The year gone by (2020) had been extremely challenging, with the Covid-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on the lives and livelihoods of people. Most businesses were not prepared to deal with the challenges brought about by the pandemic.
Why Digital Transformation is a Must?
Businesses should bring a robust solution to fulfill their customers’ needs and expectations while meeting business objectives. Let’s analyze what has changed across different industries and how a robust CRM like Salesforce can help them keep up with the evolving requirements. Though the benefit of digital transformation is immense, it is essential to understand that digitization isn’t enough to keep businesses afloat during tough times.
Introducing an innovative solution while planning digital transformation ahead of time is necessary to drive progress. In other words, long-term planning is no longer a priority; rather, it has become a mandate as changes can happen overnight. Businesses should consider availing themselves of reliable Salesforce consulting services to know more about this platform.
Accurate Data that Powers Decision Making:
Access to accurate and relevant customer data is the secret sauce to a company’s success. With cloud-based software like Salesforce in place, organizations can gather and analyze customer data based on their behavior and preferences. The insights gathered can be used to adjust their marketing campaigns and improve products and services while allowing them to respond to their customers better. Such decisions will help them draw better results while fulfilling their business objectives.
Opportunity to work remotely: Though this approach isn’t applicable for all types of businesses, the possibility to work from home offers immense benefits for several companies. Consequently, during the global lockdown imposed due to the pandemic, employees could work remotely and access all the crucial corporate information they required easily. As a cloud-based CRM, Salesforce provides a single workspace where team members can access any data needed for working with partners, clients, and colleagues.
The connection between Employee and Customer Experiences: As discussed above, businesses need to develop innovative solutions to ensure that their people have access to everything required to ensure the smooth functioning of business, even during tough times. In other words, prioritizing the needs of your employees is equally important as your clients’ as satisfied and happy employees ensure better and increased performance and increased customer satisfaction rates.
Ways to Ensure Better Employee Productivity: Salesforce has introduced Salesforce Einstein Voice Assistant, an AI-powered technology that has helped businesses better connect with their customers and partners. Organizations can leverage the recent introduction of Einstein Automate to streamline their processes and automate mundane and time-consuming tasks. This helps in saving time, which can be used to do more productive tasks. Businesses should consider leveraging Salesforce integration services to integrate this robust tool within their business platform.
New Acquisitions and Growth Rate: Recent Salesforce financial reports reveal that the revenue for 2020 surpassed $17 billion with an annual Salesforce growth rate of around 29%. Moreover, with the new acquisitions made by Salesforce over the past few years, the platform is now positioned beyond a traditional CRM. It provides its customers with an all-in-one tailor-made solution to serve businesses of all sizes and across different industry verticals.
The Road Ahead:
Over the last couple of decades, Salesforce has come a long way from being a traditional CRM platform to an all-encompassing system that can serve the needs of businesses of different sizes and across various business domains. The platform offers a wide array of integrated solutions that allow companies to choose the components that best meet their needs. Given the wide array of features, functionalities, and components offered by Salesforce, it has become the go-to platform for sales and marketing departments of different organizations.
Salesforce is a leading name in the CRM space due to the wide array of features, functionalities, and components offered by it. Regardless of their size and business domain, businesses across the globe are leveraging this robust platform to resolve their unique business while enjoying operational efficiency. However, implementing Salesforce is easier said than done as user adoption problems arise due to cultural change in the organization. It is worth partnering with a certified Salesforce consultant if you wish to ensure a seamless implementation journey.
Let's discuss in detail the common Salesforce adoption problems and ways to tackle them:
Resistance to Change: Employees usually show resistance when they are expected to handle a newly implemented system, primarily when they haven't dealt with the same beforehand. It is essential to understand the reasons behind this resistance, which mainly includes the absence of understanding and training. Before embracing Salesforce, abundant training and support should be provided to the users.
Data Inconsistency: Several users associate their CRM with different users, which may impede their data inconsistency. It's suggested to use Salesforce as the center of all their data and acquit themselves with different frameworks from that point onwards. It is crucial to note that old, fragmented and obsolete data decreases the legitimacy of their Salesforce reports and frameworks and drives sales reps crazy.
Complicated Entries: It becomes difficult for Salesforce users to work on long page layouts and unwanted fields as long page layouts require too much scrolling. At the same time, too many areas contribute to insufficient data. It is essential to keep it short and straightforward to ensure that users can gather data without hassle.
Absence of meaningful reports and dashboards: Salesforce reserves a vast amount of data, and it can be leveraged to generate actionable insights. However, users tend to lose interest if the reports generated are vague, which drastically impacts the adoption rate.
Not Leveraging the Complete Potential of Salesforce Workflows: Not utilizing Salesforce workflows is a common blunder, which Salesforce users usually commit as Salesforce workflows can help increase productivity by sending reminders for renewal, auto emails, notifications regarding stale opportunities, and more.
How to Tackle Issues Related to Adoption?
Begin with a Pilot Project: It's essential to do a pilot project before implementing a system. In this way, testing can be performed, gaps can be identified, and user's requirements and practical issues can be understood. To run a pilot project, it's important to select a user group and provide them with the necessary training materials to run the platform effectively.
Understand End-user Requirement: To implement Salesforce successfully, it is important to loop in the Sales team and discuss with them the dashboards, reports, features, and functionalities. By considering their viewpoint, it will be easy to streamline Salesforce configuration while increasing the user adoption rate. It is crucial to articulate the arrangement and set their expectations from day one. Users need to focus on a strategy that not just fits all the requirements of the stakeholders but is also consistent with their workforce.
Training: Quality training should be provided to users to understand the basic motive behind implementing Salesforce and how it can benefit them. With proper training, users can tackle errors that might arise during the Salesforce journey.
Quick Wrap-up:
In a nutshell, it can be inferred that the success and failure of a newly implemented system depend mainly on how well users are accustomed to its' usage. The better the users are adapted to the system, the greater are the chances of achieving higher ROI. By partnering with one of the best Salesforce consulting companies, organizations can ensure a greater adoption rate.
Salesforce is known to be one of the most popular CRM platforms available. This robust platform offers various cloud solutions that organizations can leverage to resolve their specific business issues. However, even after implementing Salesforce, many users fail to get the desired outcome, which may primarily happen due to improper implementation strategy. An inaccurate implementation strategy or planning can reduce the chances of user adoption.
A strategic implementation can lead to guaranteed success. For ensuring successful Salesforce implementation, it’s essential to follow the below mentioned best practices:
Choose the Best Implementation Strategy: The kind of implementation strategy a business adopts will depend on the type of business process. If a company isn’t satisfied with the performance of its sales, marketing, and customer services, they have two options at their disposal:
By implementing and migrating their processes to Salesforce in the best possible way.
By redefining their design and processes from scratch within Salesforce
Select Appropriate Implementation Stages:
Once you are ready with your future implementation, it’s essential to evaluate the possible ways of current Salesforce implementation. Mentioned below are two methods for that:
Multiple Salesforce Cloud Implementations: All the departments, including sales, service, and marketing, can be automated by implementing Salesforce. With this, organizations can enjoy streamlined business processes and other automation capabilities such as email notification, field updates, and sales service contributions. By leveraging the three important Salesforce clouds i.e., sales, service, and marketing cloud, the functioning of all the three departments can be augmented. With this, organizations can enjoy better customer engagement and retention. However, data integrity, data loss, corruption, and chances of failure increase with multiple implementations. To ensure a seamless implementation journey, it is essential to partner with a certified Salesforce professional.
Salesforce Cloud Integration: Gradual implementation of Salesforce clouds should be done to lower the integration risk. You can begin with implementing your priority cloud, i.e., sales or marketing, followed by the execution of service cloud implementation. However, to maintain internal departmental synchronization, you may have to perform provisional implementation parallel.
Planning of Implementation steps:
The sequence of Salesforce implementation generally includes the following steps:
Consulting: A Salesforce consultant you engage can help you select essential functionalities by analyzing the business process needs. A consultation may also suggest a better implementation approach for your business process and the best licensing option for your business.
Data Transfer to a New System: While importing data to the CRM, safety of data import steps should be ensured to ensure data quality. Other aspects such as data duplication, data cleansing, mapping of data objects etc. can be performed through migration tools.
Application Configuration: Since the implementation is incomplete without customization, Salesforce objects need to be customized through point and click tools to provide step-by-step functionality enhancements. Post customization, the implementation should be tested by testing engineers. The process is migrated to the UAT (user acceptance testing) for deployment.
Budget Planning: An important thing to consider while implementing Salesforce is the time taken to implement all the essential features. If the implementation scope is clearly defined, then the organization can easily do time and budget planning.
Implementation Risk: Risk forecasting is crucial as it impacts implementation results. Some of the risks include the following:
Inculcation of any irrelevant feature: You may want to purchase an expensive Salesforce edition with rich functionalities. However, you might not be requiring all the features and thus may end up paying more. Consequently, you may get a compliant solution with extra features without paying more.
Using Non-User-Friendly Solution: The adoption rate might drop if your users aren’t comfortable with the chosen functionality, resulting in lower productivity.
Final Thoughts:
Without complete user adoption, Salesforce implementation might be incomplete. Right from the beginning i.e., from the first step to the final stage, organizations need to consider all the aspects of user adoption. Besides this, organizations need to choose a proper and suitable implementation strategy, plan their budget and timeline. This will ultimately result in increased business ROI and a greater adoption rate. For any assistance regarding Salesforce implementation, it is essential to partner with one of the reputed Salesforce consulting companies.
The business landscape has evolved significantly over the years. The traditional selling methods are now being replaced by automated processes that help sales reps track sales activities seamlessly. Though technological advancement has paved the way for new opportunities, it has also increased customers' expectations.
Today, business partners of B2B organizations expect the same attention and personalization they witness in B2C environments. However, this is easier said than done because it's essential to have a holistic view of your customers in a single place, which could be achieved with a robust CRM in place. Salesforce Sales Cloud can empower your sales teams to turn your customers from leads to loyal customers.
As an entrepreneur, you will be able to draw meaningful insights into your business, which will help you shift your efforts and make informed decisions based on market changes. It would help if you considered getting in touch with a reliable Salesforce consultant to know more about this cloud-based software.
What Makes Salesforce Sales Cloud Preferable for Sales Reps?
As the number one CRM platform, Salesforce offers a wide range of solutions to help organizations achieve their goals and stay ahead of their competitors. One such solution is the Salesforce Sales Cloud, which allows businesses to sell smarter, faster, and the way they want. Among all the cloud services, Sales cloud is known to have generated most of Salesforce's revenue. Mentioned below are some of the crucial salesforce sales cloud features that are designed to help businesses achieve their targets with this robust platform:
Account and Contact Management: This feature allows users to access critical customer data such as key contacts, communication history, and more.
Opportunity Management: This feature helps users to focus on the most critical aspect of your business. It highlights the essential elements of their business, such as their competitors, the stage their deals are in, and what moves are required to win those deals.
Lead Management: This feature allows users to convert more leads into real-time opportunities while tracking accurate data about their leads.
Pipeline and Forecast Management: This feature offers comprehensive forecasting and allows users to drive predictable revenues. Users get an inclusive view of the entire pipeline and business activities. It helps you to make critical and informed decisions through data insights and predictive AI.
Process Automation: Sales cloud allows users to automate their business processes with drag and drop simplicity while driving easy strategies. The point-to-click interface present in the process builder helps users to automate their business processes. The cloud platform also allows users to create automated workflows for various deals, making the process fast and simple.
Data Management: The data management feature offered by the Sales cloud will allow users to provide the correct data to the right person at the right time.
Benefits of Using Salesforce Sales Cloud:
Go Mobile: With Salesforce Sales cloud, it allows entrepreneurs to monitor their sales activities from anywhere across the globe. Irrespective of your location, this solution allows entrepreneurs to track their sales team's activities from their device. They can check sales charts, reports, dashboards, call logs, and more with simple clicks.
Sales Forecasting: Another benefit of the sales cloud is the extremely easy and simple forecasting, which helps them make informed decisions. This functionality not just provides a real-time view of the forecasts but also provides multicurrency support.
Increase the Leads: The platform contains all the essential features required for managing leads. It offers a lead management feature that allows users to track their leads closely while monitoring campaigns across multiple channels. The platform also provides access to the right data that will help users to augment their sales and marketing productivity.
Boosts Productivity: The AI-powered Salesforce sales cloud allows users to automate processes, prioritize leads, and help teams convert leads quickly. In fact, the Einstein AI built-in sales cloud has proved to be a blessing for organizations looking to boost their revenues.
Final Words:
So, suppose you are looking to boost the revenue and productivity of your organization. In that case, Salesforce Sales cloud offers the perfect solution to help you attain organizational objectives by empowering your sales team. You must consider partnering with one of the best Salesforce consultants to implement this software within your business ecosystem.
Effective business communication is the cornerstone of every business undertaking. Today, there is no dearth of internet-driven communication tools that can ensure effective communication compared to yesteryears. However, SMS (Short Messaging Services) is a preferred mode of communication due to its excellent penetration effect, more open rates, and cost-effectiveness. When integrated with a robust CRM platform like Salesforce, the messaging platform offers advanced features to take business communication to a new level. In fact, the integration of the SMS App with Salesforce paves the way for automated texting, which helps businesses with faster and time-saving business processes.
Smart SMS app is a Salesforce messaging App built natively on the Salesforce platform and leveraged by organizations to communicate effectively with their customers through single/Bulk SMS/MMS. The powerful App has gained much respect due to its versatility, easy access, and handling. Listed below are some ways in which automated texting can help transform business communication:
Simultaneous Conversations: A mundane routine for communication isn’t sufficient to fill the lead pipeline quickly. This is because employees can access a limited number of prospects in the absence of automated testing. However, with automated texting, agents can get into multiple conversations. This will help them to attract several leads from different directions using various conversational routines.
Meaningful interactions: One way of automating texts is through message rescheduling. This helps in sending the messages at a preferred date and time. When messages are sent at the right time, more meaning is added to any conversation. To reduce manual intervention, users can schedule time-sensitive messages beforehand while determining whether they wish to send them weekly, monthly, or annually. To follow up with unresponsive leads, marketing, and onboarding of students, users can organize SMS drip campaigns.
Support Services: Chatbots are an essential aspect of automated testing. Users require configuring a few commonly asked questions, following which they can allocate an appropriate response to an incoming response with the desired keyword. In this way, users can design chatbots for different cases while providing round-the-clock support to their prospects and customers.
Reduce Manual Involvement: Automated texting opens doors of opportunities to pave the way for self-driven interactions. This frees up time for employees as they can prioritize other essential business activities such as prospecting. Besides this, organizations can accelerate the process of interaction, assist their customers, and improve their overall experience through meaningful conversations.
Quick Wrap Up:
These are how a Salesforce texting App can benefit organizations significantly by taking their business communication to the next level. So, if you wish to better connect with your customers, you must consider automated testing as part of your business strategy.
In today’s competitive business landscape, businesses are moving online to promote their business primarily because of the wide array of tools online marketers have access to. Marketing automation has become a critical element of every online marketer’s arsenal. Consequently, implementing marketing automation software like HubSpot has become the need of the hour. It is crucial to get in touch with a reliable HubSpot Consultant to make the most of this platform.
According to Emailmonday, 49% of businesses use marketing automation, and the benefits of which are being enjoyed by 55% of companies.
Marketing automation has proved to be a blessing in disguise for B2B marketers as they significantly benefit from the increased number and quality of leads flow into their pipeline. B2B companies using marketing automation software have realized a jump of 10% in their sales pipeline. Today, small, medium and large companies are banking on tools, concepts, and marketing automation processes to achieve their business goals.
Let’s take a hard look at the reasons that have compelled B2B marketers to swear by marketing automation:
Generate Quality Leads: Marketers can gather data about the visitors visiting their website through the forms and landing pages. The information gathered can be leveraged by the sales team for following up with the visitors. Moreover, the quality of leads obtained can be determined using lead scoring. This allows the sales team to emphasize leads that have a high probability of converting.
Engage Your Leads: It is essential to understand that organizations that nurture their leads could provide their sales team with around 50% more sales-ready leads. Marketing automation paves the way for lead nurturing – the way by which prospects are gently pushed down the sales funnel by providing something that will influence their decision.
Optimize Email Marketing: Email marketing is vital for B2B marketers and thus should be effective enough to ensure maximum open and click rates. Automation tools like A/B testing can be leveraged to enable changing individual elements such as email, customer list segmentation, and more to test their success rate.
Check the Trail of Campaigns: One of the most important features of marketing automation is closed-loop reporting. This feature helps in checking the trail of successful campaigns that generated high sales, to be replicated. On the other hand, this feature can be used to end the plans that don’t yield results.
Visibility into the funnel: By integrating CRM with marketing automation, one can get a detailed view of the funnel. In other words, insights regarding customers’ journeys can be achieved, which can be leveraged to create more effective campaigns in the future.
Quick Wrap-up:
It can rightly be inferred that a robust marketing automation platform like HubSpot can provide wide range of functionalities such as lead generation, email marketing, social media management, lead scoring, analytics and reporting, which ultimately drives increased revenue for B2B marketers. To make the most of this amazing platform, it’s essential to get in touch with a certified HubSpot partner.
For organizations looking to grow their business without compromise, HubSpot offers everything required for consistent business growth. HubSpot is an all-in-one business automation tool that has helped organizations hit their business goals by increasing their sales and efficiently streamlining the business processes. To make the most of this amazing platform, it is essential to use it effectively, which isn't a cup of tea for everyone.
To get real-time outcomes, organizations require getting in touch with professionals who have a deep understanding of the tool. To get the desired results, it's important to partner with the right resource who can provide new strategies. However, hiring a HubSpot expert can be challenging, and it is essential to familiarize yourself with some key tips for hiring the right HubSpot partner.
Why should you hire a HubSpot expert?
Though HubSpot is a unique and powerful system, experts can only handle it. HubSpot experts are certified professionals who render the best services to their clients without investing much time and effort. They are adept at implementing HubSpot software strategically and also have skills for diverse learning styles.
They do not just help resolve the queries of their clients but also share some additional insights and strategies that can further help them grow. Engaging the right expert is a vital decision as hiring the wrong person will waste your money and negatively impact sales and business performance. Listed below are some tried and tested tips that can help you in hiring one of the best HubSpot consultants for your business growth:
Analyze their Experience: One of the simplest ways to figure out whether the HubSpot expert you are planning to engage is worthy enough to provide quality services or not is by knowing their experience with HubSpot. An experienced professional, besides having a deeper understanding of the tool, also share new insights that can help organizations perform complicated tasks with ease.
Check their Certifications: It is essential to consider a certified professional with in-depth knowledge about HubSpot. Such professionals keep on augmenting their ability to stay competitive while delivering excellent services by utilizing each tool of HubSpot effortlessly. It's recommended to check their credentials before arriving at any decision.
Understand Market Reputation: It is important to read client reviews on various social platforms like Facebook, Linked In, etc., to understand their credibility. It is good to get references, and more references ensure that the HubSpot expert you are looking to hire has a good market reputation. Therefore, it is important to get a clear idea about the quality of work delivered by HubSpot experts to their clients.
Focus on Communication Style: It is important to ensure that the HubSpot partner in question is smart enough to manage client communication.
Check their Adaptability: it is recommended to partner with a HubSpot expert who can adapt to the changes. HubSpot experts who ensure their availability 24*7 are recommended to partner with as they are easy to communicate with that too from anywhere and at any point in time. The more adaptable the expert, the more productive they will be.
Final Words:
A successful HubSpot expert possesses all the qualities above besides having in-depth knowledge about all the HubSpot tools. By taking note of these tips, you can easily choose the right HubSpot consultant that best fits your needs. Choosing the right partner is crucial, so make sure you do thorough research before partnering with a HubSpot expert.