A Salesforce implementation partner is pretty much what it sounds like: a Salesforce-approved company that partners with yours to help you implement and maintain your Salesforce environment. Many companies work with Salesforce partners to expedite and improve their Salesforce implementations, finding a whole host of benefits over having their own in-house staff handle it themselves.
A good partner will help you with whatever you need pertaining to Salesforce, whether that’s giving presentations to your employees on Marketing Cloud or developing custom apps. To be bestowed the honor of being an official Salesforce partner, a company has to go through some serious vetting and hire a good chunk of staff who’s been immersed in Salesforce development for a few years. Outsourcing Salesforce development to these experts saves companies a ton of time and money hiring their own IT staff and training their Salesforce users themselves. And you probably know that you need your precious time to innovate and create.
Implementing Salesforce will give you a tremendous advantage in ROI, but only if it’s properly done and your employees can actually get up to speed. Improper training can result in confused, frustrated employees and consequently, frustrated customers. And frustrated customers might roast you on Twitter, so let’s not deal with that embarrassment.
Here, we’ll break down a few reasons why you should consider working with a Salesforce implementation partner rather than asking your IT staff over and over if they’re really sure they can handle it:
1. Implementation partners are highly knowledgeable, experienced, and skilled in Salesforce customization inside and out.
Even if you think you know everything about Salesforce, even if you spent years at a previous job poring over lead lists as a user, you’re probably not as knowledgeable as engineers who have been developing apps in Salesforce for years.
Again, the engineers that work with partner companies generally have at least a few years in IT before going the Salesforce developer route, then have to spend months studying to earn those bright blue Salesforce Admin and Platform Developer certifications that most of them bear on their resumes. This consists of writing custom code using Apex language and things like working with Custom/Extension Controllers, Queries – SOQL, SOSL and Triggers. They code responsive user interfaces with HTML, Bootstrap, CSS, Javascript, and jQuery and are skilled in various forms of project management. The more unfamiliar that sounds to you, the more likely you’re going to need help.
After admission, partner companies usually build relationships with representatives from Salesforce who provide them training, resources, and tools to succeed.
2. They’re not just technically skilled, but can help you adapt your business processes too.
When choosing the right Salesforce partner, it’s important to scope out whether they’ve worked in your industry before, how comfortable they are with it, how often their team members will interact with you and how, and more. Partners often will present you with case studies relevant to your business to show you your possible growth potential.
Partners will assign you both business and technical staff who will learn the ins and outs of your business goals and customer needs to figure out the best ways to configure Salesforce for you. They’ll customize your workflows, automation triggers, dashboards, and even your security to maximize your efficiency and consequently, your ROI. Experienced project managers will liaise with you and the partner company so you’re up to speed on what’s going on, translating technical jargon to something you can digest.
3. They can train your staff to adapt to your new system.
Whether you’re implementing Salesforce for the first time ever or just adding a new cloud, partner companies will have the right people to train your staff on how to use it. Not only will this involve the technical folks, but also Change Management Consultants pointing you around how your overall business operations and outcomes will change. Depending on what you were working with before, Salesforce can be more than just a new software, but an overall game-changer.
Again, Salesforce partner companies are consistently given resources from Salesforce itself to keep them up to speed on new releases, use cases, and real-world examples of success. This also includes training on how to deal with resistant users, which you’re probably going to have. Some of your team members aren’t going to make the leap to Salesforce as quickly as you will, and overcoming their hesitancy on your own is going to be a pain. Leaving it to the folks who have had hands-on experience with Salesforce successes will better figure out how to convert your team members who can’t let go of Hubspot, Excel, or whatever you were using before.
If you’ve still got questions on how a Salesforce implementation partner can help you, don’t hesitate to reach out to us to learn more! We’ll walk you through how we can help you save time and future mistakes while giving you some examples of our past success.
