Turbo-charging Your Business Processes
A quick guide to what Salesforce solutions can do for your business
As CRM software platforms continue to become more prevalent across every industry, a relatively new problem has arisen: What CRM software is right for me? For years, businesses only had 2-3 options to choose from to give them a competitive advantage. Though we have nearly a dozen platforms to choose from today that range from collaborative, analytical, and operational, the Salesforce platform has risen to the top of the industry on the strength of its powerful tools.
Though we at Next-Mark have experience with a variety of CRM platforms, our 75+ implementations in the Salesforce ecosystem have given us the insight that it is, in fact, the industry standard. Simply put, the platform helps turbo-charge a business process, especially when it lacks a systematized template to make it run more smoothly. More than just a marketing tool, Salesforce opens up possibilities across any industry, any department, and any process. Here are the biggest things Salesforce can help a business do:
1. Streamline
In the days before computers sat on every desk in an office, a company’s personnel had to navigate a labyrinth of departments and know which people handled which piece of the sales or operational puzzle. The same issue exists today but has become more complex even as personnel no longer have to hand-deliver documents or information. Salesforce is one of the strongest CRM platforms for streamlining these processes so that sales, finance, operational, and other departments can focus on the functions that generate value. For a recent client, we designed a CPQ (Cost-Price-Quote) integration that generated renewal forms, saving the sales and finance teams time that would otherwise have been spent requesting, retrieving, sending and entering data.
2. Automate
Even when looking at extraordinarily organized, top-performing personnel, most business processes in the modern day require an amount of juggling that simply isn’t sustainable. Client files can be chock full of project notes, timelines, deadlines and contact info. With Salesforce’s tools, any business process or data capture system can be automated to reduce the human errors that become more likely as personnel attempt to manage more and more projects. Automation can give an organization real-time reporting that’s tailored to whatever period of time works best for them. Are sales meetings occurring every Monday morning? A Salesforce integration can generate an automatic roundup of current leads. Is a client’s contract up for renewal in 5 weeks? Salesforce can automate the creation and execution of renewal contracts that help ensure clients don’t go elsewhere.
3. More Data, More Nuance
As part of Salesforce’s ability to capture and organize data, companies then have the ability to conduct much more thorough and actionable analyses of what’s working and what’s not. For many businesses, sales strategies are left largely to each individual sales rep to devise on their own. Naturally, some sales reps have a greater total quantity of sales while others have a higher percentage of sales per capita. Were these regional differences, a function of tactics, a by-product of timing? With more data comes more nuanced modifications to a sales strategy. Often times, we find that the key is to unlock some untapped synergy between departments, whether it’s linking an Account Executive with a Business Development Representative, or the Finance Department with the Sales Department.
We could spend weeks exploring the ins and outs of just one of our Salesforce integrations, and if you’d like to take a deep dive into some of them, we suggest you read our case studies. But a Salesforce integration is only as good as the team implementing it. It’s a complicated platform, and the right team should have a clear system in place to ensure an implementation strategy meets the specific needs of your business. Customized and maximized integrations require intensive discovery, a methodical build, meticulous testing, and a collaborative deployment phase fueled by client empowerment.
For us at Next-Mark, we also have the added advantage of being able to bridge the gap between Salesforce and marketing initiatives. This means your visual identity and brand voice can be fully integrated into the Salesforce integrations, ensuring a seamless experience for sales leads.
If you are curious about what Salesforce can do for your business and how we can integrate it with your marketing needs, feel free to reach out! We love to geek out on this stuff and love welcoming new businesses into the Salesforce ecosystem. You can also check out our Salesforce profile on the Salesforce App Exchange.
Visit Next-Mark’s latest Case Studies to learn more about how Next-Mark can transform your Salesforce Environments