Salesforce is a powerful platform that can help you grow your business, improve your customer relationships, and streamline your operations. However, many organizations struggle to get the most out of their Salesforce investment due to various challenges such as technical debt, process silos, manual tasks, data quality issues, and lack of innovation.
If you want to maximize the value of your Salesforce investment, you need to follow a systematic and holistic approach that covers three key vectors of impact: revenue optimization, customer/partner experience, and compliance and risk management. In this blog, we will share with you a 5-step process that can help you achieve these goals and improve your Salesforce ROI.
Building a healthy foundation
The first step to improving your Salesforce ROI is to build a healthy foundation for your platform. This means cleaning up the technical debt and ensuring the code quality and performance. Technical debt is the accumulation of suboptimal or outdated code, configurations, and customizations that can slow down your system, increase maintenance costs, and reduce user satisfaction.
To build a healthy foundation, you need to:
Remove dead code, unused fields, screens, rules, profiles, roles, etc. that are no longer relevant or needed
Optimize code, queries, and indexes to improve performance and scalability
Clean up fields, screens, rules, profiles, roles, etc. that are redundant, inconsistent, or poorly designed
Automate future quality validation and control using tools like code analysis, unit testing, and code review
By building a healthy foundation, you can improve the stability, security, and usability of your Salesforce platform, and reduce the risk of errors, bugs, and failures.
Stitching the process
The second step to improving your Salesforce ROI is to stitch the process across different functions and systems. This means integrating and connecting the processes end-to-end, from lead generation to customer retention, and from marketing to sales to service. Stitching the process can help you eliminate process gaps, data silos, and manual handoffs, and enable a seamless and consistent customer journey.
To stitch the process, you need to:
Improve the marketing integration with Salesforce, using tools like Marketing Cloud, Pardot, or HubSpot, to capture and nurture leads, and track campaign effectiveness
Improve the quote to cash process with Salesforce, using tools like CPQ, Billing, or Conga, to streamline the pricing, quoting, contracting, invoicing, and payment processes
Improve the customer engagement systems with Salesforce, using tools like Service Cloud, Field Service, or Communities, to provide omnichannel support, proactive service, and self-service options
Improve the process automation with Salesforce, using tools like Flow, Process Builder, or Apex, to automate repetitive tasks, workflows, and notifications
By stitching the process, you can improve the efficiency, accuracy, and visibility of your business processes, and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Enabling touchless/low-touch sales and service
The third step to improving your Salesforce ROI is to enable touchless/low-touch sales and service for your customers and partners. This means reducing manual churn and increasing self-service capabilities, using artificial intelligence, chatbots, portals, communities, and digital signatures. Enabling touchless/low-touch sales and service can help you lower the cost of acquisition and retention, and increase the convenience and preference of your customers and partners.
To enable touchless/low-touch sales and service, you need to:
Leverage artificial intelligence with Salesforce, using tools like Einstein, to provide personalized recommendations, predictions, and insights
Leverage chatbots with Salesforce, using tools like Einstein Bots, to provide conversational assistance, FAQs, and guidance
Leverage portals and communities with Salesforce, using tools like Experience Cloud, to provide self-service access, collaboration, and engagement
Leverage digital signatures with Salesforce, using tools like DocuSign, to provide secure and fast electronic signing of documents
By enabling touchless/low-touch sales and service, you can improve the conversion, retention, and advocacy of your customers and partners, and differentiate your brand and value proposition.
Empowering data-driven decisions
The fourth step to improving your Salesforce ROI is to empower data-driven decisions for your stakeholders. This means using data and analytics to enhance decision-making and performance measurement, using dashboards, reports, Einstein Analytics, and predictive modeling. Empowering data-driven decisions can help you optimize your strategies, tactics, and outcomes, and demonstrate the value and impact of your Salesforce investment.
To empower data-driven decisions, you need to:
Use dashboards and reports with Salesforce, using tools like Lightning Report Builder, to provide real-time and interactive data visualization and exploration
Use Einstein Analytics with Salesforce, using tools like Einstein Discovery, to provide advanced and actionable data analysis and storytelling
Use predictive modeling with Salesforce, using tools like Einstein Prediction Builder, to provide data-driven forecasts and recommendations
By empowering data-driven decisions, you can improve the alignment, accountability, and agility of your stakeholders, and increase the confidence and trust in your Salesforce platform.
Driving continuous innovation
The fifth and final step to improving your Salesforce ROI is to drive continuous innovation for your platform. This means keeping up with the changing business needs and customer expectations, using agile methodologies, feedback loops, user adoption strategies, and Salesforce releases. Driving continuous innovation can help you stay ahead of the competition, and deliver value and delight to your customers and partners.
To drive continuous innovation, you need to:
Use agile methodologies with Salesforce, using tools like Agile Accelerator, to manage your projects, sprints, and backlogs, and deliver incremental and iterative value
Use feedback loops with Salesforce, using tools like Trailblazer Community, to collect and incorporate user feedback, suggestions, and ideas
Use user adoption strategies with Salesforce, using tools like MyTrailhead, to train and educate your users, and increase their engagement and productivity
Use Salesforce releases with Salesforce, using tools like Release Notes, to stay updated and take advantage of the latest features and enhancements
By driving continuous innovation, you can improve the relevance, responsiveness, and resilience of your Salesforce platform, and create a culture of excellence and improvement.
Conclusion
Salesforce is a great platform that can help you achieve your business goals and objectives. However, to get the most out of your Salesforce investment, you need to follow a 5-step process that covers the three key vectors of impact: revenue optimization, customer/partner experience, and compliance and risk management. By following this process, you can improve your Salesforce ROI and create a competitive edge for your organization.
If you need help with implementing this process or want to learn more about how to improve your Salesforce ROI, you can reach out to us at dgt27. We are a Salesforce consultant based in NYC and beyond with a team of certified and experienced Salesforce consultants who can help you with your Salesforce needs and challenges. We offer a free consultation and a customized solution for your specific situation. Contact us today and let us help you get more from Salesforce.