Challenges Faced in Salesforce Implementation –The Three Inseparable Principles

In your opinion, what is the best measure for a successful CRM? How do you evaluate if your salesforce implementation was a success? If you don't know the answer, don't worry; you are not the only one facing this issue. And, like always, I am here to help! While many specific measures are widely used for CRM implementations, accessing the true success of a salesforce org calls for a more holistic approach. You must first understand the major contributing factors to set yourselves up for longer-term, sustainable success for our Salesforce investment. Without focusing on these three major principles affecting every Salesforce org, you risk limiting yourself and monitoring a single area. After some time, you'll get frustrated by not getting results from one area while the other two principles act as limiting factors. So, once you have grasped the principles, you can return to quantifiable measures to measure daily. Let's name these principles 'The Three Inseparable Principles' –adoption, productivity, and data quality. These have a significant role in a successful salesforce implementation and are interconnected with each other like a web.

Understanding the Challenges First!

After years of experience and overseeing countless projects across multiple Salesforce product areas, we have filtered a few recurring challenges that act as a hurdle between organizations and realizing ROI from Salesforce.

You'll wonder why these challenges act as a hurdle. Take a minute to think, and you'll realize that these problems stem from people's problems. People problems relate to how users accept, interact and adapt their working day to their Salesforce org. When there is a lack of acceptance and adaptability, the users are not adjusting to their org. To overcome these challenges, we need to understand the driving forces - adoption, productivity, and data quality.

1. Salesforce Adoption – Is your team actually using it to its potential?

How you and your team approach salesforce adoption will undoubtedly affect its success. Take a Service Cloud project, for example; service users must use the system to do their job – to close cases. With Sales Cloud, however, users don't necessarily have to use opportunities or leads to sell; reps can do this outside of Salesforce using their ‘own’ methods (e.g., Excel or paper-based, a favorite with old-school salespeople). Of course, they won't realize the productivity gains that Salesforce offers, nor the reporting and forecasting benefits. Kickstarting good adoption starts with involving users throughout the project duration and the quality of the training. So, no matter what stage of your Salesforce implementation journey you're at, it's never too early (or too late) to implement a user adoption strategy. Over time, the other two principles (productivity and data quality) will become the driving forces.

2. Data quality: Is your Data up-to-date, correct, and relevant?

Data quality is the top complaint most companies have about their Salesforce implementations. Several surveys have confirmed that Salesforce administrators rank data quality and management as their most pressing issues.

According to a recent Salesforce study, on average, a company's contact database has 90% incomplete contacts and 20% obsolete or useless records.

The most important thing management teams want to gain from Salesforce is reliable reports. If you compare Salesforce Lightning to other systems, being able to report on absolutely anything using a drag-and-drop interface is incredible. Although, it is a challenge to ensure that the correct data is available in a Salesforce org to get the insights people need. Simple strategies you can implement to help improve data quality: develop clear data standards, Automate, monitor, and validate.

3. User productivity:  Is it helping to improve productivity?

Salesforce is a feature-rich platform with a provision for extensive customization and integration, as per your requirement. If you don’t have a setup correctly customized and integrated according to your requirements before going live. There is no incentive for your workforce to use Salesforce as it will hinder their daily work instead of improving their productivity.

How the Three Inseparable Principles Work

By failing to recognize the three overarching principles in every Salesforce org, we risk blindly monitoring results in one area, not realizing that the other two are hindering success.

Data Quality→Adoption

When implementing Salesforce, the cleanliness of your data matters. If you have a bunch of outdated, repetitive, or unneeded data, it will hinder the way the platform works. If your data isn't clean, any issues you experienced with your old system will carry over to Salesforce, resulting in low user login rates. So, to make users able to use the system well, data in the system should be clean and up to date. You need to ensure that your data will conform to the Salesforce data model so that it works well and enables accurate reporting. This will make users trust the new system and increase the adoption rate.

Productivity→ Adoption

Admins should focus on optimizing the Salesforce UI because if tasks take longer, users won't be rushing back to Salesforce! For example, using CPQ (a business software application designed for sales teams to provide product options and prices with accuracy) can help speed up quote generation massively. If CPQ is working as it should, people will enjoy using the system; however, on the flip side, if a quote takes longer to produce than in Excel, users will be far less keen to use the state-of-the-art Salesforce CPQ. Training helps to improve salesforce usage by the team, so you should focus on investing in end-user onboarding & training. Once your workforce is trained and has an automated system for reports & analytics to make quicker decisions, they will return to Salesforce.

Data Quality→ Adoption & Productivity

Data quality links up with productivity because it becomes more actionable if data is of good quality. For example, suppose a salesperson can see what their customers are currently interested in, what they've previously bought, and other details. In that case, they will be in a better position to identify opportunities. This will positively impact adoption and increase their productivity because they can identify these gaps faster without delving into manual analysis – or worse, they resort to pure guesswork.

Let's Conclude

When asked about the difference between a successful salesforce implementation and a failure, it wasn't easy to highlight a single reason. In reality, it is an interconnected web of factors that impact the overall success of the implementation, known as 'The Three Inseparable Principles.' So, instead of focusing on a single area, you need to work on all three principles simultaneously to get the desired results from the Salesforce platform. WhizzBridge, with its Salesforce implementation services, has helped dozens of businesses grow with Salesforce and understand how to implement, integrate, and test apps that work. We will help you create a Salesforce experience that is optimum for you.

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