it just makes the process more complex.
If you are not feeling confident enough, it is not a bad idea to hire a Salesforce CRM implementation partner who has experience in implementing and supporting Salesforce. A good partner can help you navigate these challenges and ensure that your implementation is successful in the long run.
Explanation of Salesforce Implementation Cost
If you’re estimating the cost of Salesforce CRM implementation, here are a few factors to consider:
- Consulting services that you need help with
- Data migration – amount of data that you want to take into the new system.
- Customization – level of customizations you require.
- Integration – number of third-party and native Salesforce app integrations you want.
- User training – to what extent your staff needs training.
- Support – on-going support and maintenance that you need assistance with.
Choose the appropriate Salesforce edition based on your business needs: Sales Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, or Unlimited. In case you’re in a doubt, you can consult a Salesforce CRM implementation specialist or Salesforce implementation partners to maximize your Salesforce investments.
Real-Life Use Cases – Salesforce CRM Implementation in Action!
1. IBM Inspired with Vibrant Work Culture
Salesforce Customer 360 enables one integrated platform, channel-based communication, and quick decision-making. And, as a worldwide strategic partner for Salesforce and the world’s largest Slack customer, IBM is once again setting the standard for business and work transformation. Let’s see how the entire IBM cCompany is using Salesforce to revolutionize employee workflow, service, and sales.
- With channel-based communication, you may speed up work both internally and externally
- Allow customers to select their preferred service channel
- Increase sales velocity by providing a unified seller experience
Read the complete case study >>
2. Citrix Launches a New Support Channel with Accelerator
The company’s purpose is to power a connected and accessible world for people, organizations, and things. That is why Citrix prioritizes customer support as part of its engagement strategy, ensuring that its clients can always obtain help quickly.
Citrix uses Service Cloud to assist its support team to work more efficiently and give clients timely, highly tailored responses regardless of the channel of contact. Phone and email have typically been the key modes of communication with customers; however, in order to make it easier for consumers to engage, the Citrix support team opted to implement Live Agent for chat assistance.
Read the complete case study >>
3. Uber Eats Expedites Case Resolution by Automating Workflows
According to Parul Saini (Head of IT at Uber), with data on a single platform, it is easy for their team to understand what the end-user experience was like, what queries can come, and how they can support their merchants quickly.
The unique advantage that unites Uber Eats’ service operations is Salesforce Customer 360. The company can accomplish worldwide expansion by keeping 25 million restaurateurs and their customers satisfied with a single perspective of merchants, end consumer data, and lightning-fast response times.
Read the complete case study >>
4. Vitality manages its distribution processes with Salesforce
Vitality is a well-known insurance company that provides health, life, and auto insurance, as well as investment options. But soon, Vitality’s distribution team recognized the need for a scalable customer relationship management (CRM) platform that could be used by all its internal team members and franchisees.
With Vitality already utilizing Salesforce in select distribution teams, expanding its use to acquisition and retention teams was a no-brainer. The organization leveraged technical support and direction from Salesforce’s dedicated support team to help its development team get up to speed with the solution faster.
Read the complete case study >>
To Sum Up
At last, implementation of Salesforce is a complex process that requires careful planning and execution at each stage. By following a structured approach, organizations can successfully implement Salesforce and realize the benefits of this powerful platform.
If you need assistance with Salesforce implementation or have a specific idea in mind or even trying to find a solution that can satisfy it, our Salesforce CRM implementation consultants are willing to listen. Get a free Salesforce consultation today!
Author
Service Cloud/Field Service Specialist
Ali Zakir is a Salesforce consultant/advocate specializing in Service Cloud and Field Service. With 25 years of experience in IT business management and operations, Ali empowers organizations to go beyond solving complex customer challenges and meeting business requirements.
