Choosing the Right Salesforce Partner
One of the more perplexing questions a company faces when implementing Salesforce for the first time, or even using new features of the popular CRM, is “Who will lead this project?” One may be tempted to build a team of in-house Salesforce experts, while others would prefer to work with a Salesforce consulting partner. While it may make sense for some larger companies to have some experts in house, the benefits of going with a Salesforce consulting partner far exceed the alternative for many businesses.
Why Choose a Salesforce Partner?
Some of the advantages of working with a Salesforce consulting partner are:
- Return on Investment: Let’s get straight into the money first. Salesforce implementation involves many facets: business requirements, strategy, design, planning, configuration, development, implementation, and support of the overall Salesforce solution. The costs involved in hiring such a team with varied skills full time are huge compared to getting an expert you can trust for setup, implementation, and ongoing maintenance.
- Expertise: Most Salesforce partners have great experience executing cross-cloud implementation projects and are equipped with teams of varied skills to deliver customer success. The expertise is verified and maintained by Salesforce by categorizing them into various tiers. These experts are also required to maintain the expertise and upgrade their expert knowledge on the up-to-date product releases as well, ensuring that they are always up to date on the latest updates and features.
- Supported by Salesforce: Salesforce partners are fully supported by Salesforce in the sense that they are provided with new resources, training, and tools to develop expertise around specific business functions, product areas, and industries. They are also provided with a Partner Community website that has all the resources needed for the growth of Partner’s expertise, marketing kits, support case packs, etc. With such great resources and support from Salesforce, certified Partners have the tools to help any business succeed.
- Values: Salesforce promotes its users hiring a certified partner because these partners are expected to follow the same core principles and values that helped Salesforce as a company become the leader of CRMs.
“In our Salesforce culture of trust, we inspire each other and the industry through our values – trust, customer success, innovation, and equality. These are the values that we expect everyone in our Ohana to uphold.” – quotes salesforce
Salesforce partners should serve the community with the same level of trust and transparency as the Salesforce company does.
Choosing the right Partner
Knowing that working with Partners is the right way to go forward with your Salesforce implementation, finding the right one becomes a key decision. However, every Salesforce partner is different and the ‘one-partner-fits-all-circumstances’ does not apply. Not only is every partner different, but every organization has different needs and goals. Here are five tips to help you choose the expert that suits your organization.
- Expertise: Salesforce is an ocean now with a vast variety of product offerings that suit different businesses across a broad range of verticals. From Sales to Service to Marketing to Commerce and Community, there are a lot of products from Salesforce. Not all Salesforce partners have the same expertise. A few partners could be experts in the Salesforce Financial Cloud whereas others might be experts at Sales and Service clouds but not the Marketing Cloud. Each Salesforce Cloud offering requires a different set of skills and experience. Find a partner who has aligns with your particular Salesforce product, or who has access to a team of experts in all Salesforce clouds, integration services, and business analysis.
- Proven Results: Find a partner that has successfully implemented Salesforce projects like yours before. Experience definitely matters, as this partner will know what to do and what not to do to make a project successful.
- Values: The values of the Partner company should be aligned with not only that of Salesforce but also with your company’s values. Excellence, innovation, and teamwork should be just a few of the core values to look for in a Partner. The person you choose should be an extension of your team and not be treated as a separate entity.
- Customer Service: Choose a partner with availability that matches your needs. “On-site availability and 24×7 support” can be important factors for some companies to consider, as a few face-to-face meetings can be very helpful especially during the business requirements phase or for periodic training.
- Budget: Budget is also one of the key criteria for all the companies that look for a Salesforce consultant. There are different tiers in Partners too that are recognized by Salesforce. The top tier partners may or may not be in your budget, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be getting a “budget” partner. There are a lot of excellent partners in the lowest tier of registered partners. It is good to get a partner within your budget and also one that matches the other criteria mentioned above.
Ready to Choose your Partner?
SociumDigital is a Salesforce partner with years of experience. If we aren’t the right fit, make sure you consider expertise, results, values, customer service and budget when considering the expert that works for you.