Salesforce Implementation Consultants

In the rapidly evolving business environment, it is essential for companies to utilize state-of-the-art technology to stay competitive. Nowadays, forward-thinking businesses are incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into their operations, particularly through the adoption of customer relationship management (CRM) software, to automate and enhance their CRM processes. Salesforce, a leading CRM platform, has consistently been a pioneer in innovation, especially in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI). Notably, Salesforce AI has transformed the way organizations handle their customer service processes. The integration of Salesforce and AI is more than just an augmentation. It has indeed opened new avenues in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Rather, it offers a smarter, efficient, and a highly custom-made customer interaction. To know more about Salesforce AI integration, businesses should consider partnering with a reliable Salesforce consulting partner. Salesforce and Generative AI: A Dynamic Relationship As a cloud-based platform, Salesforce is highly customizable and configurable and can be leveraged by organizations to meet their unique business needs by tailoring their services. By leveraging tools like Salesforce Flow, users can automate intricate business processes, create agile service experiences, while streamlining data management. The next phase of transformation will involve incorporating the capabilities of generative AI into Salesforce, a versatile platform using Einstein GPT. This integration holds the potential to transform the way businesses function and engage with their customers How to Leverage AI to Improve Customer Service? Listed below are ways how AI can help businesses provide better service to their customers:  Improved Customization: Utilizing AI will empower businesses to deliver personalized experiences by harnessing customer data and their preferences. This will pave way for tailored recommendations, quick support, and a deeper comprehension of customer requirements. Unified Omnichannel Support: AI-driven chatbots can integrate easily with several communication channels such social media, web chat and more. This guarantees uniform interactions across several platforms, offering customers a unified experience. Intelligent Automation: AI can be leveraged to automate repetitive and mundane tasks thereby saving a lot of time that can be used up by human agents to focus on more complex and strategic activities. This will boost productivity, quicken response times, and optimize cost for businesses. Sustained Learning and Development: AI systems will keep gathering insights from customer interactions, feedback, and real-time data, which in turn will foster continuous improvement. This continuing improvement will yield more precise responses, intelligent recommendations, and enhanced overall performance. What are the benefits of AI in customer service? AI in customer service offers several benefits that can improve the overall customer experience and streamline business operations. Some of the crucial advantages include: Increased Productivity: Leading IT players believe that AI can be adopted by organizations to serve their customers in a better way. Research conducted reveal that access to AI assistants and tools can increase productivity for support agents significantly.  Increased Efficiency: Carrying out tasks manually can be burdensome for service agents. This includes tasks such as navigating between different systems to access customer history, searching for relevant informative articles, sending field staffs to service locations, and manually inputting responses. These manual processes are usually prone to errors as they are executed by humans. The integration of AI in customer service can provide intelligent suggestions to service workers drawn from knowledge bases, and customer data. A more Personalized Interaction: When a customer interacts with a chatbot, artificial intelligence (AI) has the capability to retrieve vital details, such as the name of customer, location, account type, and language preferred. If the inquiry demands the involvement of a field service technician, AI can promptly convey all relevant information to the technician, allowing them to deliver tailored service as soon as they arrive on-site. Less Exhaustion and Enhanced Morale: AI empowers agents to do away with monotonous, time-intensive tasks, enabling them to focus on tasks that demand creative thinking, problem-solving, and intricate critical thinking. These activities significantly impact the overall customer experience. Consequently, it shouldn’t come as surprise that majority of IT leaders anticipate that generative AI will alleviate workload of teams, while reducing burnout. Scalability: AI systems can simultaneously handle a huge rush of customer queries making it simpler for businesses to scale their customer service operations without consistently increasing staffing levels. A Practical Service Experience: AI has the capability to draw information from contracts of customers, warranties, buying history, and marketing data. This ensures the identification of optimal actions for agents to pursue with customers, even post the conclusion of the service engagement. The future of AI in Customer Service: The future AI seems to be quite promising in the customer service industry. In the years to come, artificial intelligence is poised to gain prominence in workplaces given the ongoing advancements in technologies such as machine learning and natural language processing (NLP). Besides handling routine tasks, these AI programs will offer significant insights into consumer behaviors and habits through big data analysis. Organizations can utilize this valuable data to optimize their return on investment in marketing strategies and branding initiatives. As technology evolves, AI is set to play a key role in uplifting customer experiences and boosting operational efficiency. Final Words: The fusion of AI and Salesforce is reshaping the CRM terrain, presenting matchless possibilities for organizations to elevate both their customer relationships, as well as their operational efficiencies. This integration when leveraged by businesses enables them to position themselves at the frontline of technological advancement, ensuring they stay competitive and in agreement to the ever-changing needs of their customers. In doing so, organizations can provide value to customers and stakeholders while future-proofing their operations in this quickly evolving digital era. Organizations should consider availing Salesforce implementation services if they wish to make the most of the integration of Salesforce and AI. 

Customer service has become the cornerstone of every business and to ensure superior customer service, businesses should leverage the capabilities of a robust CRM platform. One such robust CRM platform is Salesforce, which is a cloud-based platform that assists businesses to streamline workflows while driving digital transformation. However, implementing Salesforce isn’t easy and requires expertise to tailor the platform as per the specific needs of an organization. That’s where the need for a certified Salesforce Consulting company comes in. These companies are not just service providers but are certified by Salesforce to manage everything from system setup and customization to long-standing training and support. In fact, these professionals have the skill to translate the goals of an organizations into tailored solutions by leveraging the robust capabilities of Salesforce. What are the Roles and Responsibilities of a Salesforce Implementation Partner? Before engaging the services of a reliable partner, it’s essential to understand their roles and responsibilities to ensure seamless implementation. A reliable partner helps organizations to create effective strategy for utilizing Salesforce besides setting short-term, as well as long implementation goals. They are also responsible for setting up the system and tailoring it as per the needs of an organization. For ensuring seamless transition and improvement in workflow, a reliable partner will help organizations to integrate Salesforce with their existing systems. They also provide consulting services and end-user training after the accomplishment of implementation. Factors to Consider Before Shortlisting a Salesforce Partner Listed below are some crucial points to consider while selecting a Salesforce implementation partner: Assess Experience and Expertise: It is crucial to look out for partners who have a proven track record of several successful implementations. It’s crucial to verify their experience, as well as expertise of working on projects like yours, their industry knowledge, and the number of certified professionals in their team. It also makes sense to look at client reviews to get insights about their prior performance. Consider Certifications and Technical Skills: It’s important to ensure that the professionals you have shortlisted to work with are certified and possess the necessary Salesforce certifications. It’s also crucial to assess the technical proficiency through diverse project case studies. This will provide a better understanding of their practical experience. Evaluate the Cultural Fit of Your Partner: Besides the technology skillset, it’s crucial to evaluate whether the partner in question has the same company vision, language and culture for communication. A partner who shares the same values, culture, vision, and communication approach will accomplish all the tasks while offering valuable insights through the implementation process. This enhances collaboration and contributes to a more successful project outcome. Scalability: Before zeroing in the right engagement model for Salesforce implementation, organizations need to identify a partner who can provide the flexibility of quickly scaling up or down as their business evolves.  Besides having adequate manpower to meet the evolving demands of an organization, they should have the technical prowess to meet those demands. Ensure Transparency in Budget: While cost is a crucial factor, it’s equally important to focus on the value that a partner delivers. A partner that delivers results and aligns with the goals of an organization is worth the investment. It’s also crucial to ask for a cost breakdown to ensure there are no hidden costs besides getting an idea of market prices by comparing the pricing with other partners. Training Capability: A good Salesforce partner will offer training and support to secure a strong adoption within your organization. Whether it’s marketing cloud creating educational videos or offering after-training support, this aspect of the Salesforce marketplace is crucial for long-term success. Benefits of Engaging the Services of a Certified Partner Listed below are some of the benefits of engaging a certified and trained implementation partner: Real World Experience: One of the compelling benefits of engaging the services of a Salesforce implementation partner is the real-world experience and in-depth knowledge, which they bring to the table. In fact, they have years of practical experience of implementing Salesforce across various industries.  Customization Abilities: Certified partners understand that one-size fit all approach doesn’t fit with respect to Salesforce implementations. They have the know-how to develop solutions that are tailored to the specific needs of a business, which in turn is crucial for maximizing the benefits of the Salesforce system. Reduces Employee Downtime: Implementing Salesforce is taxing and time-consuming, which can divert employees from performing their core responsibilities. A certified partner does all the heavy lifting by allowing teams to focus on their everyday tasks. This ensures smooth business operations for organizations. Long-term Support: Reliable partners do not discontinue their support after the initial set up. Rather they continue to offer ongoing support to help businesses scale their system as their business evolves. Such an association is crucial for maintaining a responsive and agile business model. Increased ROI: Salesforce Implementation Partners with their in-depth knowledge can restructure the deployment process thereby reducing time for implementation while increasing their return on investment (ROI). With this their chances of costly mistakes are reduced significantly. Final Words: A Salesforce implementation partner serves as a strategic resource that enables organizations to optimize the benefits of Salesforce through the successful delivery of Salesforce implementation services while making the most of the benefits that come with it. Therefore, engaging the services of an implementation partner isn’t just a wise decision but also an essential one. Their expertise and ability to tailor solutions besides overall support to minimize the possible challenges while ensuring sustained growth makes them a must have asset for every organization.

In today’s business landscape, a successful enterprise must adopt a system that seamlessly integrates all departments and their respective business processes to enable them to interact and collaborate effortlessly. This is where Salesforce has established itself as the market leader in the CRM space.  Salesforce CRM sometimes popularly referred to as the Customer 360 platform, is a user-friendly solution with virtually limitless flexibility that connects teams across departments in an organization and drives growth. As a result, companies that use Salesforce see improvements in growth and efficiency. But to get the most out of what Salesforce CRM has to you need professional expertise. While most of the Salesforce products are centred around sales and customer service, Salesforce can be used for almost anything. And while the key Salesforce functions haven’t changed much – consultant, administrator, architect and developer, the specializations required based on the unique business needs of an organization have become quite apparent. One needs to have specialization on some of the key aspects of Salesforce to make the implementation count. Consultants don’t just bring in the necessary skills and experience for implementing the CRM platform. They also add significant value in being able to understand the customer. Not only in terms of business processes within the organization but also outside of that realm, such as the people who drive those processes. And they are an intrinsic part of the customer’s growth journey onwards of implementation. While businesses can provide the Salesforce implementation team with data and insight, certain things can only be understood by a specialist. This is where the Salesforce consultant role becomes important. They are trained with skills like attention to detail, analytical thinking and problem-solving along with hands on expertise on the platform. Why Is Salesforce so Popular? Salesforce upgrades its product offering three times a year. Which means every year they add new features and functionality to help existing and new business innovate rapidly. Salesforce is founded on a Customer-360 vision and promotes a collaborative work culture that brings people together and promotes productivity. The Salesforce online community provides help and support to the entire developer community to solve any business challenge The Salesforce platform has virtually limitless flexibility and businesses can create any number and kind of custom apps and integrations to support their business Salesforce allows you to automate routine business processes which frees up employee time to focus on core tasks. Salesforce is powered by an advanced AI engine which delivers qualified analytics on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of your business. Here's where Salesforce Consultants add value across various phases As Part of an Implementation Team CRM implementation is a time-consuming effort and requires coordinated team effort. It would be a wise decision for a business to hire a specialist with extensive experience in Salesforce implementation since the Salesforce platform is complex and offers virtually limitless customization possibilities. Consequently, Salesforce consultants are in high demand across businesses that need the Salesforce CRM implementation. Here are the phases that require the services of a Salesforce Consultant: The Pre-Implementation Phase Before preparing a draft of the Salesforce implementation plan, a Salesforce consultant needs valuable insight from within the company. Information on the type and number of employees, the working structure of the company, regular business processes and workflows, are all important to understand how the organization works and what are its vital parts. The consultant needs to work closely with the business leaders within the organization to understand goals and expectations and current challenges and workflow bottlenecks During the Implementation Consultants play a vital role during the implementation phase as well. They are the link between the technical team – architects, administrators and developers who install and configure the platform and build and deploy custom apps, and the company. Their role is to maintain good communication between the two groups and ensure everything is well captured. After the Implementation The implementation is not over until the customer starts seeing results. After all, the technical implementation is just side of it. Once the technical tasks are completed, the implementation team also needs to train the users on the platform. Typically, this is another key responsibility area of a Salesforce consultant. It requires good communication skills, teamwork and leadership skills. Businesses are evolving continuously. And the software that they use needs to keep pace with it. Businesses need to add and upgrade their apps and workflows on an ongoing basis to stay ahead of the curve. If you are already using Salesforce in your organization, the presence of a Salesforce Consultant will help you to upgrade rapidly by building and deploying apps in an agile framework. And do to that you need a strong team of specialists. Moreover, just like every other complex platform, Salesforce also requires maintenance time to time. This is another key responsibility area of a consultant. As part of the organization Salesforce consultants also work in organizations that don’t do implementation for others. They just have enough in house needs. These are regular businesses that use the Salesforce platform and a small team of consultants to oversee the implementation, upgrades and maintenance activities. In this context, a Salesforce Consultant’s function is to make sure system performs perfectly and the users are able to use it easily. On top of that, they also discover methods to further enhance the customer experience through the use of the platform and make sure teams continue to communicate with each other. Shortage of Salesforce Professionals Currently, there just aren’t enough people trained in Salesforce to meet growing demands of this ecosystem. One of the key reasons is that Salesforce isn’t your run-of-the-mill software. It’s a specialised and complex product and unless you're a service provider or you are a part of an organization that uses Salesforce, it’s unlikely that you know much about it. Many of the Fortune 100 companies use Salesforce. IDC published an article in October 2017 saying that over 3 million jobs are expected to be there in the Salesforce ecosystem by end of 2022 through its network of partners. Salesforce has been growing at a brisk pace year on year, and so are their customers, consequently driving up the demand for Salesforce professionals to support that growth. And the skills one acquires as a Salesforce professional are highly transferable in case one wants to switch over to another industry. Developing Salesforce Skills Irrespective of your available budget, there are multiple options available to help one get familiar with Salesforce and develop skills in a certain are: Developer organisations— Sign up immediately for a free developer licence and start practising Trailhead, which is a Salesforce powered only community where one can get hands-on exposure to Salesforce and learn the technical and business skills one needs to succeed from anywhere for free. Girikon is a dedicated Gold Certified Salesforce Partner. Our relentless focus on understanding the unique needs of our customers combined with our rich expertise and experience on the Salesforce platform allows us to deliver value driven solutions to our clients. Contact us today to know more.

Companies of all sizes are transforming the way they do business digitally with innovation in technology, in an attempt to engage customers in a new way. Enterprises are adopting a go-digital first approach with best in class out of the box software. Salesforce CRM happens to be one of them. Educating yourself about Salesforce is one thing. Understanding which products, applications best suit your unique business needs is another matter. Which is why almost most Salesforce customers turn to Salesforce experts to seamlessly enter the Salesforce eco-system. These experts are called Salesforce Implementation Partners. Over the last decade, Salesforce has nurtured a vast network of it’s implementation partners across the globe that help businesses achieve their business goals. Here's a look at some of the typical questions early adopters have about working with a Salesforce implementation partner. What is an implementation partner? To put it simply, an implementation partner is an firm that has been vetted and approved by Salesforce to implement their solutions for businesses on their behalf. Every implementation partner specialises in certain areas of technology, industry, or application. Which means, there are Salesforce implementation partners to address every need, business, industry and product. Why engage an implementation partner? Salesforce CRM solutions cover the complete spectrum of business operations. These include but are not limited to sales, marketing, service etc. Each product can be further expanded by third party add-on applications and cross-platform integrations. To put it in a nutshell, the Salesforce ecosystem has endless capabilities. The challenge is of aplenty – to select the right product with the features and functionality that best suit your needs. A larger organization may already work with multiple technology-based solutions because of larger budgets and diversity in lines of business. They may need guidance in understanding how a particular Salesforce product, say, Sales Cloud, can seamlessly integrate with their existing systems without causing any conflict. A smaller company on the other hand may be scaling up rapidly and will quickly realise that continuing to work with spreadsheets will not support their growth objectives. They would soon realize that they would need to automate some of their processes, and/or develop more personalised and engaging customer experiences. Implementing a CRM solution for the first time can feel intimidating. It is almost impossible for your internal teams or staff with no prior experience with Salesforce to consider all the variables involved in an implementation and also be able to implement a new instance of a highly configurable CRM platform. Hiring full-time resources to embark on the implementation process can also prove be an expensive option. These are some of the operational reasons that most of the Salesforce customers depend on Salesforce Implementation experts. Bringing in a partner late in the game may prove to be detrimental to your growth plans. For you to derive maximum benefit of such a powerful and configurable platform requires close collaboration not just internally, but also with your implementation partner.  The best way to do the implementation is when the journey begins together. When is the right time to hire an implementation partner? As early as possible. As is true with any big investment, first you need to do your due diligence. Understand what needs should be met, gaps to close, or issues that need to be addressed. Establish a vision of what you want to achieve with the Salesforce implementation. Next, determine how would you execute your vision with Salesforce, which is where the partner comes in. As soon as you estabish your goals, it’s time to bring in a partner. The right Salesforce implementation partner won’t just expedite the how, but they will also help you to sharpen your vision. They’ll help you get a clearer understanding of success metrics, establish realistic goals, and provide guidance on appropriate products. Finally, they’ll chalk out a sound project timeline for your entire implementation journey. Meet with multiple prospective partners. Assess them on key parameters like industry experience, certified consultants, years in business, reviews, number of successful implementations, their post-implementation training and support strategy. Get a sense of who they are and how they work. This is a crucial relationship for your business, so don’t compromise. How do I know which is the right partner for me? Some Salesforce Implementation Partners have generalised Salesforce capabilities. And some would specialise in particular areas or functions of the Salesforce platform. Some might specialise in Sales Cloud and Financial Services Cloud. Others might have expertise in harnessing the combined powers of Marketing Cloud and Einstein. Here are some pointers to guide you on what to look for in a Salesforce Implementation Partner: Industry expertise Does the Salesforce partner have experience working in the same industry as yours for other customers? Can they offer customer testimonials or case studies from similar projects? Salesforce expertise Does the partner have enough experience with the specific Salesforce solution that you wish to implement? Technical expertise Does the partner have the necessary technical capabilities to implement your Salesforce solution through customization, third party app integration or integration with other business systems within your organization? Proven Methodology Does the partner have a proven process methodology for Salesforce implementation and training? Do they implement using an Agile framework evolving with every iteration using a collaborative approach? Ongoing support What level and type of support are they providing to their existing customers? Do they provide 24/7 support? Pricing and Budgets What is their pricing model? What is the average size of the projects they have executed? Do they fit into your long-term budget? What a Salesforce Implementation Partner Does? Here are some of the things your Salesforce Implementation Partner will do as a part of their overall implementation: Work with you closely to establish your long-term and short-term goals for your implementation Document your existing business practices and make a detailed note of your specific requirements Assess your existing systems and business operations and recommend any changes that may help you to achieve your goals and improve the efficiency of your workflows Work closely with key stakeholders, adopting a collaborative approach to integrate Salesforce with your existing systems Train your teams on the new platform Salesforce implementation partners have extensive experience on the Salesforce platform across industries solving unique challenges in varied business environments. They know what it takes to execute and deliver a successful Salesforce implementation. A qualified partner can help you to avoid common pitfalls and get you up and running quickly. What challenges might I encounter during implementation? Salesforce has been around for decades now and it’s a known fact that bringing in a partner early in the game mitigates may of the implementation risks and challenges that may emerge along the way. What is also important is to be clear on what you want to achieve over time and how you measure success over that journey. Most often, confusion or dissatisfaction arises from a lack of understanding on part of the customer on clear goals and measurable metrics. If both you and your partner are not on the same page, its opens doors for unnecessary assumptions, and confusion and misunderstandings on timelines and system features can arise. This only complicates the process of achieving objectives and reaching success benchmarks that your set out with. Salesforce implementation is an expensive roll out and it’s a two-way street. Both you and your partner need to be transparent and work in close collaboration to make it a success. Never hesitate to ask the same questions. The Salesforce implementation process can be highly technical and it is only natural to seek precise clarification. Just as you place your customers at the center of your business, partners place you at the center of theirs. They measure their success by your satisfaction levels. Customer success translates to partner success. As it true with any successful relationship in life, this implementation partnership too thrives on open, honest communication from day one. Girikon is a Gold Certified Salesforce Consulting Partner that provides expert guidance and support throughout the client’s growth journey. Get in touch with one of our experts today to know more about how we can help you. Questions? Our reps have answers. CONTACT AN EXPERT

When you sign up for a Salesforce license, you are given two module options to choose from – Sales Cloud or Service Cloud. With Service Cloud, the emphasis is on service and cases. Service Cloud is typically used by companies that offer services and/or products. Sales Cloud, on the other hand, lays more emphasis on leads, opportunities, and sales. And even though there is plenty of overlap between both modules, they are still quite different from each other in several aspects. Let’s look at their features individually to understand each module better. Sales Cloud Sales Cloud from Salesforce is designed to help your sales reps sell smarter and faster by centralizing customer information, logging all their interactions with your business, and automating many of the tasks sales reps perform every day. This translates to them spending less time on administrative tasks and more time closing deals. Sales Cloud gives sales managers and business leaders real-time visibility into their team’s activities, with AI-based forecasting tools that empower sales teams with confidence. Features Contact Management Manage all contact-related information on the cloud, uncover valuable insights into your customers’ issues, and collaborate with teams companywide. Salesforce’s social collaboration tools allow you to share insights, documents, and more on every business record and contact.  Access all of the account and contact data you need to keep deals moving, from anywhere, anytime. Opportunity Management View all details of your customer's activity. Know what stage your deal is in, and what you need to do to move ahead. Track all associated activities in real-time and get notifications when action is needed. Send emails simply with best-in-class templates with just a click. Streamline the sales process and quickly create up-to-the-minute quotes with built-in smart quoting capabilities. Lead Management Salesforce lets you track all the information about your leads. Access up-to-date information on leads, see where it came from, access relevant insights and act on them,  and write and track emails from within Salesforce. I have everything you need to convert leads faster. You can also set up automatic lead scoring and routing to ensure leads never fall through the cracks, and that the right sales reps follow up on leads while they’re hot. Reports and Dashboards Salesforce analytics software keeps you updated with customized sales forecasting reports that you can build effortlessly with drag and drop functionality. Track team performance with dashboards and other reporting tools.  The customer analytics software within Salesforce mobile app monitors key business metrics from anywhere. Mobile CRM View meetings, and events, and get account updates on your device. Join calls with a tap, and take notes while on the go.  Track accounts and approve deals while in motion. With dashboards and reports get real-time visibility of sales performance.  Salesforce’s in-built collaboration tools allow you to instantly connect with your team members.  Create and manage conversations from anywhere. Quickly access your files on the cloud, edit, and share with just a few taps. Activity Management Salesforce comes with connectors for Gmail and Outlook so now you can get a complete view of all your customer interactions. Integrate any business process into your preferred email app. Seamlessly sync your email, contacts, and calendars with your Salesforce data across both desktop and mobile. Pipeline and Forecast Management Get a complete view of your pipeline and business. Get real-time visibility into forecasts and make refinements on the fly. Use data insights and predictive AI to drive business decisions based on best practices. Files Sync and Share Collaborate on files across your organization, or externally with customers. Keep a track of files and be notified when a new version is uploaded. And maintain complete control over sharing settings, and segregate users with viewing, editing, and collaboration rights. Unify all your files and content in one place. Process Automation Process Builder provides a user-friendly point-and-click interface to automate business processes. You can create automated email alerts, auto-assign tasks to users as a deal moves through various stages, and more. You can also create custom workflows to guide sales agents through the sales process. Automate approval processes such as deal discounts, travel, and expenses. Salesforce Engage Send targeted messages that drive action. Engage Campaigns gives your sales reps access to a library of approved email templates and guides that they can use to interact with their prospects. You can view the detailed history of your prospects’ engagement with your brand, and track their activity to understand your unique interests. Interactive dashboards allow sales reps to monitor and control the performance of their campaigns. Sales Collaboration Stay on top of critical projects, topics, and teams in an easily accessible social feed. Collaborate on sales opportunities and drive progress from anywhere. Share on a group, view a file, and update any opportunity from your mobile. Territory Management Manage territories effortlessly with hierarchies, assignment rules, or territory assignments. Salesforce allows you to assign a single rule to multiple territories. Use territory roles to help users identify colleagues, collaborators, and other key resources to help close deals. Partner & Channel Management Manage your indirect sales channels with out-of-the-box features that drive partner engagement. Recruit, onboard, train, and support them. Empower partners with the power to be their own marketers. Co-develop effective campaigns and manage marketing budgets. Allow partners to build, track, and analyze marketing campaigns. Share reports and dashboards to help them track key metrics. Service Cloud Service Cloud is built on the Customer 360 platform, putting customers at the center of your business and empowering you to deliver smarter, faster, and personalized service. With Service Cloud, you can automate routine service processes, digitally organize workflows, and transform the agent experience. Service Cloud allows your agents to connect one-to-one with every customer, across multiple channels, and on any device. Features Lightning Service Console Turbo charge agent productivity with the best-in-class agent experience. Empower your agents Provide your agents with a 360- degree view of customers and empower them with all the information they need to serve customers better.   Case Management Resolve cases faster with easy contextual visibility of all cases and a record of every customer interaction on a single, visually rich dashboard. Workflow and Approvals Now you can customize and automate any customer service or approval process with simple drag-and-drop functionality using Workflow. Omni-channel Routing Deliver smarter service by automatically mapping cases to the best-fit agent. Telephony Integration Integrate Salesforce with the most popular CTI systems. Log notes in real time when customers call. And, manage calls from within the Service Cloud console without even needing the phone. Social Customer Service Monitor and respond with agility to customer posts on social media channels and deliver customer delight. Automation with Macros Automate common, repetitive tasks for more efficient resolution of customer issues thereby freeing up your support agents for more critical support tasks which require personal attention. Account and Contact Management Empower your agents with data about past communications with customers right at their fingertips to fast track service requests. Custom Reports and Dashboards Make informed decisions with real-time reports and stunning intuitive dashboards that deliver a 360-degree view of the customer. Asset and Order Management Get a unified view of the customers’ assets, orders, support history, and more, to get a holistic view of their activity. It can be confusing at times, if it comes to choosing between Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, to determine which is best for your organization, especially if you’re new to Salesforce. This is where Girikon, a Gold Certified Salesforce Implementation Partner can help you. Questions? We’ll guide you to the right path Know more about Salesforce products, implementation, pricing, custom apps or anything else. CONTACT AN EXPERT

Salesforce can be transformational. Provided you implement it right.  It has the power to change the way your organization functions, helping you transition to a smarter, efficient, data-driven, and impactful business.Salesforce can be transformational. Provided you implement it right.  It has the power to change the way your organization functions, helping you transition to a smarter, efficient, data-driven, and impactful business. But it‘s common that the same set of hurdles keep popping up repetitively.  Technology based perfection is relatively easier to achieve. An expert team of Salesforce Consultants may execute challenging implementations on time and within budget. But it can become transformational only if it meets the business objectives of the organization.  Assessing the success of a Salesforce powered organization necessitates a holistic approach. The implementation team needs to have a clear understanding of the various forces at play, and prepare themselves for long-term, sustainable success. Here are 6 key Salesforce implementation challenges with tips on how to resolve them for post-implementation success.  Implementation and Adoption Roadmap Lack of clarity of purpose and want of understanding of its impact can lead to a failed implementation of Salesforce. Without expectations being set, organizations tend to implement and adopt Salesforce with inadequate resources and expertise, and often without the buy-in of the right people.  The result is a half-baked system that does not compliment organizational goals and staff needs.   When stakeholders do not agree on the requirements or scope, for lack of time or prioritization, the implementation team eds up confused with a blurred vision of the organization’s goals. Frequent scope changes lead to a faulty implementation with declined productivity. Detailed and meticulous planning will drive 80% of your success. Spend time to freeze requirements before commencing implementation. Get buy in from stakeholders and management. Make a clear implementation roadmap upfront. Align it with the company’s strategic goals. Establish a clear roll-out strategy. Data Migration and Validation Data powers Salesforce. Without the right data, Salesforce cannot deliver what it is designed to. As it is, It’s a challenge for staff to learn a new system and adopt it as part of their regular work routine.  And when data is incomplete or inaccurate couple of things happen.  First, the trust is broken in the system.  Second, when you feed your systems with faulty data, it’s even more challenging to get any valuable data out of it.  And if users aren’t getting valuable information from the system, chances are slim they will be keen to enter it in the first place. A definitive approach is required to work out the data migration strategy with the Salesforce implementation team. User mapping, data security and cleaning up data is a time intensive activity and requires an experienced team. To overcome this data challenge, double-check the integrity of data that you wish to migrate. Clean it up before importing into Salesforce. Use relevant tools wherever possible. Look at data mapping closely to map relevant fields, Engage the team members who know your data well to assist with data migration validation. One of the keys to maintain healthy data is to have smart detection systems, regular clean ups and training. Customization With Salesforce’s endless capabilities, there is a tendency to overdo customization to get maximum features on board. In a manner of speaking, tendency to bite more than you can chew. This only complicates the implementation. Customization without a thorough understanding of your business needs leads to a faulty implementation. To overcome this, adopt an incremental approach. Split the features into basic, essential, and so on, in order of necessity. A phased approach saves costs and ensures the system retains its integrity after each stage of customization and mitigates implementation challenges to a large extent. Use the Lightning App Builder from Salesforce and Apps from the AppExchange to build custom applications, fast. The Salesforce1 platform and Salesforce SDKs facilitate development of mobile apps quickly. Salesforce Canvas allows easy integration of other systems with Salesforce screens. Use Lightning Process Builder to create complex business processes without any need for coding. User Acceptance Testing No implementation is perfect. And despite the best of efforts of implementation teams, errors do creep in. Gaps in communication, bugs, unsuitable tools, and other issues often result in the system not being up to expectations. Testing is the best way to ensure any IT implementation meets its pre-defined goals. Catching bugs early makes it that much easier to fix them. Empower subject matter experts with expertise in your line of business. Encourage them to take up leadership roles in the implementation, and become champions for its smooth roll-out and organization-wide adoption. Document test cases and test plans and execute. Fix the bugs, and retest as and when needed. Simulate use cases and do thorough testing to ensure the code meets the objectives. Conduct sandbox testing to work out the kinks before go-live, mitigating the deployment risks.  Adoption Most often, much of the focus and effort in a Salesforce implementation goes to the technical side of things.  While this is necessary, it might come as a surprise that even after a really good implementation, it can still be a challenge to get your staff to actually use the system!  More often than not, adoption is one of the biggest challenges across all types of businesses. Adopting a new system with the power and flexibility of Salesforce requires a significant level of organizational change.  And it requires some well thought out “change management” planning. It is crucial to have an organizational adoption plan as much as it is to have a technical one.  This includes getting staff and leadership buy-in, communicating clearly about the vision and value of the project, and having a thorough plan for training staff and supporting them as they get trained.   Training Training of staff to use Salesforce is one of the biggest challenges post implementation. What’s the point of investing time, resources and money in implementing a powerful software like Salesforce, if your staff can’t use it to its fullest potential? To master features in salesforce, users should undergo thorough training with your Salesforce Implementation Partner. Focus your training on custom built features or functionalities in your implementation. Without proper training and support even the most trivial issue can become a stumbling block in organization-wide adoption. To overcome this difficulty, the implementation team should distribute documentation about the new features developed and provide hands on classroom training, department wise. The true power of Salesforce is not just about entering or populating data into it.  Equally important is how you pull data out of it.   A Certified Salesforce Consulting Partner will approach your Salesforce implementation with 3 key elements — accurate assessment of expectations, detailed attention to data, and a thorough adoption/training plan, putting you 3 big steps ahead. Questions? Our reps have answers. CONTACT AN EXPERT

Every customer is unique. And they are demanding too! In general, customers like to know if the experience they are going to have is personalized for them or not. In fact, in a survey conducted by Salesforce across customers, it was found that 86% of them admitted that personalization played a role in their purchasing decisions. But customers aren’t the only ones who prefer customization. Businesses around the world are equally uninterested in consuming products and services that are designed for mass consumption.  They want something that fits seamlessly with their unique processes and is flexible, intuitive, and effective. Salesforce does all this and more. The World’s No1 CRM Platform was designed specifically for configuration and customization. It comes with a plethora of unique features, tools, and resources enabling businesses to create custom apps that are aligned with their business goals and objectives. However, unlocking its true power requires a deep understanding of its customizable nature across different industries. And this is exactly where a competent Salesforce Implementation Partner comes in. With the right Salesforce Consultant and a methodically executed implementation plan, you can send the productivity of your teams into overdrive and unlock the real value of your business. If you can’t trust a CRM platform to meet your unique business needs, then it’s likely you won’t get much use out of it. Salesforce features a totally open eco-system, which means you can extend Salesforce to accomplish any task, with apps for every business need. CRM + UX: The ultimate customer experience Customers aren’t just demanding vanilla products and services anymore; they are seeking an enriching experience. They are demanding convenience and deeper engagement throughout the business lifecycle. With exponential growth in technology-related products, tools, and services, coupled with today’s dynamic and unpredictable context, it is imperative for businesses to live up to these demands and offer their customers the ultimate experience. How your business delivers products and services to your customers is as important as what you deliver.  Salesforce provides you with that elusive combination of power, flexibility, and tools at your fingertips to effortlessly execute code-less customization to suit your needs. So how does one go about customizing Salesforce to align with your business goals? Identify opportunities and bridge gaps An important step before the Salesforce implementation begins is to conduct a thorough assessment of current business processes and identify inadequacies and redundancies. Focus on processes that are a drain on your resources. Identifying gaps and shortcomings early is critical to a successful implementation. This is where the role of a Salesforce Consultant becomes so important. Discuss with your Salesforce Implementation Partner and answer some key questions like -How do you customize Salesforce to enhance adoption? How do you maximize your ROI? How do you reduce the learning curve? Discuss with your Salesforce Implementation Partner to understand which features are most helpful to address these gaps. Add additional functionality into your implementation by using custom codes or extended features, that is more end-user-focused and aligned with your overall goals and objectives. Look beyond standard Salesforce functionality. Customize! It’s a certain way to drive adoption. Businesses must understand that a successful Salesforce implementation is a result of team effort as well as collaboration across departments and stakeholders. The implementation plan needs to be communicated to all concerned teams and all stakeholders need to buy into this new process of doing business. Focus on usability Salesforce has countless features and options, and this can be a deterrent to early adopters. Work with your Salesforce Consultant to configure the software in a way so as to present relevant data and components to optimize your business workflows. Salesforce Lightning (discussed later) can be used for enhancing productivity and drive adoption rates. Automate Automate repetitive tasks. By customizing templates, standardizing workflows, and automating repetitive tasks, you can significantly improve adoption rates. Businesses can now automate faster using something called Flows. You can download configurable prebuilt processes with flow templates and use the flow builder to integrate stand-alone building blocks. Leverage AppExchange Salesforce AppExchange is a great place to find relevant tools and plugins to get you off the blocks quickly. AppExchange is a unified ecosystem that is used for creating and running all of the personalized applications that an organization might need. Whether you are a new user or an existing one, you can discover free, customizable, customer-recommended solutions built by Salesforce developers to help you address common business issues.  Whether it is tracking employee progress, oversight of projects, streamlining repetitive tasks, fast-tracking automation, or kick-starting app building, chances are that you will find a solution to your problem on AppExchange. You can effortlessly customize these tools with an intuitive drag and drop interface and get going. Although it is possible for businesses to build and run their own apps without the Salesforce platform, AppExchange has certain inherent advantages over other potential options: Intuitive interface. You may have a clear understanding of what you want apps to deliver for you. However, on most occasions, knowledge transfer of your goals and vision can create gaps in understanding between your developers and you. Leading to ineffective creation of apps. AppExchange features an intuitive and easy-to-master interface, so that your teams can build and deploy precise apps. This means more effective systems, and as a result, more productivity Short development times. AppExchange provides users with effortless, drag-and-drop elements empowering users to quickly create custom, business-centric apps, potentially in a matter of hours. Multiple development tools. Organizations are no more restricted to a limited choice of development tools. Salesforce brings together three powerful development tools — Force.com, Heroku Enterprise, and Lightning — empowering app developers with the flexibility to choose what they want in order to get the job done. Prebuilt apps. Why re-invent the wheel? It’s likely that what you are seeking to deploy is already there on the AppExchange. You can discover thousands of existing third-party apps in the world’s largest enterprise app marketplace. Customize as you want and deploy in an agile framework. Limitless possibilities. AppExchange is the solution across departmental needs – Marketing, HR, IT, finance, operations, and more. Businesses can build and deploy apps that can scale across a limitless number of devices and users. Scalable Meta Data Driven Platform As your business grows, your CRM needs to adapt right along with it. By using a single code base, Salesforce makes it possible for customers to customize and scale their CRM solutions with tools that work on the meta data layer. Whatever the need, Salesforce provides customizable, configurable solutions, and does so effectively, quickly, and with minimum effort. Conclusion Salesforce is committed to providing businesses of all sizes with the tools they need to empower themselves. Of the many advantages offered by the World’s No 1 CRM platform, perhaps the most valuable are comprehensive solutions, high security standards, customizability, innovation-centric design, and specifically designed apps that allow usability with limitless possibilities. With an ROI on par with the best in the industry, there’s no reason not to give it a try. Looking for Pricing? Contact our reps to discuss your needs today. CONTACT AN EXPERT