If you are like many executives we deal with, you drank the Salesforce kool-aid and thought that purchasing Salesforce was going to be the panacea that your company desperately needed to take the next step, improving your sales and customer service processes and running a customer-centric, data-driven organization. While many that go down this path can reach this destination, far more businesses go down a different path, one that leaves them with a system that is an overpriced Rolodex for entering and managing customer data. If you are one of these individuals, this article may be painful to read, but may also give you some ideas of how to pull yourself out of the situation.

Pain points of poor implementations

Low adoption

Low adoption of the system is one of the most prevalent issues we see. Low adoption itself can stem from any of a large number of related issues, but is probably the most significant factor to Salesforce implementations not achieving their desired ROI because if people aren’t using the system, not much else matters. You aren’t going to get much out of it.

Adoption should be one of, if not THE most important outcome of an implementation. Without usage, the system yields nothing. Even before the implementation begins, adoption needs to be a main focus. To drive adoption, you need to take the time to think critically about the various users/actors of the system and how their use of the system will impact their day to day workflows. Some roles or groups will have more significant process improvements than others, but all users need to understand how their use of the system benefits them as well as drives improvements across the organization.

Viewed as, or relegated to, a data entry tool

This is one of the major contributing factors to low adoption, and thus also low ROI. Many companies look back after a year or so and realize that even if they have achieved adoption by using punitive measures to force users to use the system, the system itself has simply become a data entry tool. What we mean by this is that the system itself is not helping or enabling those that use it, instead they feel as if they are simply entering information into the system so that it can be recorded. It is not easing the burden by utilizing related or existing information to reduce the amount of data entry they have to do, or processes are not thought out well enough to aid in shifting the capture of data further upstream in processes where the source of data actually is. Instead, they are still stuck using spreadsheets, emails, pdf forms, etc, and are responsible for getting information from these other mediums into the system in very manual and repetitive ways.

Painful/cumbersome/manual/repetitive processes

When the time is not taken to document, visualize, brainstorm, and attempt to improve existing processes as part of an implementation, many areas of the platform are riddled with very inefficient and manual processes. These have a significant impact on user adoption and can also cause the need for more headcount to cope with the decrease in user productivity. This is hard to swallow, because the Salesforce platform is, at its core, an automation platform, boasting a significantly low barrier to automating repetitive processes.

While the technical bar is low for these types of automation, often we see that companies simply do not take the time or opportunity to evaluate these bottlenecks and create solutions to remove them. Also, these bottlenecks may not always be present or be diagnosed during the initial implementation and may pop up over time. If left unaddressed, they can grow to the point where they cause a significant drain on user productivity and adoption.

Not driving insights or actions

A well-designed system should orchestrate the execution of the overall operating process of the business, from lead generation through the collection of payment and servicing customers. Users should not have to seek out information and figure out what they should be doing. The system should serve up insights on the state of the business and guidance on their individual responsibilities within it. This does not happen by accident, nor does it happen overnight or all at once. This is the result of continuous analysis of how the individual personas operating within the system interact with and carry out their assignments in the system.

Management unable to have their finger on the pulse of the business

Time and time again when reviewing implementations gone wrong, we ask business leaders some form of “What metrics or KPI’s do you use to understand the health of the different areas of your business?”, followed by “Can you show us the dashboard(s) where you can view these KPI’s?”. Inevitably, most of the leaders we work with can answer the first question, however, far fewer of them can demonstrate wherein the system they can quickly pull these KPI’s and metrics. It’s shocking, but it’s fairly common. Understanding the KPI’s that senior leadership, as well as the various personas that operate the system, depend on should be one of the first things that is done in the implementation process, because at the end of the day, all of the processes that are implemented in the system should be designed to drive these metrics and should be surfaced in meaningful ways to allow the system to be an information radiator for the entire organization.

How did you get here?

We’ve covered many of the ways that sub-par implementations manifest themselves as well as the impact these symptoms have on adoption and ultimately the ROI of a Salesforce implementation. No stakeholder responsible for the implementation or ongoing operation of a Salesforce implementation sets out to end up in these situations, so how does this happen? The causes below are not a complete list, but common issues we see.

It’s more about people and processes, and less about technology

A common misconception many people have when approaching technology projects in general is that if you purchase the right tool, you’ll inherently get the benefit that the tool promises. This could not be farther from the truth. It certainly helps to have a tool that has features that align the businesses’ needs, however, it’s much more about the people and processes than the tool.

By people and processes, we mean the users that will actually be using the system and the business processes that they carry out. To prove my point, how many businesses do you know that have started, gained traction, and achieved massive growth, all while still utilizing Excel and email as their core “information systems”? I’ve seen a bunch of them and I would take a company that has well understood, orchestrated and adopted processes on legacy technology over a company that has bleeding edge technology but are lacking in clarity on the main objectives, key metrics, and interdependencies of the various processes that drive their business.

Lift and shift strategy

Many companies, in an attempt to minimize risk, budget, and timelines of CRM implementations fall into the trap of simply taking how they worked in their previous CRM and implement the same processes in Salesforce. On the surface this can sound like a viable strategy, that is if your main drivers are adhering to a budget and timeline. However, implementing Salesforce is about transformation, and transformation does not happen without challenging the status quo and re-evaluating existing processes, and using the implementation as a means to truly transform how you operate.

In most cases, Salesforce will end up being a much more capable and configurable system than the system you are coming from, after all, that’s probably one of your main drivers for wanting to make a change to Salesforce in the first place. It is simply a missed opportunity to not take advantage of these new technological capabilities to streamline and automate your existing processes as part of the implementation. It is transformation or improvement in these processes that drive user engagement, increase productivity, and ultimately lead to a much higher ROI.

Stakeholder support and involvement

I will likely never fully understand this phenomenon. In many cases, the business stakeholders, even those who are ultimately responsible for the success of the initial implementation and the overall success of the program, seem to be reluctant to make decisions, and/or pass off their responsibilities to those lower than them in the organization. These other individuals are then very reluctant to make the hard decisions that need to be made to achieve the goals of the project, and in many cases, even if they are willing to make the decisions, do not carry the clout or authority to have others within the organization to get on board with the decisions that are made. What you end up with is a very bland, vanilla implementation that checks all of the boxes on the surface, but fails to truly transform the way the business operates.

Above all of the other causes for failure in implementations, this one seldom ends well and is a sure recipe for falling short of the mark.

Skimping on implementation costs/expertise

Salesforce spends a ton of marketing money touting the “clicks not code” capabilities of the platform and democratizing IT for the masses. These claims are absolutely true and the Salesforce platform is well ahead of the curve when it comes to low-code, no-code solutions.

However, this in itself does not mean that you should self-implement Salesforce or NOT seek the guidance of certified Salesforce professionals to perform your initial implementation and to assist in ongoing improvement projects.

Salesforce is an enormous platform, one that takes individuals many years to be exposed to, get experience with, and ultimately gain expertise in. Not only that, it is not even the technical expertise that is the most important aspect. It really comes down to getting the assistance and advisement of people that are experienced in drawing out the true goals, objectives, and requirements of your business, and assisting in the review and re-engineering of your processes to make the best use of the capabilities of the platform affords you.

A few ways in which we see this play out is companies go out and search for the cheapest Salesforce partner they can find, assuming that they will get the same level of skill and experience from a majority of partners, or they go with what’s called a “Quick Start” and perform a very standardized, canned implementation for a fraction of the cost of a well-tailored implementation that is unique to their organization, all the while still applying overall best practices.

Quickstarts are not “bad”, as they are a place to start for many young businesses, do not have pre-existing documented sales processes, etc., and just need to get up and running quickly. However, they are not a destination, but instead a first mile-post on a longer journey. Quickstarts seldom give the business a well-oiled business platform. What they do give the company is a working shell of the system for operating the business and a launchpad from which to innovate after the initial implementation is performed. With a continued commitment to evaluating and improving the system in an iterative manner, a quick start can be a great way to get started, but that’s what they are, “a start”, not a destination.

On finding a “cheap” Salesforce partner…

Price is what you pay, value is what you get

Salesforce professionals and experts are not cheap, we get it, but we would also argue that you cannot afford to not leverage the expertise of a Salesforce professional with years of hands-on experience not only implementing, but using Salesforce in their own business. Salesforce has the potential to be the central nervous system of your business, and many of our clients operate their entire business on the platform. For something that can be such a valuable asset for your organization, your goal should be protecting and improving that asset, and thus finding the best value, not price, when searching for a partner in that journey.

Lack of focus on integrating related systems/data

If your data is still siloed in other systems, you simply are not realizing the full capability of the Salesforce platform. Salesforce can be your “total business platform”, not just a tool for managing sales and customer service. It is when you start to use Salesforce for these other departments and workflows that you really start unlocking its full power.

Failing to do this causes you to revert to your old habits of exporting information from multiple systems, and performing enormous amounts of time-consuming, error-prone Excel gymnastics to draw out insights that would otherwise be available to you at the click of a button within Salesforce.

The more processes that you can either move directly onto the platform, or at the least integrate in a meaningful way, the more you create a snowball of ROI that your organization can tap into. The possibilities are endless, but the common area we see the largest impact in is the integration of your accounting/finance system. When you can have your Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Invoices, Expenses all co-mingled on the same platform, with the same data model, the sky is the limit on the customer experiences you can provide and the efficiencies you can realize.

How do you fix it?

The good news is that if you are cringing at the moment because one or more of the symptoms and causes above is something you are currently experiencing, this is not a permanent situation. These are fairly common issues in many organizations, and there is a way out.

There is a wide spectrum of issues illustrated in this article that are preventing you from getting maximum ROI out of your Salesforce investment, and there are many more areas in which you could be limited in achieving the ROI you desire.

Two most important components of improving ROI

1. Improving user adoption
2. Designing the system such that it is automatically generating the information and metrics, allowing stakeholders to quickly understand the health of the overall business as well as individual departments, improving your ability to become more data-driven

The basic steps below are general steps that your organization can take on to begin the road to recovery to improving your Salesforce instance and getting it out of “Overpriced Rolodex” status.

Basic steps to improve the adoption and utilization of your Salesforce instance

• • Assess what you WANT to get out of Salesforce
    • Common Examples
      • Integration with marketing automation tools to nurture prospects
      • Manage lead/prospect outreach, nurturing, and qualification with management dashboards for process KPI’s
      • Manage sales/opportunity process with resulting rep and management dashboards
      • Track and manage marketing campaign ROI
      • Manage customer service processes and drive customer service metrics
      • House your accounting/finance system and manage your customer invoicing, payments to vendors, financial reporting, and all related processes
      • Manage other bespoke operational processes to replace shadow IT and miscellaneous spreadsheet-based processes
  • Spend time on each of the areas above to map out general processes for executing their workflows. Technology is not the most important part at this point. At this point, you want to be ensuring that you have a good understanding of the details of these processes and the metrics that give you insight into whether the situation is healthy and if they are trending positively or negatively.
  • Catalog the various “roles” or “groups” that are involved in these processes (i.e. sales reps, marketing managers, marketing staff, accounting, customer service reps, etc.) and document which processes and responsibilities within the processes that these roles are responsible for
    • Begin to think about how these roles will potentially interact with Salesforce to carry out these processes and ensure that you sand off the rough edges and make their interactions as streamlined as possible, using data already captured in the system as much as possible to actually reduce the amount of work they have to perform vs. their current means of operating and eliminate unnecessary or repetitive processes via automation.
  • Take note of points in the overall process where sub-processes from different roles or departments intersect. These are key areas where you have the ability to ensure the automated notification of the fact that there is work for another department or role to pick up. These are the types of improvements to your overall operating model that will delight users since they are not having to write emails, send notes, etc. The system is automating the orchestration between groups and allowing the business to run as a well-oiled machine.
  • As you work through all of this, revisit the key metrics and reporting segments that you captured earlier and think critically about how each of these will be calculated in the system and what supporting fields/automation you need to put into place to ensure these are being automatically calculated and reported on from the context in which they are valuable. If you weave these into the fabric of your processes at this point, you will take a large step in becoming a data-driven organization and ensure you can pull insights out of the system you need now, and even drive predictive capabilities in the future as your data volumes grow.

You can absolutely get your Salesforce implementation on the path to recovery and increased ROI on your own by following the basic steps above and incrementally improving your implementation. However, if you would like to accelerate this path to recovery, get in touch.