A successful Salesforce Sales Cloud implementation will transform your sales processes, decision-making, and customer relationships. But getting there? That’s another story. We visit some of the most common Sales Cloud rescue missions we’ve seen and learn how to avoid pitfalls on your path to success.
If your sales reps aren’t performing as expected, customers seem disconnected, or you’re spending too much to support your operations, a successful Salesforce Cloud implementation may be all you need.
For some, however, a smooth Salesforce Cloud runway can be difficult to achieve. Your Salesforce user adoption may lag, data migrations can be cumbersome, and the scope of your Salesforce Sales Cloud implementation can get out of control.
However, you can overcome these and many other challenges using the tips below. The key is to assess the root cause of each issue, find a solution, and develop a strategy for implementing it.
Common Sales Cloud Project Failures
Salesforce Sales Cloud implementation often starts with ambitious goals. In most cases, you can definitely meet them. However, every now and then, you may go through some twists and turns. Here are some common Sales Cloud project failures so you know what to expect — and avoid.
Inadequate Planning
Getting the most out of Salesforce hinges on pinpointing specific tools and then deciding which tasks they can improve. Sometimes, managers say, “Here’s an awesome tool and the basics of how to use it. Let’s boost revenue, people!”
Getting the most out of Salesforce hinges on pinpointing and then improving specific business processes. Sometimes, managers say, “Here’s an awesome tool. Let’s boost revenue, people!” Salesforce is an awesome tool, but without planning how the tool will impact business processes and provide value to the end users, the implementation will fall flat.
Their expectations are 100 percent achievable at a high level. However, your team needs direction regarding how to use specific tools to make their jobs easier. They also need continuous support and training to understand the advantages of the tool and why the time spent using it is valuable to them.
Poor Salesforce Change Management
Even great salespeople, marketers, and customer service reps may resist shifting to Sales Cloud. They may feel they’ve been meeting — or exceeding — expectations without it, which can lead to reluctance to fully embrace the platform.
Again, they have to see the value. From a change management perspective, how will Sales Cloud help them identify more leads, collaborate more effectively, support marketing efforts, and eliminate manual reporting or processes? Tying these aspects back to them and making it personal is key.
Sometimes, users may feel Salesforce is too complex, and the learning process is time-consuming and frustrating. Change can be hard. Luckily, with Salesforce, there are many free training tools and an entire community of users and partners to support them in their learning journey. The Salesforce community and the available tools are second to none.
Issues with Data Migration and Quality
A successful implementation depends on Salesforce data quality, as does every customer relationship management (CRM) solution. However, executing a smooth Salesforce data migration is difficult, especially when transitioning from a legacy system.
For example, errors in the mapping process, incomplete data, or duplication may undermine the effectiveness of your Salesforce implementation. We highly recommend starting a data clean up and master data management initiative before implementing Sales Cloud.
The better the data, the clearer the processes, the more successful your implementation will be. If you have bad data that users do not trust, your initiative will fail quickly.
Scope Creep and Increased Project Complexity
Salesforce can do so much, and trying to solve many problems simultaneously can be tempting. In some organizations, several stakeholders may raise their hand, asking to have Salesforce to X, Y or Z, resulting in an implementation involving too many new skills and forcing users to learn too quickly.
The first step in avoiding these issues is to understand their root causes. Let’s explore the problems that often underlie these problems.
Preventing Sales Cloud Project Failures
Technical skills are only one ingredient in the recipe for Salesforce success. You need to align your strategy with your goals in the planning phase, manage resistance to change, properly manage the data migration process, and carefully define your scope.
Engage in Proper Planning and Gain Stakeholder Alignment
When you don’t take enough time to plan, your implementation may seem disorganized, which can lead to a lack of stakeholder buy-in. In the planning phase, you align your implementation steps with higher-level goals. If your goals don’t guide your implementation, there may be a disconnect regarding the platform’s value-add.
Lean into Change and Sufficient Training
Users who need help understanding how Sales Cloud makes their day-to-day activities easier may resist the change. At the same time, even if they’re eager to use CRM, they may hesitate because they don’t understand its features or how to weave them into their current process.
Creating valuable reporting for the end users and incorporating them in the reporting-building process can help with training while gaining valuable insights into the data that is important to them.
Engaging with a partner or professional with experience in change management, specifically around Salesforce, can be a game changer. These organizations can help guide organizations throughout the process. Often, Salesforce provides key milestones, communication templates, and various tools to help guide users to success.
Speaking of success, companies tend to overlook defining their success metrics and how to measure them. For example, when establishing your KPIs, consider:
- How will you explain to leadership the success of the implementation?
- Are users only logging in?
- Are they creating more leads?
- Has your pipeline activity increased?
- Is marketing responding to web leads more quickly?
All of these metrics and more can help define and measure what success looks like for your implementation.
AppExchange partners such as WhatFix can assist with in-context training and valuable behind-the-scenes insights that can help you tailor where to focus your training efforts. Engaging with these partners can help in a multitude of ways. They understand change, how to train, and Salesforce across multiple companies and industries. The insights they provide and the tools they develop can be invaluable.
Don’t Underestimate Data Migration Complexity
Data migration may seem like a purely technical maneuver, but you have to perform it strategically. For example, there may be some data you don’t need to — or shouldn’t — migrate. For instance, old client records you no longer need may muddle your CRM. Sometimes, you may even run into data compliance issues if you keep data you shouldn’t.
It is extremely important to ask questions about your organization’s data, where it resides, how it is managed, integrations that exist or should exist, and the system of record. Often, Sales Cloud implementations fail due to a lack of integrations or valuable data to drive business decisions.
There are many instances of “swivel chair” where users must maintain the same data in multiple systems. This causes unnecessary data entry, frustrated users, and a complete lack of motivation to adopt the solution. Eliminating these frustrations at the onset will set your implementation up for success.
Revisit Poorly Defined Requirements and Scope Management
Salesforce can do a lot for a wide variety of organizations, but that doesn’t mean you should pursue the whole gamut of features right off the bat. As a result, you may end up with an overly complex implementation.
Often, the basics are not “shiny,” but they are essential. Everyone wants the new AI and automation, but these “fun” aspects of Salesforce need a foundation to build. The basics are the foundation for all future phases.
In some cases, starting too big can also lead to stakeholder disappointment, especially if you need more resources to implement every feature they want, let alone train users for those features.
The great news is that you can rescue a failing or stalled Sales Cloud project — or avoid issues altogether — using a few straightforward strategies.
Strategies for Rescuing Sales Cloud Projects
Don’t lose hope if you wish your implementation had gone better. Many implementations fail for a multitude of reasons. However, there is hope!
Conduct a Thorough Assessment and Realignment
There may be gaps between your goals and what users need. You can get things back on track by identifying these and realigning them.
Engaging with an unbiased third party that may not have been part of your initial implementation can be a catalyst in determining the success of your current implementation.
Implement Change Management
By onboarding your leadership, you can make the change management process much easier. Their voices have been guiding your organization for years, earning them credibility and the respect of your team members.
Once you have them onboard, explore the features that deliver the biggest payoff when automating time-consuming or error-prone processes. This can help your teams embrace Sales Cloud.
Address Data Quality and Migration Problems
Data migration issues in Sales Cloud are often relatively straightforward to overcome — despite how stubborn they may initially feel. One reason is that data migration issues aren’t new, and plenty of solutions are already in place to address them.
For example, Salesforce has a wizard designed to make data importations easier. You can also use third-party solutions to automatically clean, transform, and map data. And, of course, plenty of data migration experts are ready to streamline the process for you.
Redefine Project Scope
Even organizational needs should drive your scope. You can’t discount user needs. When scope creep starts to diffuse the quality of your implementation, you should take a step back and focus on one or a few areas to use Sales Cloud.
For instance, you may want to start with our marketing and sales teams before rolling it out to customer support and finance. Marketing and sales may overlap considerably, so they can learn simultaneously and support each other along the way.
Then, once you have some momentum, you can expand your implementation to finance, customer support, or other departments, like operations or IT.
Successful Sales Cloud implementations tend to have a few key things in common. By examining what works best, you can replicate the success of others.
How Wyndham Hotels and Resorts Used Overcame Sales Cloud Challenges
Salesforce worked with Wyndham Hotels and undertook an extensive Salesforce implementation that included Sales Cloud. Like all organizations switching CRM platforms, they had to deal with a potentially time-consuming, strenuous data migration process.
Instead of going it alone, Wyndham used MuleSoft, a Salesforce subsidiary, to execute the company’s data migration. With MuleSoft, Wyndham was able to replace potentially frustrating migration processes with automated ones.
By using additional tools to handle complex or time-consuming tasks, you can overcome hang-ups that could otherwise derail your implementation.
Even though Sales Cloud implementation challenges can be discouraging, you don’t have to let them ruin your project. With strategic planning, change management, and expert assistance, you can prevent these issues and many others from slowing down your implementation.
It’s important to partner with a team with the experience and knowledge to navigate various challenges. Then, you can enjoy the fruits of your labor: smooth, automated sales processes, less expensive operations, a deeper understanding of your customers, and more revenue.
You can begin to take advantage of Salesforces’ features in a matter of days, and we are here to help. We are happy to assist with customization, solutions and change management. Let’s Talk