With more than 150,000 companies already using the platform, Salesforce is the best-selling customer relations management software in the world. With Salesforce, companies can manage their customers, generate reports, and handle marketing, sales, and commerce operations from one easy-to-use dashboard. But implementing Salesforce is a process, and it’s important to get it right.
So, how can companies implement Salesforce? Salesforce implementation requires some preparation. There are eight key steps to rolling out Salesforce, and by following these steps, companies can ensure they implement Salesforce correctly without missing anything important.
If you’re ready to implement Salesforce in your company, keep reading to learn the eight-step process to launch Salesforce quickly and successfully.
1. Planning and preparation
It all starts with planning and preparing to implement Salesforce within your company. Typically, companies will find a Salesforce sponsor who puts them in touch with a reputable Salesforce implementation company. These companies offer Salesforce implementation services and can help guide management through the processes and procedures.
Typically, the first step is defining the company’s goals and objectives. Once the goals have been defined, it becomes easier to determine which Salesforce features and functions need to be implemented. After everything has been planned out, and an action plan has been prepared, it’s time to move on to the next step, to establish a project timeline.
2. Establishing a project timeline
Salesforce is a complex system that involves many segments of a company’s operations. As such, it’s best not to rush the process. Some companies have rolled out Salesforce in a week, only to realize that there are a ton of issues to resolve. In these situations, things often become a mess requiring the company to employ a Salesforce implementation consultant and invest a lot of money and time to resolve the issues.
Therefore, it’s better to take your time with the process so that when you are ready to launch the system, everything is already working as planned, and the system can be a valuable asset to the company from day one. Generally speaking, a proper implementation should take a month or two to roll out. The idea is to release features and functions bit by bit rather than trying to do everything at once.
3. Cost calculation
An important part of the process involves calculating the Salesforce implementation cost. Salesforce has several base plans available, but companies typically require custom solutions. Therefore, you will need to determine which features you’ll need, how many users you’ll need to license on the platform, and the cost of training your employees on using the system.
Plus, you’ll need to budget for the employees essential to the project, such as a system administrator, a project manager, beta testers, and trainers. Once you’ve calculated all of those costs, you can determine the overall cost of implementing Salesforce. It is important to determine the cost since it’s not going to be a cheap endeavor – but it will be a worthwhile investment that, if implemented correctly, should pay off quickly.
4. Defining success metrics
The next step in the process is to define the key metrics you’ll use to determine the platform’s effectiveness. These metrics are different for each company, but some common metrics include sales targets, customer loyalty, retention gains, increased conversions from sales funnels, traffic metrics for marketing campaigns, etc.
Once the key metrics are defined and clearly documented, you’ll have a roadmap to keep track of your progress towards company goals. Once prepared, you’ll almost be ready to launch the platform. However, one critical task is still beta testing the system with power users.
5. Preparing to launch
Before launching the site, you’ll want to test the system. Using beta testers or power users, test the system for bugs and issues to ensure that your customers won’t encounter any unexpected problems when it goes live. During these tests, power users should be performing the functions that your employees will use daily, and looking for issues such as:
- Problems with navigation
- Issues with the User Interface (UI)
- Challenges affecting the User Experience (UX)
- Any unexpected errors that crop up
- Security vulnerabilities
By removing these problems pre-implementation, you’ll be able to save yourself a ton of time and money and avoid fixing these issues after the site has already gone live. You’ll also be able to minimize the number of problems your customers could encounter, which is, of course, pivotal given that Salesforce is a customer relations management software.
6. Creating a Change Management Strategy
Next, you’ll want to develop a change management strategy. Unless the company is brand new, there will already be processes for managing commerce, marketing, sales, and customer relations. Salesforce encompasses all of these complex organizational systems, and as such, the policies and procedures employed to monitor and govern these areas will also need to be adapted to Salesforce.
Whenever possible, this is a process that the leadership team should undertake in conjunction with a Salesforce implementation partner who can recommend a Salesforce implementation methodology. Scrum is one of the most popular methodologies, which gradually shifts focus to Salesforce on a feature-by-feature basis. Still, a qualified consultant will be able to advise you on your specific needs concerning changing management strategies.
7. Employee training and support
Of course, you will need to offer Salesforce training to your employees as they will be using the system on a daily basis. Salesforce is a large, complex system, and as such, it’s unlikely that one day of training will be sufficient for your employees to understand every aspect of the platform entirely.
Therefore, you should have a plan in place for ongoing employee support and development, as there is often a learning curve involved with Salesforce implementation, which should be expected and planned for accordingly.
8. Developing a post-implementation plan
Once everyone has undergone training, you’ll be ready to launch the system. Keep in mind that during the first few weeks, it’s not uncommon to encounter a few bugs and issues that escaped notice during the beta testing phase, so this is another thing that you should anticipate ahead of time.
It helps if you have a few dedicated developers during the first few weeks after launch, just in case of any issues. Having a post-implementation plan can save you a ton of stress if things go wrong because you’ll have a team on hand to fix any issues before they affect your customers.
Summary
Salesforce is the world’s leading customer relations management (CRM) platform. The system has proven to be highly useful for most companies implementing it as an all-in-one solution. That said, it’s important to take your time with the Salesforce implementation process so that everything goes according to plan and the system can be a valuable asset to the company from the get-go.
