Salesforce enjoys a 20% share of the overall CRM market, with a customer base of over 150,000 companies, according to Springengage.com. The figures also show that over 58% of the Salesforce customer base has shown an interest in integrating with Salesforce clouds. Key among these clouds is the Salesforce Sales Cloud.
The purchase of a CRM license is the first step to improving your business. Salesforce Sales Cloud has a proven track record of improving a company’s pipeline, increasing the speed of sales and growth, and providing enterprises with unprecedented visibility. Here is a look at the many benefits the Salesforce Sales Cloud assures its customers.
Benefits of Salesforce Sales Cloud
Dependable Reporting: Businesses understand the importance of data in today’s competitive world. The sources of data for a company are plenty – it can come in from a range of software applications, your chosen CRM, and social media analysis tools. The data needs to be cleaned, sorted, sifted, and then analyzed to derive actionable insights. This is where analysis with the help of Sales Cloud comes in. Sales Cloud helps in the maintenance of clean data, removing all errors and then collecting, organizing, and documenting it all in a manner that makes it easily accessible for a range of analytical activities. This makes data easier to interpret. It also enables organizations to track interactions within and outside of the company. Multiple types of reports can be generated to look into opportunities, assess client interactions, follow up on leads, and supervise customer service.
Customizable Dashboards: One of the key benefits of Salesforce Sales Cloud is the customizable dashboards that come into play once you have signed in for the CRM solution. As a first step, the CRM solution imports all your data and creates a graphical representation of it. The dashboard is one of the results of this representation.
Every person within the organization, with the right set of credentials to access the CRM solutions, will be able to customize his dashboard for his requirements. For example – digital marketing professionals are always keen to understand the impact of their e-mail marketing campaigns and social media metrics of each of their posts – from click-through rates to returning visitors. Dashboards can be set up to analyze these details and present the results to them. Similarly, sales team members will be able to see the number of calls made each hour, the duration, the context, and how many calls have been converted to sales or potentially will. Their dashboards can be set up to display this data.
Automating Personalized Outreach Activities: Being able to capture audience activities via data helps in the creation of personalized marketing campaigns. This enables the creation of personalized messaging irrespective of whether the communication is being sent out manually or via automated campaigns. Salesforce Sales Cloud provides this added benefit of being able to create data-driven personalized campaigns and setting up automated emails that speak specifically to the recipients.
Enables Efficient Services: Since data generated via Salesforce can help with the creation of targeted outreach for the marketing department, it improves customer interaction and levels of service efficiency provided. If the sales team is well aware of customer interests, they can take a proactive approach to their interaction. With data easily available on dashboards, they do not have to scramble for information.
Improved Efficacy with Automation: With Salesforce Sales Cloud, a marketing team can make the most out of automation, leaving the team free to brainstorm on potentially great campaigns. The cloud reduces the time taken to mail potential leads and to convert leads to sales. Automation helps with sending out email campaigns and helps in prioritizing leads as potentially higher on the conversion chart.
Easy Accessibility, Improved Productivity: With Salesforce being cloud-centric, it enables easy access to all members of the team irrespective of where they are located. They will have quick access to records at the click of a button and will be able to work on shared records, improving individual productivity.
Despite these several benefits, one of the key problems is the correct implementation of Salesforce in such a way as to make full use of the potential of each of the sales tools available. Therefore, just as signing on the right CRM solution is important, so is the accurate implementation of it. With the right implementation of the Salesforce CRM and Salesforce Sales Cloud, your business will be able to benefit across the various metrics of sales performance, lead generation, quicker deal closures, and accurate market predictions.
Here are 7 ways in which your organization can ensure the ideal implementation of Salesforce Sales Cloud.
Best Practices for Salesforce Sales Cloud Implementation
- Utilize the Power of Customization: One of the key reasons that drive the benefits of Salesforce Sales Cloud for a sales team is their ability to customize set-up to any level required. Customizing their CRM systems can easily help with scaling up their processes for sales, and enhance their efficiency levels and response time to the dynamic needs of their customers. Sales Cloud provides sales professionals with a range of intuitive apps, profiles, and dashboard layouts that can be adjusted to suit the way they conduct business. Users will be able to create unique processes and display specific data from across the teams with varied fields, and specifically set permissions to ensure security. Custom objects and apps can be created to help with tracking deals in the pipelines. A business will also be able to create a sale-support app specific to their representatives, allowing them access to information in the field. These are just some of the many ways in which Sales Cloud can be customized.
- Make The Use of Salesforce Central to the Sales Team’s Functioning: Once you sign on Salesforce, the only way to ensure its proper implementation is to make it central to the functioning of the department. This is a process that has to be driven from the top, right down to every representative. Make it mandatory that every tiny detail has to be routed through Sales Cloud, and this is the only way reps can ensure that they get all the credit for building the pipeline and closing deals that they have brought into it. Ensure accountability via the quality of dashboard set-ups on Salesforce. Route all meetings and potential ideas through it, making it the absolute source of all information the team needs. Drive the use of Salesforce by example and be a visible user of it. Use the Chatter social networking system to encourage the use of the app and enable the Salesforce1 Mobile app on every kind of device your sales reps prefer.
- Switch to Automating Sales-related Tasks: A 2018 article in Forbes has shown that sales teams often spend as much as 64% of their time on non-sales related tasks. This is a waste of time and potential. With Sales Cloud, most tasks and related business processes can be automated for price changes and approvals to travel records, reports, and more. Adding in a level of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can enhance productivity by double, as a 2019 Microsoft-IDC report has stated specifically about the Asia Pacific region. Such automation helps the team revert to what they should be doing – selling. Teams can make quicker and better decisions based on information they get from workflows and automated approvals of Sales Cloud. Business processes can be customized with drag and drop menus, approvals on Chatter feeds, etc. With automation, you can make the most of your Sales Cloud investment.
- Connecting with Multiple Data Systems: The average salesperson deals with several apps to get a wide range of information each day. Often companies end up having a separate app for tracking new potential leads, checking commission status, travel and receipts, product information, and related updates. On the other hand, Sales Cloud can connect various apps that a salesperson uses to help streamline individual functioning. These connections can be built with a wide range of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) that Salesforce has made available. These APIs are simple and can easily integrate with a wide range of business apps to streamline work. Salesforce’s AppExchange has scores of apps just for this. Every sales process right from commission calculators to remunerations to e-signatures can be handled using the APIs and the apps.
- Use the Power of Sandboxes to Evolve: The aim of a solid Salesforce Sales Cloud implementation is to ensure that workflows are well-organized and are functioning seamlessly. Attempting to introduce something new into the work process requires it to be tested. Sandboxes are perfect environments to conduct these tests in a smoothly operating set-up without disrupting the existing system that could lead to breakdowns. Being identical replicas of the functioning system – they become the perfect places to test out something new, without disrupting a smoothly working operation. Sales Cloud offers a wide range of sandboxes for every professional in the sales process – from admins to coders and more. Encourage your teams to use these sandboxes to innovate.
- Provide Reps with Their Data Scientists: You may have the brightest of sales reps on your team, but you have to know that they are constantly bombarded with loads of information related to customers and sales that they need to make sense of, ideally via their own devices. This is where Sales Cloud offers Sales Cloud Einstein, which uses AI to decipher data and help make faster decisions to build a pipeline of leads. The Einstein Lead Scoring will help prioritize leads that are the most promising for conversion. If sales reps are looking for specific sales advice, then such information can be generated based on completed sales cycles. This offering can help provide targeted information that will help in closing a deal. Within Einstein is the Opportunity and Accounts Insights that tracks deals that are in progress, those that may be at risk, and offers information that can aid the process.
- Make use of Success Plans: Setting up Sales Cloud is the first step to achieving your success goals. But if you are looking to take things a step further, Sales Cloud comes with several resources, support systems, and services that will help you speed up things. One of the best ways to make a beginning is to use one of the success plans available. Every success plan that is provided comes with the necessary support, guidance, and training protocols to achieve the goal you have set. On signing up, you automatically get access to the self-explanatory Standard Success Plan. This helps with setting up quickly. If your goal is to increase the pace of deployment, enhance productivity, and encourage adoption, you can look at implementing Sales Cloud’s Premier or the Premier+Success Plans. Try the Signature Success Plan for an advanced level of personalized support. This comes with all the offerings of Premier, and brings on board a team of experts who work at ensuring that your Salesforce performance remains high.
Read More: How Cloud Management Outsourcing helps your Business become more Competitive
The primary aim of the Salesforce Sales Cloud is to automate the sales process as far as possible. Sales Cloud features set the base for a well-structured sales process, provides guidelines on how things are to be followed, makes provision for in-depth customer details, and ensures clear customer communication paths through several means. When properly implemented, Sales Cloud can enhance more than just the value of sales for your organization. Research by Sciencesoft has shown that if implemented accurately, it can lead to a 38% increase in sales productivity, a 28% hike in sales revenue, and a 26% in conversion. With Salesforce Sales Cloud, companies will gain access to well-equipped digital workspaces for everyone in the sales department – from managers to reps to pre and post-sales reps and more.
We have elaborated on the 7 ways in which you can make the most of your Sales Cloud. With these best practices, there is a lot that your sales department can achieve. It is important to note that each of these strategies can also be layered over one another, further enhancing their abilities. For example, a sales manager knows the importance of customization, automation, and connection; but to test the best means of combining them all is to layer them over a Sandbox capability. Since you may need guidance on how to do this, you can add on the layer of Premier+ Success Plan, bringing in the capabilities of AI to help you.
Sales Cloud constantly works with you to help build up on your current levels of success by giving you access to a wide range of features. Every feature works seamlessly within the Cloud, leaving a sales team free to focus on what they do best – sales.
