5 Important Steps for a Successful Implementation of Salesforce CRM

Customers continue to be the most important asset of any organization. Today, providing superior customer service has become an important enabler for positive business growth and sustenance. With technology plays a significant role in empowering businesses, more and more organizations are shifting their focus on building a customer-centric strategy.  

This will not just improve the overall experience gained by the customers but will also help organizations to gain sustainable competitive advantage. This is where the need for Robust Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems arises. With a robust CRM like ‘Salesforce’ in place, businesses can improve the experience they provide to their customers and develop a long-term and mutually beneficial relationship with them. 

As a progressive organization, if you too have made up your mind to integrate Salesforce – a cloud-based CRM within your business environment then you are on a way to success. However, to realize the full potential of this innovative and extremely powerful platform, it’s important to ensure proper implementation of this platform. Here are five steps that can make your Salesforce implementation journey pain-free and successful. 

Plan and Prepare for Your Integration: Planning is paramount for the successful accomplishment of a project. To get started with your Salesforce implementation, you will have to ensure the following: 

• Setting up a team: For ensuring seamless integration of the CRM system, it’s important to have in place the right mix of resources. This includes engaging an executive sponsor, system administrators, project managers, and trainers. 

• Setting realistic goals: Since the process of implementation will be an ongoing process, it’s important to roll out functionalities quite often. This requires setting small yet realistic goals and then track the progress against the vision.  
• Understanding Your Data: A lot of effort is spent in cleaning, mapping and loading data in a new system. Rather than hushing up to load data until it is properly set-up, it’s better to spend some time understanding your data during the planning phase.  
• Choosing an Implementation Approach: Usually, two main implementation approaches i.e. the Waterfall and Scrum methodologies are followed. While the scrum approach is being commonly used for platform development, businesses need to choose the implementation approach as per the business needs.  
• Creating a Timeline: Finally, you need to create the project timeline, which includes the time required to design, build and deploy.  

Customizing the System: Once you have defined the requirements, understood your data and selected the implementation approach, it’s time to customize the software. Though it is recommended to keep initial implementations simple, you always have the option to enhance the application using robust tools like Force.com. 

Deploying Salesforce CRM: The timeline defined during the planning phase should outline the phases of deployment and the related schedule. You need to begin with getting your Salesforce CRM instance production-ready by adding users, uploading data and training users.  

Encouraging Adoption: Once your project is up and running, the next thing to focus on is to get your users on board. This requires providing support and encouragement to your users while measuring and encouraging adoption. It’s important to measure adoption immediately after going-live and also over some time. Apart from this, it’s important to track progress right from the start by setting-up usage reports and adoption dashboards.  

Managing Releases: After the CRM goes live, planning for the next release as per user request begins. In fact, the management of releases should begin, as early as possible after the initial deployment. This will bring end-users at ease when they realize that you’re addressing their needs. 

Quick Wrap Up:  

While the innovative, cloud-based Salesforce CRM brings along loads of possibilities that ensure better business growth for organizations, the actual challenge lies in implementing the system successfully. However, with proper planning and preparation roadblocks to correct and successful implementation can be removed. In fact, with the right implementation strategy in place, businesses will become more efficient and productive in the long run.