Salesforce is the world’s #1 CRM app. According to data from Salesforce.com, on average, companies utilizing Salesforce can experience:
+27% increase in sales revenues
+32% increase in lead conversion
+34% increase in customer satisfaction
+56% faster deployment
But just as your organization can go further with the right leadership, so can Salesforce improve metrics more effectively with the right implementation partner at the helm. Experienced Salesforce-certified consultants, such as the ones at Summa, are valuable for your business because we offer implementation help like the following:
1.) Build Your Implementation Team
Implementing the Salesforce CRM app requires assigning these roles on your team.
When implementing the Salesforce CRM app into your business for the first time, you need the following roles assigned on your team:
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An executive sponsor. Needs to understand the underlying goals of Salesforce implementation and the nature of the business. Needs to have full buy-in from the beginning until the go-live date (and beyond).
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A project manager. Must understand the business processes to put them live as maps into Salesforce automation processes.
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An administrator. Runs the CRM day to day. The administrator contributes to the overall strategy and roadmap for Salesforce as the business needs continue to grow and change.
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A power user. These may be users, clients, customers, or key partners with whom your company works regularly. The key here is that this person fully knows and understands the needs of your business.
You also want to be sure you get buy-in from the other members of your team. The best way to do this is to get them actively involved with the implementation process. Ask them about what they most want to see from the Salesforce CRM implementation. Create a Chatter group to share information about the Salesforce CRM deployment. Share key milestones with them, and make sure they know their input figured into the deployment.
2.) Define Your Company’s Mission
It is a natural tendency for organizations (and individuals) to want to take on too much at one time. Add in the fact that different groups within your organization will likely view different objectives as high priority at any given time, and it becomes clear that comprehensive strategic planning is needed.
The best methodology is to build the key plan around a few key ideas you want to introduce first, and then add other ideas onto the roadmap for later. For example, your sales manager might want key insights into summary reports, but your sales team might simply want improved access to key sales materials and increased automation of administrative work. Roadmap implementation phases might be viewed as follows:
Phase 1
Important accounts for general accounting tracking information
Upload existing leads and begin tracking leads from various sources
Launch a Chatter training for Salesforce CRM training and project communication
Phase 2
Introduce campaign management to track sales initiatives
Launch forecasting to the sales team
3.) Define and Prioritize Your Goals
Define your goals in terms of the hoped-for solutions for each target group. Set the priority to help focus your Salesforce implementation efforts going forward. Do you want for goals to be increasing number of leads? Or is increasing revenue the chief aim? Or is it increasing the conversion rate? Clearly defining a goal, and focusing on it, is essential. Think through the ways in which you would measure the achievement of these goals.
4.) Make sure everyone understands the Salesforce Process Flow
When diagramming the process flow, start at the point in which the lead initially becomes an opportunity. Keeping the goals in mind, follow these steps:
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Identify the key aspects of your business processes
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Define and develop a visual view of your own internal business processes
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Answer the following questions at each step:
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Who does what
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What inputs are needed
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How to measure the results
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Map your business processes to Salesforce CRM
Here is an example of a sales process (Salesforce.com):
A sales process example includes: The prospect making contact, deciding if the lead is qualified, setting an appointment, determine the qualifications, final presentation, knowing if the needs are met, and depending on the answer the sale will come to a close or the transaction will end.
5.) Develop your rollout plan
It is important to build your plan around the features you initially want to introduce. The most important thing is to introduce the Salesforce CRM and allow your organization to get comfortable with it. You can then add other features later.
6.) Define key aspects of your process and diagram the process flow
Salesforce implementation is the time to decide which reports need to be generated on a regular basis, and how and to whom this data should be presented. Options for reports include:
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Active Accounts – Shows current accounts
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Account Owners – See who owns what accounts
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Closed Opportunities – Shows won opportunities
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Contact Role – Shows contacts involved in current deals
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Lead Lifetime – Track the life of a lead from creation to closure
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Leads by Source – Find out the most and least effective lead sources
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Opportunity Pipeline – See upcoming opportunities, in current stage
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Quarterly Forecast Summary – Show commit amounts, best-case amounts, and pipeline by quarter
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Stuck Opportunities – See which opportunities are not moving forward
7.) Map your process to Salesforce CRM functionality
Mapping your ideal process and establishing the names you want to give to data elements and fields is the next step. When determining which fields you need, you want to ask yourself if you need all of the fields, if some of the fields should be renamed, and whether or not you need custom fields for your organization. Doing so is crucial to maintain consistency.
8.) Decide which reports you need
A good rule of thumb is to start using Cases in Salesforce early on to track any issues or requests from users. The Salesforce admin should have a rule, such as a 24hr or less turn around for my responses or resolutions to cases.
By using Salesforce to solve most business issues, the necessary underlying methodology makes you think in terms of process in every department of the company. Solutions to help streamline those processes can be achieved through the customizing or implementing a feature in Salesforce, but at times, it can also involve bringing in another application that can solve a specific need. The idea is to make Salesforce the “backbone” of operations.
9.) Train your administrator
Well-informed administrators are crucial for Salesforce success. If your company is a Salesforce partner, contact your partner manager for study materials and the exam.
10.) Communicate with your end users
Getting your team involved with Salesforce implementation early and often is a good best practice approach. Leverage executive leadership to develop incentives for incorporating the Salesforce CRM into your organization. Organize all of the materials into one easily accessible location. Emphasize the value of Salesforce, routinely asking for feedback, and express how their feedback helped to aid the launch. Motivate by recognition, and offer refresher training as needed.
In Summary
Proper Salesforce implementation is a crucial part of success with the Salesforce CRM. In order to get the most of the Salesforce CRM, utilize the ten steps outlined above to help your organization prepare for success, create user experiences, enable the user experiences with data, and to deploy and empower your users.
If you’re looking for a reliable Salesforce partner to help with implementation, Summa boasts deep experience in creating fast, flexible, reliable, and secure connectivity between cloud, on-premises, new and legacy core applications, as well as IoT and mobile devices. As both the implementation partner and the customer engagement solution architect for our clients, we achieve business results using Marketing, Sales and Service Clouds, and other platform components of Salesforce.com. In 2015, we won the Salesforce.com Partner Innovation Award for Non-Profit Success for our work innovating new fundraising, donor, and volunteer management solutions for The United Way of Southwestern PA. Plus, Salesforce.com is one of Summa's fastest-growing practice areas. As Gold Partners, we're excited to do more, excel more, and produce more transformative solutions for our clients.
