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How to implement Salesforce Sales Cloud

Who should consider purchasing Sales Cloud?

Any company that wants to increase sales, small ones included. One of the biggest advantages for small companies about Sales Cloud is the out-of-box ready made functionality that gives you everything you need to start working successfully with Salesforce to achieve higher sales. In many cases small companies don't need an implementation company, because they can start using it immediately. Unlike bigger enterprises since they have predefined sales procedures which could be different from already existing out-of box processes in Salesforce. 

Small companies don’t have any specific rules to manage their sales which means that you can work more or less in line with how Salesforce already predefined these processes in the system. It’s quite enough for small companies, and they're fully satisfied with Salesforce's specified procedures and training materials on how to work successfully to increase their sales.

That doesn’t mean that small companies don’t need a consulting partner at all. They could make some minor adjustments, helping to integrate Salesforce with Outlook or Gmail, or help them import the data from Excel for example.

Why middle or big-sized companies can’t do the same?

Big companies have a successful sales department which follows some rules with already predefined procedures. They might differ from those already established in Salesforce which means that they need to be customized. And here’s the moment when the customer addresses the Salesforce implementation partner.

In case with middle and big-sized companies, sales processes should be customized and be in line with their actual processes, meaning that Salesforce must be adapted to their needs and not the opposite. It’s one of the best Salesforce features compared with other CRM’s as there’s no need to align your processes with the system, on the contrary, the system will be tuned to your business needs. 

The bigger the company is the more different software applications are used which means you need more integrations with other systems and more help from Salesforce consulting partners.

Why do people prefer Salesforce compared to other sales CRM systems?

It’s worth mentioning here that 45% of all worldwide CRM systems are supplied by Salesforce. And below are the reasons why:

 

  • The system is highly customizable.
  • The user interface is very favorable. It’s designed in such a way that people really like working with it.
  • Ecosystem is extremely huge. The number of consulting companies is very high which gives you the guarantee that if something goes wrong you can choose another consulting partner very easily. When your system is supported by one consultant only it's quite risky and you become dependent on this very partner. In case with Salesforce it’s more reliable cause the competition provides better choice and more flexibility. Ecosystem also includes Appexchange which is absolutely unique compared to other CRM providers. Today there’s about 4500 applications in it, it’s something like Appstore for Apple or Google Play for Android. Which means if you would like to extend the standard functionality of your Salesforce, you have 2 options: 

 

  1. You can address to a Salesforce partner and ask for a new development, OR
  2. You can visit the Appexchange site and choose an already made application which meets your needs. The good news is that you can use them immediately. It’s cheaper because you don’t need to wait weeks or months till your consulting partner will develop it for you from scratch, not taking into account some bugs which might occur after the launch. Anyway the Appexchange is a very important part of the ecosystem because it helps its customers to extend the functionality in a cheap way. 

How can Sales Cloud help my business to increase sales? 

There’s a very good expression that many Salesforce users like to  mention and stress on its importance: What’s not in the Salesforce - didn’t happen. If you need to manage something you have to measure it. If you have to measure something, you must be 100% sure that you're working with reliable data. For example you have a sales meeting with your customer but you didn’t put this info into the Salesforce for some reason. You’re not able to measure the sales progress because your data about this customer is insufficient. 

 

Artificial Intelligence called Einstein is another specifics of Salesforce that should be mentioned here. It helps to set up the metrics and key values that enable you to make the decision how you should proceed with your work. Based on these key metrics AI starts learning your activities and gives you advice on the next steps that you should take.

 

For example: AI defines what is the win ratio compared to the number of activities you do with the opportunity (how often you call a customer, or send an email, or appoint a meeting). It means that if AI realizes that there’s a bigger gap than it should be between last activity and actual time, it automatically reminds you, like: I think you were not in touch for a long time with this customer, I recommend you to make some steps. It’s a very simple example of how Salesforce helps you to boost your sales by giving advice on what to do with different opportunities.

 

Another example with the big company: Let’s assume that one sales department is selling refrigerators, another one -  washing machines. Einstein records the connection between the time of purchasing the refrigerator and tracks the possibility of buying the washing machine by the same customer in the next couple of months. In this case, Salesforce automatically sends a notification to another department about the potential opportunity of purchasing a washing machine by this customer. It helps to cooperate and migrate data between different departments to increase sales. 

Salesforce has all necessary data about the customer in one place which makes it more user friendly compared to other CRM’s, making sales people fully armed with all the information they need to achieve their sales KPIs.

 

Mobile application is another feature which is highly evaluated by sales representatives. Since  most of them work in the field, they need to have reliable information, access to all data about the customer from the mobile application even being offline. And if any customization is needed it’s done in the system only once as it’s automatically mirrored in the mobile application. That’s why it’s liked by the sales people so much. 

4 steps guide on how to implement Sales Cloud 

  1. Analysis of the Sales Cloud functionality, the most important part. 
  2. Setting up the system and its customization.
  3. Sales Cloud integration into back-office systems of the company. 
  4. Testing, debugging, launching into the production, training the sales agents, and going live.

In the end we’d like to stress that we don’t ask our customers how they would like their CRM to work. We hear their needs, complaints and demands, make the analysis and based on this analysis, our experience, and best practices, we advise how to change some processes to achieve better sales results for example. Our main role is not in the implementation only, we use the proactive approach and set up the system in such a way to surpass our customers’ expectations resulting in business growth.