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Tips for Using Salesforce with a Small Team

Tips for Using Salesforce with a Small Team

Salesforce isn’t just an enterprise-level CRM, companies of all shapes and sizes can use and benefit from the powerful features and tools. Of course, to get the most from your CRM, strong internal Salesforce support can make a huge difference in the platform’s success!

When you start looking out for a CRM software for a small team, likely you are wanting most of these qualities:

  • Quick to setup with an easy to use interface
  • Automation, faster process and less screens and clicks to deal with.
  • Essential data and details are easy to access
  • Needs to be effective to get the Sales team to use it

Salesforce can do all of these things for you. In addition, and most powerfully, Salesforce is something that your company can grow with. Infinitely scalable, (as we said, extremely large, enterprise companies use it) you never have to worry about growing too big for the CRM. In addition, Salesforce is known for its reporting capabilities, which are extremely robust, and give you just about any detail or metric you would need to improve and grow your company.

So with all of that being said, here are a few tips for using Salesforce with a small team, and leading you to better business practices.

Tips for Small Companies Using Salesforce

  1. Create a Salesforce Roadmap… and use it!

A Salesforce Roadmap should be a big picture dive into all your business software systems, not just CRM, and not just Salesforce. This will help you identify all needs and goals, as well as potential roadblocks and pitfalls. By laying it out with a list of major initiatives with milestones and deployment dates, you will have a solid foundation to build on.

This way, when any new issue or potential development comes along, you can compare it against the roadmap to work off, and assess your team’s bandwidth and priorities.

  1. Use the Salesforce AppExchange

It’s no secret that there are a lot of powerful tools on the AppExchange and for good reason! Many of the apps provide essential features and automation that can dramatically improve your business. When you are in a small company, you need to be efficient – so take a peek, and find the apps that will unlock your team’s max effectiveness.

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  1. Try the Salesforce Optimizer

Salesforce Optimizer is a free tool for Professional and Enterprise level accounts. It provides optimization tips and ideas, through a custom report that you request online. Built and maintained by Salesforce, this one is pretty much a no-brainer, as it will tell you what already included features of Salesforce you could use more of, or use better.

Click here to learn more.

  1. Utilize Salesforce Knowledge Resources

You can learn just about anything that is Salesforce Related on the knowledge base. From help articles to detailed walkthroughs to questions and answers from other users, it’s all there. The answers section is particularly helpful to get feedback from other users on real-world situations, with reasonable response times.  

  1. Leverage “Cases” as an Internal Help Desk

Of course, if you need answers or assistance with the big stuff, there are always Cases. Cases are a standard object in Salesforce which you can leverage as an internal support system, and ask for guidance, or admin help on just about anything in the CRM.  You can either contact cases through the Email to Case feature, or from your Partner Portal.

Just remember that Salesforce has thousands of cases being submitted each day, so if your issue isn’t urgent (affecting essential functionality) it might take days or even a couple weeks to get the issue resolved.

  1. Train Your Internal Users

Internal user training can be a real lifesaver, especially because in a small company, most people wear many hats. So, by giving all of your users a decent level of Salesforce expertise and knowledge, they should be able to begin solving their own issues and feel empowered to take care of business. This will avoid admin bottlenecks, and helps the team to be their own solution.  

Trailhead can also serve as a training resource. Salesforce product experts provide instructional content for multiple user roles and experience levels. Users can customize their trails to learn the content that meets their needs, and learn at their own pace.

  1. Get Outside Help if Needed

At any point in a project, it can quickly become more cost effective to pay an expert, rather than taking the time (and opportunity cost) to figure it out yourself. If you ever get into this situation, you should consider either Premier Support; or enlist a consulting company to build a support package that meets your needs and budget.

-Ryan and the CloudMyBiz Team


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