Tuning Salesforce for High Performance

April 10, 2019
Summit Blog Tuning Salesforce for High Performance

If your organization has been using Salesforce for a year or more, there is a significant chance it is not optimized for your organization as best it could be. With three releases a year, most companies simply don’t have the internal resources to stay on top of new features and functionality, much less build and follow a roadmap to extend Salesforce functionality in sales and marketing as well as to post-sales service and delivery. The truth is, most companies are only using a fraction of the capabilities of the platform and have not integrated Salesforce with the other applications used to run their company including accounting, ERP and marketing platforms.

Here are some questions to ask your organization about Salesforce.

  • Is there a Salesforce roadmap in place? It is important to be aware of business needs that could be addressed in Salesforce, new functionality that would be advantageous to the organization, other applications that would benefit from integration with Salesforce and have a plan to implement these enhancements.
  • Is Salesforce integrated with the other applications and services we use to run the business? Salesforce CRM can and often should be the hub of your operation, with spokes going to marketing email marketing platforms, event sites, surveys, customer and partner portals, accounting and ERP systems and just about any other program or website used by your company. This saves time from double-entering data, reduces errors, makes reporting and dashboarding easier and improves employee morale and productivity by allowing them to focus on their professional talents.
  • Is Salesforce being used for post-sales service and delivery? Salesforce can be set up for case/ticket management to ensure sales and service have a complete view of the customer. Post-sales onboarding and delivery can be managed in Salesforce. Assets (sold products) and service contracts should be created and managed through Salesforce.
  • Is everyone in the organization using Lightning? Lightning is the future of Salesforce – all new features are being added to Lightning only. If your organization has not moved yet, it is time. Many users that may have tried it and switched back have likely not seen it recently, properly optimized. It is much more intuitive and easy to use than it was when it came out.
  • Is all the information you want to see for an Account on the Account page? Lifetime sales, open opportunity totals, date of last sale, graphs of a breakdown of sales by opportunity type and much more should be information you shouldn’t have to look for.
  • Is it quick and easy to create Opportunities, Accounts and Quotes with fields defaulting to most popular options and pre-populating from parent records? Using a properly tuned Salesforce feels effortless and intuitive.
  • Are Account statuses and other fields up to date? Users should not have to go back to an Account record and update a status from a prospect to a customer…this should be automated along with any similar updates that happen when a deal is created, closed, lost or any other record updates.
  • Are you using Products and Quotes? Are you building and generating sales documents from within Salesforce? Is DocuSign or another e-sig product integrated to allow for one-click proposals, emailed to the client with e-sig enabled? If the answer is no to any of these, your sales team may be working to hard on operations and not on selling.
  • Do your team members have a dashboard that tell them at a glance about their performance today, this week, this month? Can your managers easily see how their team is performing? Does your executive team get a dashboard emailed to them daily with KPI’s showing the overall health of the company?
  • When is the last time you had a Salesforce training session? There is a lot of productivity-enhancing functionality your team may not be aware of. Annual or biannual 15 to 30 minute training sessions will help new team members get up to speed and more seasoned members learn new tricks.

If you would like to learn more about any of these topics, connect with Summit.

Summit Official Logo Reversed
Categories

Summit Achieves Crest Level in Salesforce Consulting Partner Program

Columbus Business First’s Best Places to Work 2024

Summit Promotes Daniel Gray to Vice President of Business Development

Posted in , ,
Ready to Chat?

Get a jumpstart by connecting with one of Summit's Salesforce Certified Experts today.

614-859-6543
"Easy to Work With"
Angie W.

Northwoods worked with Summit to help migrate our Microsoft Dynamics CRM system to Salesforce.  Summit was extremely knowledgeable, thorough, and easy to work with.  They were able to help us configure the system to handle complex business processes while making the system easy for end users.  They were also able to migrate all our legacy Dynamics data to the new Salesforce system.  Summit helped train our technical team on Salesforce administration while keeping the project on time and under budget.  I highly recommend Summit for any Salesforce-related project.

"Mind Blowing!"
Rachael H.

As a leader of a small non-profit aimed to scale rapidly and efficiently, I knew it was critical to transition from antiquated spreadsheets to a sophisticated CRM. We dabbled in Salesforce on our own the year prior. To put it mildly, I was terrified to go there again. Summit met my apprehension with confidence and reassurance. They were timely, efficient and positioned us to utilize Salesforce in ways we hadn’t imagined. Every day I’m in awe of what Salesforce can do; to the team’s credit for imparting their wisdom. Summit has positioned us for unprecedented opportunities at Walk with a Doc. Thank you!

"BEST Salesforce Consultant Available"
Catherine Z.

We went through 3 consultants before finding Summit. The difference was night and day, and the cost was very reasonable. They helped us get our Communities up and running in less than a week (after 2 other teams essentially dragged their feet for 9 months - yes, 9 months!). We are ecstatic! We also have Managed Services with them, for a few hundred bucks a month they are our go-to for anything Salesforce. The team is INSTANTLY responsive - like within 2 minutes. I have experienced other consultants and can tell you, there is no comparison. Hire Summit!

"Did a Wonderful Job"
Paige B.

We have primarily been using Salesforce for our sales team. Recently we decided to bring our support team on and Summit did an awesome job helping us get everything set up the way we needed.

"Great Learning and Implementation"
Annette H.

Great experience with Summit. They are very knowledgeable about Salesforce and their turn around is outstanding. I am looking forward to working Part 2 of our plan with them.

"Transformation Data w/ Excellent Service"
Kay W.

The skill set and knowledge that Summit has brought to this project far surpasses our initial expectation- especially since our initial contact with Salesforce corp. was challenged in regards to utilizing training videos to suit our scope and need. Summit and team has been helpful in supporting our team with a custom solution in order for us to be able to serve our community better. They are timely and professional, and eager to learn about the why before telling us the what.

"Made our Dream CRM a Reality!"
Matt S.

Summit made our Salesforce dream a reality. As a small non-profit on a limited budget with very specific CRM needs we were challenged to find a suitable Salesforce partner. Fortunately we were introduced to Summit, and from day one they made the formidable task of implementing Salesforce doable (and even enjoyable!). The Summit team are pros, from their accessibility and communication to industry knowledge and attitude, they never said 'no' to a request. When we encountered hiccups along the way they took the time to trouble shoot and make fixes, even when it was outside the original scope of the project. We didn't deviate from the project timeline or budget, which says a lot considering our custom needs for data collection/reporting, donor communication, and third party plug-ins. If you are considering implementing Salesforce or have any Salesforce needs, I highly recommend Summit and their team.

Summit Salesforce Consultants
Let's Get Started

Name(Required)