Implementing Salesforce can be a challenging and overwhelming process, as there are many things that can go wrong. The official Salesforce Hub Blog states that up to 70% of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform implementations fail. So why is it so difficult to get it done right?
With the many exciting opportunities Salesforce offers for your organisation, you might be tempted to dive right into its new features and try to make the most of it. We understand the enthusiasm, but success with Salesforce isn’t achieved overnight.
In this article, we’ll reveal the five most common challenges organisations have when implementing Salesforce. In addition, we’ll guide you on how to avoid these pitfalls, and present best practices that will help your organisation skyrocket to success with Salesforce.
To ensure you are maximising Salesforce’s potential and gaining lasting value from your investment in the CRM, you need to make sure you have a laser-focused approach with a clear vision of what you want to achieve before starting the implementation process. Without that clear vision, many CRM implementations fall short of expectations and lead to unsatisfactory outcomes.
Why is that the case? Too often, we see organisations without a clear vision of what they want to achieve with the Salesforce platform they want to implement. Instead, they have unclear goals, poor planning, or lack an evaluation of the desired business outcome.
Making any company changes without a clear vision in place can be a ticking time bomb and since Salesforce is an investment, if your sales and customer relationship objectives are unclear, an implementation will be challenging.
Companies that get the most out of Salesforce align their implementation with their overall strategic objectives with a CRM strategy in place to support their transformation process.
When moving forward with a Salesforce implementation, you should first focus on the “who” and “why” instead of the “what”. Take a step back and consider your main goal. This is the “why” of your project. Ask yourself what you want to get out of Salesforce, what it is that your users want or need, and what will make your employees’ lives easier. Having a clear vision helps you articulate the processes and procedures you’re hoping to improve, which will lay the foundation for your CRM strategy.
Richard Fleming
Director of Delivery
You should also set clear and measurable objectives in the planning stage. Whether it’s to increase customer satisfaction, increase revenue or reduce costs. Clearly defined goals and metrics help you and your team measure success and ensure the outcomes fulfil the company’s vision.
More often than not, companies view Salesforce implementations as a technology project and overlook the importance of people. However, implementing a new Salesforce solution means your business replaces older systems or legacy customer databases. This has a huge impact on everyone who engages with customer information in the course of their work. As organisations often underestimate the disruption a new system can bring, they’re prone to receive internal buy-in.
Your Salesforce users should be at the heart of any changes you make to the company processes. Too often, we see employees are only involved at the end of the project, with little change management or support provided to them. Therefore, employees view Salesforce as something separate from what they do, almost like an additional task they must complete. This widens the gap between implementation, adoption and improved organisational performance.
Implementing Salesforce should be a company-wide initiative instead of something that starts and ends in the C-Suite. You’ll need to consider user adoption from the beginning of the project, and take it seriously from implementation start to end. This will ensure you and your team can yield the best outcome. Successful change management requires foresight and planning. Let your people know what’s coming and how it will help them.
To generate enthusiastic internal buy-in, you must focus on people rather than technology. Empowering employees and actively involving them during the transformation is key. Let them see Salesforce as a tool and enabler of success. By including your workforce in the process, you’ll keep them informed and engaged, which helps create a positive attitude towards the implementation.
Richard Fleming
Director of Delivery
A prominent technical issue that organisations face during the implementation process is data integration, migration and maintenance. With new product features often becoming a team’s top priority, these tasks often become an afterthought. However, unless prioritised from the outset, these crucial tasks can get left behind – causing major delays in the following phases of a Salesforce implementation project.
A Salesforce integration with other running systems or platforms can be a particularly tricky task, as it requires significant foresight and experience from the responsible implementation team. Nonetheless, our vast project experience has brought us to the conclusion that it is very common for organisations to have duplicate records or “dirty” data, which does often lead to inconsistencies and mistakes.
To turn Salesforce into a decision-making tool rather than a bookkeeping software, you should consider the approach, budget and team for this task. Devising a separate strategy for data management can help you drive usability and efficiency from the new system. You can also hire data migration specialists to help clean up data and ensure a smooth transition.
To achieve the best data migration outcome, it’s important to monitor your data integrity continuously. This can be done by performing system validation checks, ensuring that new updates comply with existing regulations, and regularly archiving your business data. It’s further paramount to educate your employees on how to perform the required, data-related tasks and have clearly defined workflows. Developing a space to share best practice will help you to improve success and manage expectations.
Due to the overwhelming number of features and customisation options available with Salesforce, organisations quite often overcomplicate things by opting for more features than required. This results in additional costs that can be avoided if you customise it according to your specific business needs and goals.
Running an overly customised platform is risky, as unnecessary features are likely to confuse users – which can lower overall user adoption. By adding complexity to otherwise easy tasks, over-customisation will make your users struggle with the system and become a barrier to employee performance.
Since Salesforce provides a great array of solutions to organisations of all sizes and types, you should carefully consider whether or not a certain feature will add value to your organisation’s processes. Just because a service is available, it does not mean you should incorporate it. It’s better to set realistic expectations from the beginning and prioritise customisations that benefit your business and customers.
Richard Fleming
Director of Delivery
This is why it’s highly recommended to engage with a Salesforce implementation partner who has extensive knowledge of the platform and can support you in building a Salesforce environment that is best suited to your business and needs.
Implementing Salesforce might be one of the biggest investments for your business. It offers high rewards but also comes with high risks and uncertainty. Trying to cut costs by going with an underqualified Salesforce implementation partner can be disastrous, as they tend to communicate poorly with you and often fail to achieve the expected outcome within the desired scope and budget. This is why it’s crucial that you work with Salesforce experts who will deliver the results you need.
However, in order to get your Salesforce implementation done right, you need a lot of experience. In a lot of cases, organisations reflect on their implementation partner’s project management and delivery as not being greatly proficient, as their consultants may be unfamiliar with the required Salesforce platform or are still in the process of learning it.
Finding an experienced Salesforce implementation partner with highly skilled Salesforce consultants is crucial for your success. If you want to overcome the Salesforce challenges outlined above and achieve the best results, you’ve come to the right place. A Summit (Platinum) Salesforce Partner like us can guide and support your Salesforce implementation every step of the way.
With over a decade of experience helping organisations get the most out of their Salesforce investment, we are the perfect Salesforce partner who will guide you through the implementation process to find the right solution for your business.
Our Salesforce consultants around the globe will share their expertise and experience in tackling unique implementation challenges with you, and leverage their skills to guide your Salesforce initiative. Together, we will take your organisation’s CRM to the next level.
To find out how we can help you get started with Salesforce or maximise your current Salesforce investment, contact us today at ask@pracedo.com or schedule an initial consultation call here.
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Pracedo is an award-winning Summit (Platinum) Salesforce Consulting Partner that delivers innovative Salesforce implementations to forward-thinking customers.
With over a decade of experience focused on Salesforce, we work with our customers to unlock the platform’s power through tailored implementations that facilitate achieving business goals and ambitions. Our team of certified Salesforce consultants globally provides a tailored consultancy service, drawing the breadth and depth of knowledge earned from over 1000 projects across our various locations in London, Melbourne, Brisbane, Amsterdam, and Belgrade.
Pracedo specialises in Digital Transformation and Change Management. Implementations and customisations include: Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, Salesforce Revenue Cloud, Salesforce Experience Cloud and Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud.
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