6 Best Practices While Implementing Salesforce Sales Cloud

Sales Cloud is one of the most prominent offerings in the Salesforce ecosystem and has a proven track record of transforming the sales pipeline and growth of thousands of enterprises with positive outcomes. The Sales Cloud solution contains features that set the foundation for a well-structured sales process. You can make provisions for in-depth customer analysis and ensure clear customer communication paths — something you may be missing in your current sales solution.

If you are looking for a solution that helps you streamline and automate your sales cycle, Salesforce Sales Cloud implementation is what you need. With Sales Cloud implementation, you can make the best use of the platform's incredible features: automated reporting, AI analytics, customizable dashboards, personalized outreach, and more to effectively establish sales quotas, manage territories, and forecast sales. 

To realize the best outcomes with Sales Cloud, consider the below list of practices suggested by our implementation experts. 

1. Make Use of Platform's Customization Capabilities

High customization capability is one of the many reasons organizations prefer Salesforce Sales Cloud over other CRMs. Sales Cloud provides teams with a wide range of intuitive apps, dashboard layouts, automated workflows, and profiles that can be customized to fit their immediate business needs. With the assistance of Salesforce consultants, you can create custom objects, apps, and processes to track deals more systematically. There can be app layouts for pre-sales management, lead nurturing, quote management, and so on. To add layers of security to your sales data, you create unique processes and display data with varied fields and permissions. 

Don't forget to check out: What is Sales Cloud in Salesforce? | How it can Help Any business?

2. Centralize Your Sales Data For Better Communication

To ensure proper implementation of the Sales Cloud, make it central to the functioning of your department. Data centralization not only makes reps aware of leads and customer responses but also ensures them that they will get due credit for building pipelines and closing deals that they worked on. To boost accountability within the team, you can route all meetings and ideas via centralized dashboards on Salesforce. Use the chatter feature to encourage better use of the sales app and enable the Salesforce1 mobile app on suitable devices for your sales reps.

3. Automate Sales-Related Tasks Through Workflows

As per an article published in Forbes, sales teams spend as much as 64 percent of their time on non-sales-related tasks which is a sheer waste of time. When you implement a Sales Cloud, you have built-in workflows which can be leveraged to automate those manual processes. From quote management and report generation, to lead assignment, everything can be automated on the Salesforce Sales Cloud. By automating manual processes, your team can focus better on the acquisition, nurturing, response tracking, and conversion of leads. Since most of the core tasks can be automated and customized with built-in workflows and drag-drop functionalities of the Sales Cloud, it would take minimal time and effort to automate and customize the sales process. 

4. Connect Multiple Data Systems via Integration

Sales representatives use several applications to gather, optimize, and share vast amounts of information daily. Since most of these apps are built on separate platforms and are not connected, companies end up having data silos. To unify sales information in one place, firms need to connect work apps via Salesforce integration. To connect apps on Salesforce, you can make use of APIs available on the platform. However, if you find any difficulty in integration, consult a Salesforce integration partner. Integration professionals use built-in APIs, AppExchange apps, and a suitable iPaaS platform to integrate on-premise and cloud apps on Salesforce in minimum downtime without disrupting your workflow. 

5. Don’t Ignore the Power of Sandboxes for Innovationqu

Salesforce requires continuous updates and workflow optimization to function seamlessly. When you plan to introduce something new in the work process, consider testing it in a sandbox rather than in a production environment. Sandboxes are a great environment to test new changes without impacting existing systems or causing any serious system breakdown. Sales Cloud offers many sandboxes which can be chosen by your admins and coders depending on testing criticality or complexity. 

Check out another amazing blog by Alok here: Overcoming 5 Biggest Salesforce Integration Challenges

6. Optimize Einstein to Make Smart Sales Decisions

To make the best use of your sales reps, you need to provide them with intelligent recommendations and data insights, so that they can take the next-best course of action. When you implement a Sales Cloud analytics solution, you don't need to hire data scientists as such. Rather you can make use of the platform's AI tool ‘Einstein’ to make quick and accurate sales decisions to build a pipeline of effective leads. The Einstein lead scoring system allows you to prioritize leads which can take away the burden on your sales reps. If your sales executives are looking for specific advice/recommendations, then such information can be easily generated through Einstein. To make the best use of Einstein, consult a Salesforce Sales Cloud specialist who knows how to customize Opportunity and Account Insights for better risk assessment/lead tracking. 

Bottomline

The main aim of the Salesforce Sales Cloud is to streamline the sales cycle as much as possible. The better you automate your sales cycle, the more time your sales reps will get for customer prospecting, lead tracking, and pipeline optimization. To ensure your Salesforce Sales Cloud implementation success, hire a team that can offer you the necessary support, guidance, and training for effective software use. With suitable planning, the right implementation tactics, and experienced professionals on board, you can bridge the sales gaps and realize the true potential of your sales process.