Companies looking to set up CRM platforms these days are giving Salesforce the top consideration due to its high demand and popularity. This is because of the range of functionalities and tools offered by Salesforce to help companies organize their operations and improve productivity. Implementing Salesforce is how companies can leverage the best features of Salesforce CRM. You can hire a Salesforce administrator from a trusted team who can implement and manage the solution and help users adopt it.

When you’ve implemented Salesforce correctly, you can efficiently enhance your operations to improve customer service and satisfaction while improving your marketing strategies and sales operations. Even though you know that Salesforce is a great way to achieve transformation in your business, implementing it can be a difficult process, and you might encounter different issues. 

In this article, we’ll cover pitfalls that can cause hindrances in your successful Salesforce implementation and what you should do to overcome such issues.

Pitfalls in Salesforce Implementation

According to a report by Port and Starboard, CRM failure rates can go up to 70%, ultimately leading to the wastage of money and effort invested in the implementation process. Thus, it is essential to evaluate the cause of such failure when implementing Salesforce, enabling companies to use Salesforce to its maximum potential and acquire the results they expect.

So, let’s look into some of these pitfalls, enabling you to be prepared for them and timely resolve such issues. 

  1. Poor Planning

 When you don’t plan your Salesforce implementation efficiently or don’t give enough focus on the project management, you might likely face issues like inability to meet scope, cost overruns, and missed deadlines, ultimately leading to the failure of Salesforce. 

A comprehensive plan of the project would help in improving the understanding of requirements and setting realistic timelines which are to be met. The lack of such a plan would keep your CRM implementation at risk of failure. 

  1. Inappropriate Data Preparation

How efficiently you migrate your data from legacy systems to Salesforce matters a lot when it comes to implementing Salesforce. But before data migration, it is essential to make sure that you have prepared your data well. By data preparation, it means removing duplicate files or redundant information, which can cause errors. Also, inappropriate data mapping can cause issues leading to data loss, which no business would ever wish for. 

  1. High Complexity

Sometimes, to build an efficient Salesforce solution, companies make the mistake of over-customizing, due to which the code and configuration can become too complex.  Overcustomizing the Salesforce solution can lead to an increase in the cost of development and implementation while causing issues of less productivity and flexibility. 

Customizing the Salesforce solution is essential to ensure that the solution work in accordance with the business and its unique goals. But you must keep in check how much customization suits your solution so you don’t overdo it. As you’ll keep adding more customizations, your Salesforce org will become more complex to work with.

  1. Improper User Training

Not giving proper attention to user adoption and training can lead to issues like decreased productivity on the Salesforce solution due to its low adoption rates. Even if you spend a lot of money on the implementation, if the potential users cannot use it, that will simply lead to the failure of the solution. 

Inappropriate user adoption means that the potential users lack a clear understanding of the solution, and they need training and effective communication to know how they can use the Salesforce solution to streamline their operations. 

How to Avoid Pitfalls in Salesforce Implementation

So far, we know some pitfalls can impact your Salesforce implementation. Now we’ll look into a few points on how you can avoid these pitfalls and achieve successful Salesforce implementation and usage.

  1. Set Realistic Goals

It is essential for an organization to know the goals the team wants to achieve with Salesforce implementation. They need to know what transformation they seek and how they want to enhance their operations. 

This will enable the team to have some realistic goals in place that would help them to set their expectations regarding the Salesforce implementation. Having clear goals in your mind would give you an idea of the project scope you want to achieve so that you can prepare the plan accordingly. 

  1. Have an Implementation Plan Ready

We have already said that without a plan for your Salesforce implementation, chances are that you are likely to miss out on the scope, which might lead to project failure. This makes it essential for the team to prepare a comprehensive plan for your Salesforce implementation.

The plan would act like a roadmap for the implementation, thus providing you with a clear understanding of the processes involved. Having a plan would also provide you the clarity on the milestones that are to be achieved while keeping the budget in check. Not only this but with a plan, you’ll be ready for risk management and change management if there’s any change in the project's scope.

  1. Monitor the Complete Implementation Process

When you keep monitoring the implementation process, you can identify any persisting issues which can be fixed before getting the solution live. Constant monitoring will also allow the team to keep the solution's performance in check, thus regularly assessing how effective the solution is for your business. 

One of the best ways to monitor the process is to hire a Salesforce certified developer to implement your customized solution and keep everything in check. The experts will track if your Salesforce implementation is going in the right direction and if you’re getting the results you expected for your business. 

  1. Focus on User Adoption

To ensure the success of the Salesforce implementation project, you should focus on providing the necessary support and training to the system's potential users. It is necessary for the team to set a training plan in place that would be followed to make sure the potential users understand the features of the Salesforce solution and know the right way to use it to improve their efficiency and productivity. 

Also, you need to identify the different user groups and set unique training plans for everyone. For example, the sales team should understand how to use the Salesforce solution to improve their sales operations. The marketing team should know its usage to build strategic marketing plans. 

Overcome Salesforce Implementation Challenges with a Trusted Team

Salesforce is known for the transformation it brings for businesses from different industry verticals. But that’s only possible when you can overcome the challenges you might face during Salesforce implementation. We’ve covered these challenges that you might face when implementing Salesforce.

But that’s not all. These challenges can be prevented or resolved through some of the few ways that we’ve mentioned above. Overcoming the challenges that occur during Salesforce implementation opens doors to opportunities for business growth. But that’s possible when you get help from a reliable Salesforce implementation company to implement the solution while taking care of all the necessary aspects. You can even hire individual resources, for example, you can hire a Salesforce QA tester if you need a resource to test a solution efficiently. 360 Degree Cloud is one such service that will help evaluate your business and implement a customized Salesforce solution for your business needs.