salesforce implementation services

Salesforce is the world’s leading and perhaps the most powerful CRM platform that can turbo charge your digital journey, enhance brand loyalty and engagement, enrich customer experience and streamline your sales processes. And while Salesforce is a great out of the box solution, that can truly grow your business, hiring the best Salesforce Consultant is one of the single best things you can can do to get the most from your Salesforce platform. According to an article published in the CIO Magazine in 2018, almost one third of all CRM projects fail miserably. And failure rates have been as high as 70% for some companies. While there could be many reasons for these failures, the one reason that comes out as the most critical one is the wrong selection of a Salesforce Implementation Partner. Which is why you need to adopt a sound approach in selecting the right Salesforce Partner to help you to maximize utilization of the CRM to its fullest potential and deliver that competitive edge. A Salesforce Consulting Partner has the necessary skills, resources and experience you need to transform digitally and grow your business. But on what basis do you choose the best fit one? With hundreds of Salesforce Partners listed on AppExchange, many of them with great reviews and ratings, it can be confusing to select the one that suits your needs best. Here we have listed out 10 points to consider while hiring an ideal Salesforce Implementation Partner. 1. Overall Expertise It is a given that you will hire a Salesforce Consulting Partner with expertise in Salesforce but there are other equally important skills that can help ensure you are able to achieve the goals and objectives you have set out to achieve through your Salesforce deployment. Sales – In all likelihood your Salesforce Consulting Partner will help you to implement automation to augment your sales processes. It is therefore important that your prospective partner has resources with adequate sales experience on their team. Consultants with relevant experience in sales can provide crucial, real-world insight and guidance on sales strategies that may work for your business. Project Management – The approach integrated within the Salesforce platform are not just online practices, they have real impact across departments and teams. A qualified Salesforce consulting partner has good project management experience and can ensure that your Salesforce implementation has real word impact both online and offline. They have extensive project experience running through multiple phases and iterations while ensuring the project stays on course, and delivery is executed as per schedule, and post-implementation training is imparted successfully. The best Salesforce Implementation Partners have certified Project Management Professionals on their payroll to deliver on those objectives. Related Technologies – One of the key reasons why businesses hire Salesforce consultants is to help with integrations with other lines of business. It is important that any partner you select has experience across an assortment of technologies that Salesforce integrates with, from custom apps to out of the box software and other cloud platforms. The question to ask yourself before hiring a partner would be: Can they perfectly deploy and integrate Salesforce solutions into my holistic technology roadmap? 2. Domain Expertise To get the maximum out of your Salesforce implementation, it is absolutely critical that you select a partner who has adequate understanding of your industry domain, has successfully delivered similar projects in the past and can handle your unique business requirements efficiently. Your organization is unique, and it will bring unique challenges and new learning experiences as you go digital. This variety allows your Salesforce implementation partner, to develop the most effective and customized solutions tailored for your specific domain. Domain expertise will lead to faster challenge resolution, innovative solution design and automation, leading to faster implementation and better results. 3. Implementation Methodology If you want to work with the best Salesforce Consulting Partner, you must understand  the partner’s implementation approach. Incremental delivery based on an Agile framework is one of the best practices as it allows for phase wise deployment and iterations, which help ensure that your project stays aligned with your business goals and prevents any major deviations. This incremental approach also ensures tight collaboration between your teams and the Salesforce consultants, which guarantees better results. Find out from your prospective partner for specific details such as what methodology they would adopt in your case, what tools they would use for integration, prototyping and flowcharting. If they can’t provide specific answers, it’s time to look elsewhere. 4. Ongoing Support Before you hire a Salesforce consultant, talk to them about what happens once implementation is complete. Understand in detail how they plan to support your business going forward. It’s best to work with a partner who has real-time awareness of Salesforce updates so that your business can stay up to date and stay ahead of the competition. Ensure that the prospective partner will not de-prioritize your support needs over the needs of other larger customers. They should be available for you whenever you need them. Asses what support structure they have. Do they offer 24×7 support? What is the level of involvement are they willing to offer? Match the answers with your needs. 5. Client Reviews Customer reviews are a great way to assess a Salesforce implementation partner’s execution ability and performance in the marketplace. Investigate deeper into positive as well as negative comments posted for prospective partners and understand what customers have to say. Lookout for feedback on their efficiency, domain expertise, timelines, engagement level, delivery, number of projects successfully completed, certifications, training programs, support programs etc. A study of the reviews will give you insights on what to expect from your prospective partner. 6. Certifications Most of the Salesforce Implementation partners have certified consultants on their payroll. Salesforce has many certifications, and you need to know how many of these certifications each consultant holds. Just like you want a Salesforce implementation partner with a wide variety of customers and projects, you also want them to have consultants holding multiple certifications. Make sure that your partner has both Admin and developer certifications at a minimum. Certified consultants need to be up to date with their skills by clearing release exams, so you can be sure that they are well versed with the latest tools and resources. 7. Budget When talking to a prospective partner, it’s important to discuss your budget from day one, so you can identify partners that are within your budget bandwidth. Having said that, you don’t just need to agree on a range and choose the first partner that falls within that range. As is true with many things, expensive choices are not always the best. And hiring the cheapest one isn’t the wisest decision either. Develop an RFP and compare their offerings. One of the reliable ways to estimate the cost of implementation is deriving the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), which factors in the cost of the Salesforce licenses, services, costs of internal resources, and long-term maintenance and support costs. Choose the partner with whom you are getting the highest value for your TCO. 8. Pricing You may think pricing comes under the budget umbrella, but in reality, it differs. Ensure that you have a clear understanding of the “per man hour” pricing based invoices that will come through to your inbox. These three questions will help you to establish clarity of how to get the most out of your investment Does the prospective partner charge any extra fees over and above the stated hourly rates? Do they charge for initial discussion meetings, discovery sessions, initial presentations, etc? Do they have any onboarding charges? If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, it will not be a figure you can ignore. Be aware of what’s part of the agreement and it is always better to ask these questions upfront, than to get surprised later. 9. Passion Passion can be hard to quantify, but it’s worth looking at. Since Salesforce is going to be an integral part of your business, your team members would be spending a considerable amount of time working with the consultants you eventually hire. You might want to make sure you’re doing business with an enterprise that is passionate about the technology offered by the Salesforce platform and also about your success. 10. Location Although technology has blurred borders, it might be wise to work with a Salesforce Implementation Partner that is geographically close to you. Not only will this eliminate the challenges of working synchronously across time zones, but it will give your teams the opportunity to work more closely with the partner consultants. There is nothing better that face-to-face communication, even if done only on a quarterly basis. It just allows your team members to feel more comfortable and can facilitate better involvement and alignment amongst teams. Identifying the right Salesforce Implementation Partner can be challenging. There are many out there in the marketplace, and it can be difficult to figure out the best choice for your business. Keeping these 9 considerations listed above in mind during your search can go a long way to ensuring that you find the best fit partner for your business Girikon is a Gold Certified Salesforce Implementation Partner that provides expert guidance and support throughout the client’s growth journey. Get in touch with one of our experts today to know more about how we can help you. Questions? Our reps have answers. CONTACT AN EXPERT

You may have done everything right including procuring licenses to the world’s #1 CRM or partnering with a certified Salesforce Consulting Company for implementation. But at the end of the day, if your intended user group does not adopt the new platform, then the CRM fails to serve its purpose. Organizations implement Salesforce because of its flexibility, scalability and versatility. But if a successful Salesforce implementation has the potential to transform your business, a failed Salesforce implementation can leave you high and dry with a platform that your stakeholders aren’t willing to adopt. User adoption is key to a successful Salesforce implementation. And some of the significant threats to a failed implementation are slow user adoption, insufficient attention to training, and challenges in re-aligning the organization with the new way to work. Here are 8 tips to boost User Adoption after a Salesforce Implementation. Key Stakeholder Buy In For any Salesforce implementation to be successful, leadership buy-in is critical. Ensure that your leadership team (or you, if you’re the boss!) understands the strategic value that Salesforce can bring to your organization. Having said that, acceptance alone is not enough. They need to be the first adopters of the new way of working. Leadership from the front motivates staff and employees to follow their example. Your Salesforce implementation will be successful only if the top management lead the change management process. Merely “big vision” talk by the leadership about CRM success is not going to be enough. Employees are inspired to step up and take responsibility if their leaders walk the talk. For instance, you as a business leader, no longer needs to ask for reports. Use the analytics feature of Salesforce instead. Celebrate a new deal and collaborate with your teams on Chatter, wish them on their birthdays and acknowledge high performers. Here are some of the things your leadership can do to show support for Salesforce Review analytics in Salesforce instead of sharing spreadsheets across email Collaborate and celebrate in Chatter Make adoption metrics discussions a part of your organizational meetings Elicit Feedback A fresh installation of the CRM that is in use does not always mean you are all set. There will always be questions from users who are still getting a hang of the system. These users should have a mechanism by which they can submit questions, raise support tickets or bugs and know how long it will take to resolve them. No matter how big or small your organization is, having a Salesforce expert on your team will benefit you as your business grows. You can choose to hire a full-time Salesforce admin, or hire a Certified Salesforce Consultant, depending on the needs and scale of your business. For adoption, it is vital that you show that your end users’ needs matter to you. Let them know that you understand and respect what they need to do their jobs.    3 ways to receive feedback: User groups: Form groups to discuss what’s working and what’s not, and what may be the plan going forward. User surveys: Provide your users with a mechanism to give feedback anonymously Adoption dashboards: Adoption dashboards are available on AppExchange that can be easily integrated with Salesforce. This is a great way to identify reluctant adopters and track your progress in adoption. Simplicity Salesforce is loaded with a plethora of features and that can be overwhelming at times. Less is usually more in a process. Here are a few ways to simplify your Salesforce implementation for your users: Personalised User Interface: Make your users feel important by giving them a personalised interface with relevant features and functions based on their role. Eliminate clutter: Run the Optimizer to generate concrete recommendations for optimizing Salesforce feature usage that helps you to eliminate unnecessary fields, layouts, and other things that slow down productivity. Eliminate repetitive data entry: Integrate email into Salesforce and free up time. Salesforce comes with free connectors for Outlook and Gmail. Prioritize Training Mastering every Salesforce feature takes time. Avoid overwhelming your users with an exhaustive training program that covers everything. Instead break it down into segments and phases. Work with your Salesforce implementation Partner to develop a phased out training schedule. Start with training on the basics to get everyone on board. And then move to role-based functions and features. Build a detailed training plan. And no training plan is complete without a re-training component. No training should be considered complete until you are certain that your teams have fully understood how to use the features assigned to them. On-demand app guidance is another great way to supplement training as it allows users to get up to speed at their own pace. Encourage Engagement with the Trailblazer Community The Salesforce Trailblazer Community is a great place for Salesforce users to discuss features, ask questions, and share tips. This community driven self-learning platform provides users with a go-to resource that is backed by inputs from millions of experienced Salesforce users. By encouraging your users to engage and share ideas with the Trailblazer Community, you can supplement your in-house training.   The trailblazer community gives users access to networking opportunities, white papers,  case studies and videos. Interaction facilitates learning, and learning augments adoption. Automate Repetitive, low-value tasks are a drain on your teams’ productivity. Show your teams how automation within Salesforce can take care of non-critical and repetitive tasks that will allow them to have time to focus on value-based activities like fostering relationships with customers and stakeholders. Automate routine tasks by creating rules, building flows, and leveraging Einstein AI. Make a strong impression on your employees by showing them the true power of Salesforce. Salesforce allows a virtually code-less automation environment that has been designed after collating feedback from thousands of users across multiple verticals. Monitor CRM data quality and accuracy Data is the heart of Salesforce. Accurate and complete data is what makes Salesforce the key driver of your organization’s productivity and growth. The quality of data entered or migrated into Salesforce is a direct indicator of how well your users have understood Salesforce’s capabilities. Inconsistency in the data quality is a clear indicator that users either have not understood the functionality or are not entirely convinced of its helpfulness. Use data quality reports and follow-up with your teams to determine any training or support needs. Measure your Salesforce usage As a business leader or champion, you want to know how well your users are adopting Salesforce. You can use some of the pre-built dashboards available in Salesforce or integrate a dashboard from the AppExchange. A few of the key adoption metrics to monitor are: User login rates Record creation/updation rates Contact creation/updation Opportunity creation/updation Activity completion Open/Closed tasks Chatter usage These can be measured on a scheduled basis to help you understand where your users need support. This will also help you to assess what kind of training and support needs to be provided to users to iron out those issues. Make Salesforce your single source of truth. Encourage your teams to adopt the mantra “If it’s not on Salesforce, it never happened”. There is bound to be resistance, but that’s how cultural change is brought about. Good data is the backbone of a strong sales organization. Encourage collaboration to make sure they understand the bigger picture. Once Salesforce becomes an integral part of your organizational culture, adoption becomes more organic than enforced. Adoption of Salesforce translates to adoption of success. Having said that, just following these tips is not going to guarantee a successful adoption, but they have been proven to work. As a business leader, you need to champion the cause of adoption and incorporating these tips into your organization’s plans will not only trim wasted time, money, and effort, but also help you maximize your ROI. Girikon is a Gold Certified Salesforce Partner that helps companies deliver value to their customers. Get in touch with one of our experts today! Questions? Our reps have answers.

Every organization is driven by a mission and a set of goals. And they in turn are governed by a core set of values and principles which guide them on that path. Salesforce allows you to bring in those values and principles into the World’s no1 CRM platform enabling you to bring direction and focus into your organization’s vision and objectives in a way that is measurable. Image Source – Salesforce Planning- Getting Started The single most important step before you begin the Salesforce deployment exercise is to understand and validate the cause of adoption. Why do you need it? This question appears very simple yet it’s the most complex one. It’s the cause of the change that is about to come. Define the specific objectives of the implementation. Have you identified what is not working? What goals are you seeking to accomplish via this implementation? Are you comfortable with the implementation methodology suggested by your Salesforce Implementation Partner? How would you define a successful implementation? What challenges do you perceive in implementation and adoption?  In what ways will your productivity improve? And how do you intend to measure that improvement? Work in close collaboration with your Salesforce Implementation Partner to find answers to these queries. Stakeholder Buy in Have you discussed with your teams? Have you secured leadership buy in?  Make sure your leadership team (or you, if you’re the boss) understands the strategic value of this implementation.  Work with your Salesforce Consultant to create a narrative which is aligned with your organization’s core values and principles. Make sure all stakeholders understand that Salesforce is a new efficient, effective and productive way of doing the same business. And finally, find someone to champion the project! Someone who is driven. You need someone from your team who clearly understands why this implementation is crucial to your organization’s success and has the wherewithal and authority to utilise resources as and when necessary to complete the implementation. Solution Design The solution design strategy should be centred around organizational goals and objectives. Ensure the collaboration and buy in of all stakeholders, those directly and indirectly affected. Empower your champion to collaborate amongst various user groups and understand their relationships. Document every detail. Typically, outputs from one process assigned to a particular user group in Salesforce, will impact other processes connected to other user groups or departments.   The implementation team needs to ensure that these affected teams or departments are consulted and provide their inputs. This approach will not only -coordinate an enterprise-wide requirement management, but also ensure all stakeholder teams are aware of each other’s dependencies. Now while this approach may stretch your implementation timelines set out initially, but it allows you to design for the whole and not the part.  After all, your organization needs to work like a well-oiled machine with several disparate parts. Commit to simplicity Salesforce was designed to be simple and seamless for all users. Their product teams have spent thousands of hours interviewing customers to design the best user experience. There are many routine processes already built into the platform. So before you think about customising, take a look at what’s already available as an out-of-the-box offering. And always, always prioritize simplicity. Think less is more.          Tools you can use to simplify: Salesforce Optimizer: You can start to clean up the clutter by running Salesforce Optimizer. It will find you redundant fields, unused reports and layouts, and other things that distract users or slow down performance. Subsequently, go through the summary pages to dive deeper into the ones that really matter to your business. Profile & Page Layouts: You can also leverage Profiles & Page Layouts, which will customise the look and feel of your user pages based on their role,  thereby allowing them access to personalised information that is relevant to them. Automation: Use automation to eliminate data entry. You can integrate email into Salesforce to simplify things for your users. Salesforce has free connectors to both Outlook and Gmail.  Data This is when you switch from your existing platform to Salesforce. Data is at the core of your solution. All your decisions will evolve out of the data you have loaded into Salesforce. Work with your Salesforce Implementation Partner to clean up your data before importing it. Wherever possible merge accounts to avoid duplicate records. Start by importing a small batch and test its validity and fidelity. Did you get everything? Are there any errors you need to fix? You may want to evaluate your configuration settings and fix them if necessary.  Run this imported batch of data through some of your users to get external validation. After making the necessary fixes, import everything into Salesforce.  Visit AppExchange to get access to a range of tools to do this for you. Make sure your teams are up to speed on the progress of the process. Collaborate and Adopt Repeat, mundane tasks, done manually can be a drain on your teams’ resources.  You need to automate these activities. This will not only free up time for your team members but also allow them to focus on activities that are important and require a human touch.  Collaborate with your teams and identify those repetitive tasks and processes that are impacting your organizational performance. Right from Building a Process, Creating Workflows, Establishing Approval Processes, Assigning Escalation Rules, technology can play a crucial role in automating all these business processes. Reduce errors and accelerate productivity. Establish parameters to measure time and cost savings as a result of automation to buy in user engagement. Track your Progress Once you have implemented Salesforce, review the process and seek proactive feedback on an ongoing basis. Are there new/different issues you’re bumping into? How well is the new process working? Is a certain aspect taking too much time? Why? Taking time to review your Salesforce implementation might seem unnecessary, but it will give you a clear understanding of what worked and what needs your attention. Customise and automate KPI Dashboards and reports for users. Define key metrics, track performance of those metrics and observe trends. Drive usage of your Salesforce implementation by creating a purposeful experience. You can also set up a Dashboard for Salesforce Adoption. It will provide visibility to user login history and give you an insight into adoption of key features and productivity enhancers. And don’t forget to thank your team for adopting this change. Change adoption takes time, energy and intent. As a business leader, make sure you recognize everyone’s efforts and initiatives. Adapt, Train, Repeat Growth is a never-ending process, right? Thankfully, the developers of the Salesforce platform understand this very well and have spent thousands of hours in building a product that can adapt to the ever changing needs of business. Salesforce is updated regularly, so you will need to iterate as and when new features and functions becomes available on the platform. Your processes may also undergo change as your business evolves. You may also need to implement new processes and integrate new members into your team. The key is clear, precise communication across user teams of the changes that are coming up, their nature and the reason for their implementation. Keep your teams up to speed and your organization ahead of the curve by working with a Salesforce Implementation Partner who is not only aware of the platform upgrades, but more importantly aware of its ramifications on your business. Collaborate with teams for training upgrades that are in sync with the platform upgrades and stay ahead. With these guiding principles, your team will be better set up for getting the most value out of your investment and driving success. It’s important to note that adoption requires a different approach for everybody and is driven by their unique business goals. An adoption strategy for sales would be completely different from that for service. Each use case is unique. Change is hard, and adoption can be challenging. But by combining the technology that powers the world's No 1 CRM platform, and embracing a collaborative approach to user onboarding, the long-term rewards will be overwhelming. That’s the Salesforce promise. At Girikon, our Salesforce Consultants will work closely with you to get the most out of your Salesforce implementation. Questions? Our reps have answers. CONTACT AN EXPERT

Without any doubt, Salesforce is one of the most popular CRM systems available. With a market share of around 18 percent, it enjoys a wide adoption rate. The robust cloud-based platform offers a wide array of features, functionalities, and components to help businesses resolve unique business challenges. However, to make the most of this amazing platform, it’s important to ensure its proper implementation as companies might face several challenges when implementing it into their IT environment.  Salesforce Implementation Challenges: Let’s take a look at some of the common challenges organizations face while planning Salesforce implementation: Costs: The cost of implementing software is a major concern for businesses. It is essential to ensure whether the investment you make will provide timely returns. To resolve your queries, you must consider getting in touch with one of the reliable and certified Salesforce Consultants. They can address all your concerns and provide you with the necessary Salesforce knowledge. Choosing the Right Partner: Though Salesforce offers a wide array of out-of-the-box solutions, these solutions might not be as efficient as the tailored ones. It is essential to partner with a reliable Salesforce partner who can help you with your specific requirements. Implementation Challenges: Salesforce implementation can be challenging due to a large number of tools and functionalities. There is no point in paying for the features you don’t require or utilize. This is where customization comes into the picture, as it allows users to pick only those functionalities that are useful for their business.  Integration Challenges: Integrating Salesforce with other third-party systems can be challenging. It is essential to devise a proper implementation strategy with your partner to enable seamless integration of Salesforce and other tools to get extra functionality while exchanging crucial data. It is also essential to decide if any existing softwares’ (especially the paid tools) need to be retained. This will prevent you from overpaying for a tool whose functionality is covered by Salesforce. Data Migration: The first step while implementing Salesforce is to migrate all the previously stored data on servers and hard drives to the cloud, i.e., Salesforce, a cloud-based solution. It is essential to seek support from a data migration specialist to ensure hassle-free migration of data. A specialist will look into issues such as data loss and duplicity.  Lack of in-house Experts: One of the major issues organizations deal with during Salesforce implementation is user adoption. It is essential to ensure that your company hires an in-house expert who, besides assisting with the implementation process, also provides training to the other team members regarding its usage. In the absence of an in-house expert, team members might not utilize the platform confidently and fail to make the most of it.  Ongoing Support: Like any other system, Salesforce requires constant Salesforce support to ensure that the platform works seamlessly and meets your business goals. It’s crucial to engage a professional support team to optimize the platform’s functionality to ensure that it performs at its best.  Final Words: These are some of the Salesforce implementation challenges that organizations need to address to ensure a hassle-free implementation. By partnering with a reliable certified service provider, organizations can deal with implementation challenges. 

Non-profit organizations have to deal with multiple challenges to ensure the smooth functioning of their operations. Considering the limited resources and funds, non-profit organizations find it difficult to sustain themselves. Non-profits require incorporating robust software to help them manage their day-to-day functions, including fundraising, administration, donor relations, marketing, accounting, and more, to maximize their outreach, donor engagement, and productivity. Industry insiders consider technology fundamental to running a successful non-profit organization. They are selecting solutions that allow for scalability and flexibility when forming internal and external relationships. Today, non-profit organizations with numerous chapters adopt CRM software like Salesforce to achieve operational efficiency by eliminating data silos. Implementing such software will help non-profits consolidate data from multiple sources, thereby creating a single source of truth that would help maximize fundraising effort and improve impact reporting and productivity.  So, as a non-profit entity, if you have made up your mind to implement Salesforce, then make sure you take into consideration the following best practices that will help achieve a streamlined and successful deployment: Create an Implementation Strategy: Your implementation plan should chalk out the aspects that need to be outsourced and those that can be handled in-house. It is essential to associate with a certified Salesforce consultant who can assess the needs and prioritize what and when to implement, besides building and implementing the solution. For non-profits, a phased roll-out approach can be beneficial, especially when they lack sufficient internal resources. It is also important to engage someone who can easily manage the platform post-implementation. In an ideal situation, you'll have already set up communication accountabilities along with critical leadership post-implementation operations.    Find the Appropriate Partner: It isn't easy for Non-profits to implement Salesforce without the support of a reliable partner who has expertise in setting up and tailoring the CRM as per the specific needs of an NGO. On the other hand, partners find it difficult to do their job without any support from an internal leader. Therefore, it is essential to zero in upon partners who better understand your organization's unique needs and values and carry ample experience.  Provide Early Training: One of the biggest threats to technology adoption stems from a failure to deliver timely and personalized training. It is essential to provide practical training followed by regular updates before introducing a new solution. It's necessary to invest in the ability of your team to use the platform before launching Salesforce so that a knowledge crisis doesn't occur. Therefore, you invest in training seminars, manuals, video sessions, and peer-to-peer sessions. You should also plan for adoption checks regularly and introduce refresher courses that are personalized to various teams. Display Patience: Since resistance and fear are the byproducts of change management, it's essential to have patience when working towards long-term goals and introducing change. Though Salesforce has the potential to revolutionize the non-profit ecosystem, you can only get desired results if your team members can operate the new system without any hassle. This is where your implementation team and ambassadors can help infuse excitement by remaining patient and focused. It is also essential to provide team members with quick access to centralized support to resolve their queries.   Quick Wrap-up: Having a tool like Salesforce will serve as a single source of truth and help create a connected non-profit. Besides this, the robust CRM will drive performance across your most crucial impact areas. However, it is essential to remember that your organization might have to bear the opposite effect if not implemented correctly. So, make sure you create the right implementation strategy and get in touch with one of the best Salesforce implementation partners.