When organizations start looking for customer relationship platforms, they don’t have to search too long to discover that Salesforce is perfect for a variety of industries. From health care to insurance sales, Salesforce dominates the market, and as customer experiences become a top priority for businesses in the coming months and years, it’s clear that this cloud-based platform can help teams meet consumers’ need.
However, while customers certainly matter, only focusing on those individuals when deploying a Salesforce solution could be harmful. More businesses are slowly but surely coming to the same conclusion, as Bluewolf’s 2015-2016 report “The State of Salesforce” indicated that approximately one-third of organizations listed “employee-facing initiatives” as one of the most important strategies for 2016. But, what conclusion have these companies drawn? According to Bluewolf’s data, business outcomes are 300 percent more likely to be positive and measurable when the employees using this cloud-based CRM platform assert that Salesforce helps make their jobs easier to complete.
“1/3 of organizations listed ’employee-facing initiatives’ as one of the most important Salesforce strategies for 2016.”
Clearly, given Bluewolf’s report, organizations should invest resources into making Salesforce easier to use. While this might sound like a simple task, getting employees on board with new technologies, processes and procedures is often a challenge. This fact is exacerbated by businesses’ reluctance to waste revenue and time focusing on staff members when customers are what really matters. However, this is a requirement if an organization wants to make the most out of Salesforce.
Let’s take a look at four ways to make Salesforce easier to use and therefore more beneficial to organizations that deploy the cloud-based CRM solution.
1. Integrate with software and processes
Salesforce is praised for its ability to integrate with multiple systems and cloud services, as this allows businesses to make Salesforce the central platform for all customer-related information, effectively trimming fat from enterprise IT environments. If only all organizations realized the importance of seamless Salesforce integration with other IT assets, then employees would be able to quickly and easily enter data once – 59 percent stated that their job would be simpler if Salesforce was the only platform in which they must type information.
2. Train
As useful as Salesforce is, the platform will collect dust – metaphorically speaking – if employees don’t know the basics of operating the system and entering data. The sooner organizations realize the importance of training the better, since staff members will benefit the most from Salesforce if they learn a bit about the platform before it becomes a mission-critical tool. When deployed before any training sessions, employees can become frustrated and assume the CRM is not as easy to use as it claims.
Short training sessions conducted by Salesforce power users will be best, but organizations can also rely on Salesforce experts from service providers or Salesforce’s own user guides. With cheat sheets such as “Which Search Should I Use?” hosted on Salesforce.com and some visual learning aids, employees will find the platform easy to use on Day One.
Leverage Salesforce for mobile devices to make employees jobs easier.
3. Support mobility
Mobile devices are far from a fleeting trend. They are the future of work, and, according to Bluewolf’s report, by allowing employees to access Salesforce on smartphones and tablets, they are twice as likely to insist that the platform makes their jobs easier.
The good news is that Salesforce is committed to mobile apps, as the company offers Salesforce App Cloud, a developer tool that allows organizations to build and manage apps in one place. As an added bonus, Salesforce App Cloud provides users with a “free, interactive learning environment,” which means that creating mission-critical mobile apps for any processes is even an easy task to accomplish – and those apps will help make every other employee’s job simpler, as well.
4. Don’t be afraid to innovate or add-on
Salesforce doesn’t just integrate with existing enterprise IT solutions. Organizations sometimes need an extra tool or module, and Salesforce offers different add ons for any business requirement. From analytics with Wave to collaboration with Chatter, there is a Salesforce solution for any new strategy. Essentially, businesses shouldn’t hesitate to try out these new tools because they will only simplify tasks and remove redundant data entry.
At the end of the day, Salesforce must be leveraged by employees, so why not ask them how to make the platform easier to use?