There’s no doubt that Salesforce is a powerful tool that can modernize and streamline your company’s processes. However, Salesforce is not a magic wand. If you don’t implement Salesforce properly, your company’s problems won’t disappear. Here are common mistakes organizations make when implementing Salesforce.
Thinking you can do it alone
Salesforce is marketed as an easy-to-implement Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that you can use right out of the box, which may be true for some businesses. However, many companies find that it takes time before they can successfully utilize Salesforce as a business tool that increases productivity.
Contacting other companies with Salesforce implementation experience as well as consultants and specialists who can guide your company through the entire process is a good idea when implementing Salesforce.
Lack of focus & clarity
If you try to implement any changes to your business without first having a clear vision and explicit goals, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Ask yourself what you hope to achieve out of Salesforce and be specific about the processes and procedures you’d like to improve.
What do you want to achieve by working with Salesforce? What are your specific company goals, and how can Salesforce help you achieve them?
To ensure a successful implementation, take your time with the initial planning stages. Your Salesforce integration, customizations, and overall user adoption will be more successful if you have a clear goal in mind
Disorganized data
Be sure to clean up the data before moving it to Salesforce. While you may feel the need to keep old documents, you should only transfer relevant and current data. To ensure that you and your team are ready for any potential issues that may arise during the migration, don’t forget to perform a test migration.
If your business runs numerous services simultaneously, using a data migration tool or migrating your data from one provider to another is crucial for a successful Salesforce implementation.
Not customizing salesforce
Salesforce is a powerful CRM tool, but no two companies are alike. The last thing you want is to start your implementation project thinking that you won’t need any customizations.
While Salesforce’s default features and settings cover a wide range of business scenarios and are frequently designed with best practices, they may not exactly match how your company currently operates. If you don’t plan for customizations, you’ll have to change your company’s processes to match Salesforce, which is probably not something you want to do.
You can save yourself a lot of headaches and money by setting realistic expectations from the beginning. Creating a process map and setting priorities for customizations will save you time and inconvenience in the long run.
A team with limited training
Training is a critical component of a successful implementation. A CRM software like Salesforce may appear straightforward, but certain features and capabilities may be too complex for your staff to use. Even though Salesforce has one of the best CRM tools on the market, its solutions are useless if you don’t know how to use them.
To get the most out of Salesforce CRM, you must provide proper training for your personnel. Before implementing it, your employees must thoroughly understand Salesforce’s features and how they relate to their daily tasks. You’re making a huge mistake if you ignore training and assume that your employees will quickly adapt to the new platform.
The wrong Salesforce License
There are a variety of Salesforce editions and pricing models to choose from, and your total costs will depend on which tools and platforms you require the one you choose. When discussing budgets and expenses of systems like Salesforce, there may be pressure to choose the cheapest edition, even if it doesn’t meet your company’s demands or size.
When it comes to small enterprises, the Essentials package is a terrific alternative. However, it may not be the best solution if you are a worldwide firm or need extensive customization to make your platform run properly.
To get the most out of Salesforce, you need to think about why you need it and what you expect to get out of it over the next few years. Investing in a larger edition can significantly impact the return on investment (ROI) and the level of satisfaction with the platform among end users.
Failing to use Salesforce elements correctly
One of the most common blunders firms make when utilizing Salesforce is failing to use the platform’s standard features correctly. Even though customization is great, there should be an attempt to retain basic functionality, as that is how Salesforce plans to continue developing the elements in the platform in the future.
Misusing standard features will necessitate a significant overhaul in the future, which will strain resources and delay other critical tasks.
Always remember the intent of standard elements while making changes, and avoid making changes that compromise their functionality. Salesforce’s standard elements are a big part of what makes it so awesome. If you use Salesforce’s standard elements correctly, the platform will grow with you.
Not taking into account the cost of implementation
You need to know the entire cost of the Salesforce implementation to predict your return on investment (ROI) accurately. When calculating costs, consider all aspects of the project, including software, hardware, and labor. Planning includes the following:
- Following a step-by-step process to achieve specific goals.
- Finding the right partner.
- Having a well-defined financial plan.
You can avoid unnecessary expenses by thoroughly and meticulously preparing for implementation.
Coherent Solutions can help you get started with Salesforce
While it’s inevitable that you will make mistakes, it’s also crucial to recognize that learning takes time. These mistakes can be undone with little effort, resulting in improved platform utilization that better suits your organization. An experienced Salesforce partner can help you optimize and improve your Salesforce solutions.
At Coherent Solutions, we address our customers’ business problems by combining innovation, global expertise, and creativity. Contact Us Today, and we’ll guide you through your Salesforce journey, from custom app creation to support and administration.