Salesforce has potential for much more than just being a “mere” CRM system. But why should you expand its use instead of opting for other applications? Here are three compelling reasons.
I once promised to speak at a webinar about how to expand the use of Salesforce platform. I started building my presentation from scratch and ended up thinking about some of the basics. Why should one even consider expanding their Salesforce usage? Quickly, I compiled a lengthy list of varied reasons, but for this blog, I chose three universal reasons that I believe resonate across all businesses.
1. Leverage the investments that you’ve already made
Salesforce is not just a singular application, but rather one of the leading low- and no-code platforms. This means that it’s easy to build new applications on top of the platform with minimal coding – sometimes without a single line of code. Often, these platform features are available under the same licenses, so why wouldn’t you take advantage of the investments you’ve already made?
Using a single platform also makes sense from a user experience perspective: are we going to send the user to several different systems to do various tasks, or are we bringing everything together under one, daily-used application?
One common use case for expanding Salesforce usage is for approving travel expenses. Why on earth would you implement a new app, buy separate licenses for it, and have to switch users from their daily applications? Approving travel expenses can be easily built on top of Salesforce by leveraging its existing features.
2. Build a single view of customers aka Customer 360
You’re already gathering a wealth of information related to customer interactions in Salesforce databases: contacts, meetings, sales opportunities, proposals, and of course, closed deals. Why not bring even more customer-related data onto the platform and leverage this information across other customer-facing areas as well?
How well does your customer service function, for instance? Can the service agent see the previous interactions with a customer, or does the account manager get notified about a complaint made by a customer? And what about marketing? Can sales access from their system how a customer has responded to marketing efforts, or does marketing receive feedback on the effectiveness of their campaigns?
Practically all customer-facing operations can be migrated onto Salesforce using either ready-made products (Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Field Service, etc.) or by developing new applications on the platform. It’s a breeze to also import data from other systems through integrations, such as order statuses from production systems.
3. Get rid of silos
As remote work becomes more common, the importance of collaboration tools is growing exponentially. Casual conversations and face-to-face meetings in the office are diminishing, so we must find other ways to collaborate.
The Salesforce platform and collaboration tools are particularly well-suited for this purpose. Salesforce’s absolute strength also lies in the ease and precision with which it can define who has access to specific information, ensuring that data does not end up in the wrong hands.
One of Salesforce’s strengths is what’s known as “contextual sharing” – it’s about bringing information and discussions right to the place where they’re relevant.
For instance, discussions related to customer relationships are held under the customer account. As another example, for marketing content creation and campaign planning, one can easily build their own tool complete with workflows and approval processes, and all relevant conversations can be conducted in the right place using Chatter and Slack.
Collaboration doesn’t even need to be confined within the company. With Experience Cloud, we can also open up information and data to customers and partners.
For instance, the order status imported from the previously introduced production ERP system can be displayed directly to the customer. At the same time, managing a robust dealer network and utilizing effective tools can enhance visibility into the dealers’ pipeline as well.
How to get started?
Did any of the points mentioned above strike a chord with you? Would you like to know how you should go about developing Salesforce usage in your own organization?
The first step we often take with our clients is to construct a picture of the company’s IT architecture. This illustrative image provides a solid foundation to build on, for instance, a roadmap for future development.
This roadmap should be built with business goals and challenges as the focal point – not technical features.