Salesforce Best Practices from Revenue Operations Professionals
- Ben Doran, Revenue Operations Consultant
Having worked with Salesforce for several years, our team of revenue operations specialists has compiled a list of Salesforce best practices. We hope these simple but essential nuggets of wisdom will spare you unnecessary aggravation and set you up for automation and sales success.
Test and Retest
You may think that the simple “flow” you created is only going to affect an associated record, but are you sure? Salesforce instances are complex systems that weave together elements and applications. A well-thought-out change to the way something fires cannot only cause an unintended consequence but could cause delays in business activities or even trigger errant emails to customers. To avoid confusion, be sure to test your updates in a sandbox and within the current production environment upon launch.
Keep It Simple
Ideally, automation will take work off your plate, but if not implemented correctly, it can complicate workflows. Unfortunately, it’s more common than you’d think for teams desperately looking for efficiency to automate every step of a process and end up with a tangled web of error messages and internal questions. Instead of streamlining operations, you can end up in a messier place. Therefore, knowing the reason for the implementation and understanding how it will play out with other processes is helpful to consider before moving forward with a specific automation. By taking the time to map it out, you will be able to avoid business delays and likely have tangible insight into potential updates in the future.
Don’t Forget Data Quality
What are you doing about duplicates? How is data coming in and out of your platform? These fundamental questions need to be visited throughout the Salesforce ride. Having clean data means the reports you rely on are accurate and reliable. It lets your team pick up on trends and make accurate forecasts. So instead of blindly making decisions or depending on a feeling about your company’s health, you can be confident. That all starts with your data, so make sure everything adds up.
Designate a Salesforce Guru
Your Salesforce instance is not expected to be a set-it-and-forget-it application. Your system will undoubtedly require updates, user activation, and minor tweaks here and there. In addition, ongoing training and support for your internal team will go a long way in ensuring user adoption and acceptance. Therefore, we strongly recommend that an individual is selected to be responsible for all things Salesforce. This person should be able to maneuver throughout your implementation comfortably. They should also be aware of the bottlenecks in your operations. Ideally, your guru is familiar with flows, a valuable tool for automating elaborate workflows. If you plan to have more than fifty users and/or expect to integrate with other applications, consider working with a certified Salesforce administrator. The manager can be an internal or external resource, like Revenue Ops LLC.
Know Your Emergency Contact
Who are you going to call if your Salesforce implementation experiences functional issues? What happens when everything stops working? Not to be overly dramatic, but it’s valuable to know who to call when everything hits the fan. This contact is usually beyond the Salesforce admin. They likely have an extensive technical background and are intimately familiar with your specific instance. It may be the team that first implemented everything or a Salesforce developer you trust. Having someone available in a time of need is beneficial for your business.
Adopting these Salesforce best practices may seem overboard, but it can mean the difference between success and failure. Salesforce is an excellent growth tool, but we must use it correctly.
Revenue Ops LLC offers a variety of services, from full-scale Salesforce implementations to on-call support in times of trouble. Let’s schedule some time to talk if you have questions or want to learn more about what we do.