Salesforce is the world’s number one CRM tool that is designed to grow your business faster. It offers multiple Salesforce Cloud Solutions, which gives you the flexibility to design and implement it as per the business need. Salesforce CRM takes care of every aspect of customer relationships, delivering a complete Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool. In this blog we will be discussing the best possible way to implement Salesforce for your business.

Table of Contents

What is Salesforce?

What are the types of Salesforce Clouds?Considering Implementation Strategies

Choosing the correct Sequence of Implementation Stages

Salesforce CRM Implementation Steps

Salesforce CRM implementation for different industries

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Salesforce?

Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management platform that offers one of the market’s leading cloud-based CRM solutions by making use of all the available technology to help companies streamline business processes and satisfy customers. It provides solutions to every part of your business, including customer interaction, Service, Sales, Commerce, Marketing, etc.

Salesforce’s services allow businesses to use cloud technology to connect with customers, partners, and potential customers. The software has become the number one for customer success and helps companies to track customer activity, market to customers, and many more services. It provides powerful cloud-based features that can be accessed easily from any device connected from any part of the globe.

What are the types of Salesforce Clouds?

It isn’t effortless to fit and manage all business types in a single system. To overcome this limitation, Salesforce offers different clouds for different industries/business use cases. Using individual cloud solutions for each business type makes it easy to develop and manage the system. Salesforce offers 5 major clouds: Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, and Community Cloud.

Considering Implementation Strategies

As per the experts, you should choose the implementation strategy as per the type, vision, and current state of business processes the company has.

Let’s assume that you already have a business process in place, and you are not fully satisfied with it, which means it gives you the ability to manage the service, sales, and marketing of your company. Your present system doesn’t support them in a single CRM. For this, you need to maintain different systems for each business process and integrate them to make a satisfactory outcome. In this cloud computing era, it is considered an old way of doing business. Salesforce cloud implementation can help your business by digitalizing customer service, marketing, sales, and other business aspects in a desirable way.

Once you decide to move with Salesforce implementation, you get two options:

• Keep the business processes the same as a legacy system and implement them in Salesforce similarly. This option does not require much business partner involvement as processes are predefined. It will not require much user training as the process remains the same.
• On the other hand, develop business processes from scratch in Salesforce. It will increase the complexity of the development as it requires not only technical implementation but also stockholders need to be involved and define new processes as per the business requirement. This option gives more benefits and flexibility once the system goes live.

Choosing the correct Sequence of Implementation Stages

Your business may involve different processes such as Sales, Service, Marketing, Communities, etc. As described earlier, Salesforce offers different clouds to support your business needs. For example, Sales Cloud can be used for your company’s sales process; you can utilize marketing cloud features for your marketing process, and so on. Choosing the correct sequence of cloud implementation plays a major role in Salesforce projects. Once you are clear about the Salesforce clouds which you will use for your business processes, you may need to plan about its possible way of implementation. There are two possible ways to do it:

1. Implementation of several Salesforce clouds at once

In this approach, all Salesforce clouds will be implemented in parallel. For example, suppose you have decided to use Sales, Marketing, Service and Community clouds for your business. This approach allows you to develop and implement all four clouds at the same time. Starting from marketing of your product/service in marketing cloud, creating a potential Lead and covert it to an Opportunity or Account in Sales Cloud, providing them the quality service using Service Cloud and offer them collaboration option in Community Cloud, it makes your end-to-end process complete. As a result of it, your business process will be streamed line across multiple departments. This approach reduces the probability of design failure as you can test the whole system at once.

However, there is a potential risk by using this approach. As multiple clouds and processes are involved, it makes the system complex and increases risk of process failures. Certain processes may be at risk. Salesforce uses multitenant architecture and it has governor limits per org. Due to this, there is chance of increasing development effort as there could be technology failures. To mitigate the risk, you should consult a reliable Salesforce Consultancy firm who has experience in performing large implementation.

2. Implementation of Salesforce clouds one by one

In this approach, Salesforce clouds are implemented one by one. For example, suppose you have decided to use Sales, Marketing, Service and Community clouds for your business. This approach allows you to develop and implement each cloud at a time. We need to identify the sequence of cloud implementation which depends on your business use case. In some cases, company decides to implement partial business process such as Sales process using Sales cloud and analyse how it is helping their business in terms of user experience, revenue etc., and later they decide to implement marketing and service cloud.

As you are not moving whole business process to Salesforce at once, there is potential risk of maintaining different systems. You must need a seamless integration between these systems to support your end-to-end business flow. To mitigate the risk, you should consult a reliable Salesforce Consultancy firm who has experience in integrating multiple systems.

Salesforce CRM Implementation Steps

1. Planning

Planning plays a key role in success of implementing Salesforce project. In this phase, you need to decide which business process you want to implement and what steps to execute it. Here are the important aspects of Salesforce implementation planning:

• a. Involve stakeholders to define business process and strategy.
• b. Identify resources such as team structure, business partners, consulting firms etc.
• c. Finalize the business requirements and estimate budget for your project.
• d. Set Metrics for success.
• e. Finalize project methodology and technology required to implement the project.
• f. Identify potential risks and have a backup plan.
• g. Build a project timeline and set a roll-out strategy.

2. Consulting

In this phase, Salesforce consultants analyze your business requirements and identifies how they can be achieved using Salesforce out of the box or customized features. It involves supporting the existing business processes in Salesforce, creating new processes as per the business use cases, redesigning and enhancing existing business process and then map them to Salesforce. Consultants suggest the best possible way of implementation by considering best available Salesforce products. They also recommend the best license options suitable for your company. By hiring a good consultant for your project reduces risk, costing and increases product scalability.

3. Data Migration

In case you are starting your business from scratch and don’t have any existing data, you don’t need to perform data migration. Data migration is required only if you are moving from an old legacy system to Salesforce and you have existing data which you need for your business in long run. In this technology era, data is the most valuable asset for a company and It is unlikely to leave valuable data about customers in the old system and start with the empty new system. So, we need to migrate these old data from legacy system to Salesforce. Moving your business data is very critical and challenging job. Your team needs the right strategy to succeed.

Data migration involves three steps Extract, Transform and Load:

• Extract: Data is extracted from old legacy system.
• Transform: As per the business need, do format mapping, data cleansing between Legacy System and Salesforce.
• Load: The data is loaded into Salesforce. Finally, it is ensured that migration has been successful and complete.

There are smart tools available in еру market which can be used to make data migration process smooth. (e.g. Informatica Cloud Data Wizard, Starfish ETL, Midas, SQL Servers etc.)

4. Development

Once you have a proper plan, defined your business process, finalized your requirement, understand your data and choose an implementation methodology, you are ready to start your development work in Salesforce CRM. It is recommended to use Salesforce out-of-box features wherever possible. Salesforce out-of-box features are click and configurable which doesn’t need custom coding such as apex classes, triggers, visulaforce pages, lightning components etc. For every cloud, Salesforce offers out-of box objects and features. By using out-of-box features, you can lower development and support cost. Use customized code only if the requirement cannot be implemented using Salesforce configuration.

As described earlier, Salesforce uses multitenant architecture and has certain governor limits. Your development team should have proper knowledge of configuration and customization in Salesforce.

5. Testing

To ensure your development team has developed according to requirement, you need to test the functionality. Salesforce offers an innovative way to test your custom apex codes. Salesforce test classes need to be created for every apex triggers and classes. Test class runs while deployment to production and ensure that the outcome of custom apex is as expected. Below are the different kinds of testing methodology used in Salesforce CRM testing:

• Unit Testing.
• Integration Testing.
• System Testing.
• Sanity Testing.
• Smoke Testing.
• Interface Testing.
• Regression Testing.
• Beta/Acceptance Testing.

It is recommended to automate your testing using modern automation tools such as Selenium, Appium, Ranorex etc. By automating the test process, you can schedule test runs and save manual test efforts.

6. Deployment

In Salesforce implementation lifecycle, we generally use four environments: Developer Sandbox, QA (Quality Assurance) Sandbox, UAT (User Acceptance Testing) Sandbox and Production.

There are different tools available in the market, which makes your deployment process automated and hassle-free. Salesforce also offers an out-of-box feature called Change Sets, which is used to deploy your changes from one sandbox to another. But it doesn’t support version control. It is recommended to use modern DevOps tools such as GitHub, Jenkins, Bitbucket, etc. for source control and automate Salesforce deployment process.

7. User Training

To adopt a new Salesforce solution and learn how to apply it to support their Sales, Service, and Marketing process, you need to train your end-users. To get most out of user training, you need to define the training curriculum and allow users to use Salesforce environment with sample data. If you have a sandbox environment, you can train end-users around the same time you load your data. Allow users to do hands-on exercises as close as possible to the go-live date. The sooner users can begin to use the application, the better; that way, they can get immediate help in response to any questions. Once user training is done, you are all set to go live.

8. Post Support

Once Salesforce CRM is live and you have successfully started running your business using Salesforce CRM, a new phase starts where you plan to give your users flexibility to reach out to the technical team who are responsive to users’ questions and challenges and try to support them in real-time. No system can be 100 percent error-free. Multiple service providers in the market offer post-launch support aimed at quick problem-solving. As the business process does not always remain, your Salesforce CRM may need major or minor enhancements in the long run. Support type may include fixing bugs and improvement of Salesforce processes to comply with emerging user needs.

Salesforce CRM implementation for different industries

A. Salesforce CRM Implementation for Real Estate Industry

Overview – The real estate industry is growing at a rapid speed. To be successful and perform better, you have to be flexible and adhere to the changes. You need to be able to understand and handle concepts and complex situations. It would help if you had an obvious idea about your potential customers. You should be able to assist your clients whenever they need you. In this competitive world, using excels spreadsheets and using a contact manager like email or SMS, doesn’t help to create and maintain customers for you. The database doesn’t mean a list of names and contact details. Salesforce CRM streamlines your business using cloud-based solutions to create a lead, convert them to customers using the lead conversion process, and maintain the relationship. Salesforce has pre-built in “Commercial Real Estate CRM” software. Commercial real estate CRM from Salesforce offers marketing automation, sales management, customer service, and partner relationship management.

Example Use Case – You are a real estate company and want to advertise your property, create or track leads and convert them as your customer.

Solution – You can utilize out-of-box features of Salesforce commercial real estate CRM, which gives you flexibility and adaptively to streamline end to end business flow. To advertise your property, use the marketing cloud, and target your leads using intelligent salesforce Einstein analytics. It gives you the flexibility to use social media and find the right target audience. Once the potential lead is created, use the Sales Cloud to track the lead. Salesforce can automatically create tasks for your internal agents to follow up with the lead. Once the deal is finalized, convert them to customers using out-of-box lead conversion functionality.

B. Salesforce CRM Implementation for Insurance Industry

Overview – The insurance industry is experiencing a revolution. To drive profitable growth, they are leaning towards cloud technology, digital innovations, and making data accessible from any device across the globe. The new innovative insurance business model relies on agent productivity and distinctive customer engagement. Salesforce CRM offers Financial Service Cloud, which has inbuilt capabilities to handle Insurance business needs. Financial Services Cloud reconstructs the way insurance companies engage with customers through integrated, personalized, and intelligent capabilities. It offers multiple ways to unlock customer loyalty through unified experiences by streamlining channels and geographies across both consumer and commercial business lines.

Example Use Case – You are an insurance company and want to manage your policyholder’s data, claims, and coverages and provide a seamless customer service experience to your customers.

Solution – Salesforce has a comprehensive ecosystem of insurance solutions built in Financial Services Cloud specifically designed for the insurance industry. Financial Services Cloud latest capabilities arm insurers with expanded out-of-the-box functionality in following ways:

01. The Agent and Customer Service Rep Console

It provides a comprehensive view of relevant insights, performance metrics, and actions across policyholder’s touchpoints, policies, claims, life events, household relationships, coverages, and more. Insurance agents can work more productively and deliver exceptional customer service with access to data on current policies, claims, and right coverage recommendations.

02. Life Events

It captures the significant changes in insurance needs, such as purchasing a new car or home. Your insurance agent can recommend customers various insurance schemes which helps customer to adjust their life, home and auto insurance coverages upon the birth of their first child.

03. Lightning Flows

– It allows consistent step-by-step guidance for customer service requests across apps and devices. Pre-packaged Lightning Flow templates, such as “First Notice of Loss and Beneficiary Change” can be integrated with other business partners. A customer service rep can collect all of a policyholder’s information to initiate First Notice of Loss without switching between screens on multiple systems.

C. Salesforce CRM Implementation for Hi-Tech Industry

Overview– If you’re in the high-tech industry, you need to be accustomed to constant shifting and the amount of new technology. The hi-Tech sector is always in a continual state of change, and businesses need to advance quickly to stay ahead of your competition and customers’ needs. Salesforce CRM offers highly-personalized and streamlined experiences that help high-tech companies build all-in-one cloud-based software solutions. Salesforce offers great out-of-box enterprise solutions such as Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Community Cloud, Pardot, CPQ, Einstein Analytics, etc. that allows high-tech businesses to connect, automate and scale using the latest technology.

Example Use Case – You are a Hi-Tech company and want to unify customer service and deliver faster results with higher customer engagement.

Solution– You can utilize Salesforce CRM’s out-of-box comprehensive features, such as Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud including Omnichannel and Einstein Analytics, Community Cloud, etc. to build an ecosystem that supports all your Hi-Tech customer and business needs.

• Service Cloud with Omni-Channel and Einstein Analytics

Salesforce Service Cloud empowers your field service agents to access and modify customer data on the go. Service Cloud integration with Einstein Analytics and Omni-Channel make customer service highly efficient. Omni-Channel helps to manage your internal user’s capacity and automate case assignments. Using Einstein Analytics, you can predict and automate case closers. Your agents can use mobile integrations to deliver seamless customer service from anywhere.

• Customer Engagement using Marketing and Community Cloud

Using marketing cloud campaigns, you can advert your product to potential customers. Marketers can compile customer data using 360-degree customer view, and create segments to run personalized marketing campaigns. In the other hand, using Community cloud, you can engage effectively with your customer and open a platform for them to self help using Knowledge articles. Salesforce Communities allows to collaborate with internal and portal users.

D. Salesforce CRM Implementation for Retail Industry

Overview – Over the years, we have seen rapid change in Retail business processes. In this digital era, no one relies on manual paper advertisement and spreadsheet entries. All retail stores want to be connected with their customers digitally. It helps them to promote their sales and streamline their internal store management process. Salesforce offers a wide range of solutions optimised for the retail industry. It gives Retailers the most powerful combination Consumer Goods Cloud, Marketing, Commerce and Service products. Salesforce connects physical and digital retail channels which helps to create a single view of the customer. It opens a consistent multichannel customer experiences and deliver seamless service across every touch point.

Example Use Case – You are in the retail industry and want to manage your store operations and streamline customer engagement.

Solution – Salesforce has introduced two powerful features which are specially designed for the retail industry: Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud and Salesforce Field Service Lightning. Using both of these features, along with Community cloud, should suffice the requirement as described below:

• Use Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud and LWC to Manage

Store Operations

Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud provides an intelligent and powerful solution to field reps to streamline store operations and elevate in-store experiences for the end consumer. Your sore reps/managers can ensure that promotions and pricing are aligned as per the expectation, and shelves are always in stock. While spending less time on operational activities, they can utilize the time to drive sales with retail channel partners. Field Service Lightning enables you to track your goods distribution in real-time and ensures that there is no resource outage.

• Use Salesforce Community Cloud to Streamline Customer Support

Salesforce community cloud offers you to engage effectively with your customer and open a platform for them to self-help using Knowledge articles. Your customers can visit the community and start a discussion or log a case. Your internal support users can interact directly with them using case comments or feed. It opens a platform for collaboration and enhances the service experience for your customers.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What steps should be taken to ensure a successful Salesforce CRM implementation for a business?

• Clearly define their goals and objectives for using Salesforce
• Conduct a thorough assessment of their existing processes and data
• Engage stakeholders and obtain their buy-in and support
• Plan and allocate resources effectively
• Work closely with a Salesforce implementation partner or consultant
• Provide comprehensive training and ongoing support for users
• Regularly evaluate and optimize the CRM system based on feedback and evolving business needs.

2. How can Salesforce CRM be customized to fit the specific needs and processes of a company during implementation?

• Configuring the system to match the company’s specific processes and workflows
• Creating custom fields, objects, and page layouts
• Defining automation rules and workflows
• Integrating with other business systems and applications
• Building custom reports and dashboards
• Implementing custom business logic using Apex code or declarative tools like Process Builder and Flow.

3. What training and support options are available to help users adapt to and effectively utilize Salesforce CRM after implementation?

Salesforce Trailhead, an online learning platform with interactive modules and guided learning paths

Instructor-led training sessions and workshops conducted by Salesforce or certified partners

Help documentation, knowledge articles, and video tutorials available in the Salesforce Help Center

Community forums and user groups where users can ask questions and learn from others

Premier Support for personalized assistance and faster response times

AppExchange, a marketplace for finding pre-built solutions and apps that enhance Salesforce functionality.