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Maximizing Salesforce Potential: Leveraging ISV Partners for Tailored Solutions

In the dynamic landscape of modern businesses, the one-size-fits-all approach seldom proves effective, especially when it comes to optimizing Salesforce for your organization’s unique needs. Salesforce’s Partner Program, featuring independent software vendors (ISVs), offers a tailored solution by enabling the creation of innovative apps on the Salesforce platform. This article explores when and why an organization with Salesforce in place should consider engaging with an ISV Partner.

Understanding ISV Partners:

ISV Partners play a crucial role in the Salesforce ecosystem. As part of the Salesforce Partner Program, they are responsible for building inventive applications on the Salesforce platform, addressing specific business challenges faced by customers.

When to Consider an ISV Partner:

Organization Size and Complexity:

- Your organization should ideally have at least 25 Salesforce licenses.
- Complexities arise when entering or retrieving information, indicating a need for a more streamlined solution.

User Feedback and Adoption:

- Users express difficulties or reluctance in utilizing Salesforce to its full potential.
- Inconsistencies in data entry and a lack of a comprehensive customer view are signs of intervention.

Integration Requirements:

- If your organization seeks to integrate Salesforce with other systems or platforms.

Criteria for Choosing an ISV Partner:

Proven Track Record:

- An ISV Partner should showcase a track record of successful solutions implemented for a diverse customer base.

Methodology and Process:

- Demonstrable methodologies and processes for solution delivery are essential.

Transparency and Trust of Operations:

- Clear communication on pricing, billing, and time to deliver.

Certified Team:

- Possession of a certified team with expertise in various roles required for effective delivery.

Once you’ve selected an ISV Partner that is the right fit for your organization, a structured onboarding process will help align the customer’s needs with the capabilities of the chosen partner.

Engagement Onboarding Process:

Audit and Discovery:

- An initial audit/discovery process to understand the customer’s needs and pain points.

Collaborative Approach:

- Establishing a collaborative approach with a dedicated team from both the customer and ISV Partner for weekly meetings and progress reviews.

Clear Statement of Work:

- Creation of a clear statement of work with mutual input from both parties.

Cycles of Work:

Structured Project Schedule:

- A detailed project schedule with milestones for solution creation.

Thorough Testing:

- Rigorous testing in Salesforce sandboxes before deployment to the production instance.

Data Migration Planning:

- If applicable, a well-defined data migration plan with pre-defined templates for review and migration.

With the right ISV Partner in place and proper engagement and onboarding, you can look forward to the following outcomes.

Expected Outcomes:

Increased user engagement with created records.
Streamlined data input processes for users.
Accessible key results through user-friendly dashboards.

Responsibilities and Expectations:

For the Customer:

Limit assignment to representatives from IT, Sales Operations, Account Executive, and Accounting.
Active participation in project schedules and timelines.
Holding the ISV Partner accountable to the contract and project milestones.

For the ISV Partner:

Providing a solution and talent capable of meeting the specified requirements.
Ensuring the customer provides necessary team and resources.
Admitting mistakes and implementing quick corrections.

In conclusion, leveraging an ISV Partner in conjunction with Salesforce can be a strategic move for organizations looking to maximize the potential of their CRM. By understanding the criteria for engagement, responsibilities, and expectations, businesses can foster successful collaborations and achieve tailored solutions that address their unique challenges.

Why WhiteRock?

WhiteRock is an ISV Partner that you can trust and count on. We bring our knowledge of marketing and sales flows, digital transformation, and what “parts to order” for your business into this partnership. At WhiteRock, we take the time to understand your needs and map out a plan to optimize the right solution. As your organization changes over time, you have us to keep your systems aligned. We support you and set you and your systems up for success.

Originally published on LinkedIn.

Is Your Customer Journey a Repeatable & Valuable Experience?

CRM, Influence, White Rock Value

Over the last month or so, I’ve shared some information with our readers related to our methodology, journey to our goals, and how the faith and flow of God live in our business moment by moment to trigger momentum. I do believe this is all for the glory of our Lord and Savior.

Today, I want to go a bit deeper by sharing the journey of our customers. First, none of our customers take the same journey, however, there is a logical, high-level path that we follow as it relates to our mindset and view of the pain points that we learn initially about our potential customers. Second, by following a path based on our history of serving customers for over 12 years, the pain points that we solve typically fall into these simple categories:

They currently have no CRM
They have a CRM but don’t use it
They have a CRM they use but it’s jacked up

This is a snapshot of our audience. Over the course of time, we have a very well-crafted set of solutions that fall within these three categories that we can easily replicate, modify, and/or enhance for each new customer. And, yes, there are times when we must go “off-script” to offer something unique and unseen historically. For these instances, we are still following our Influence formula.

What does the journey look like with WhiteRock? We have solutions but the journey is about the experience and value that our customers need – discipline, knowledge, expertise, organization, and great project planning. Briefly, this is the journey that we adhere to via a consistent process:

Suspect

The buyer doesn’t know WhiteRock, but our ideal customer identification process helps us match a suspect that has attributes of our current customers.

Interest/Impression/Influence

Our potential customer has demonstrated these attributes in our marketing message on a channel in which they have a recordable event in our system that notifies us at the right time based on a measurable quantity in our system.

Engagement

Our potential customer takes the next step by communicating with our sales development team in several channels and methods.

First Meeting

Our prospect agrees to meet with us so that we learn about their pain point and whether we can solve it based on priority, budget, and similar mindsets. Can we work together to resolve the pain point?

Sales Qualified Opportunity

WhiteRock and the prospect are aligned, and we will discover, price, plan, and propose the solution for acceptance.

Onboard and retain the customer

WhiteRock works to perform with excellence and assures that the value received by the customer is equal to or greater than the price paid.

WhiteRock continuously works internally on our instance of Salesforce to help us drive and deliver a consistent solution so that we keep our customers forever. Our customers are the brains of our organization because they stimulate improvement for us to deliver better continuously. Our team is the heart of our company. They drive with passion to always provide the experience that we would expect related to key systems that help with tough decisions and strategy.

Can we help you with this? I’d love to set a strategy session with you to discuss your unique needs.

Top 5 Salesforce Tips: How To Get The Most Leverage From Your CRM

CRM, Salesforce, White Rock Value

Optimize Salesforce Salesforce has become the go-to customer relationship management (CRM) tool for businesses of all shapes and sizes. With its extensive features and capabilities, when optimized, Salesforce can definitely be a game-changer when it comes to managing customer relationships and driving business growth.

However, to truly get the most out of the CRM platform, it’s essential to understand and implement effective strategies. Many times, this can be a daunting task. Information overload, if you will.

The good news is that in this article, we’ll go over the top 5 Salesforce tips that will be able to help you get the most juice from your CRM and accelerate your business to new heights.

Tip #1: Integrate & Utilize AppExchange for Additional Functionality:

Salesforce’s AppExchange is a huge marketplace of third-party apps and integrations that can extend the capabilities of your CRM. For my iPhone users, think of this as the “App Store,” but for your Salesforce.

Explore the AppExchange to find solutions that address specific business needs that would help further optimize your CRM for you or your team, such as project management, marketing automation, or analytics.

Check out our WhiteRock Integration Model

Whether you’re looking for industry-specific solutions or specialized tools, AppExchange offers a wide range of options to enhance your Salesforce experience and drive business growth.

Tip #2: Customize Salesforce to Your Unique Business Needs:

One of the greatest advantages of Salesforce is its flexibility and customization options.

Tailor the platform to fit your unique processes, workflows, and methodology.

Utilize custom objects, fields, and layouts to make sure Salesforce aligns perfectly with your organization’s requirements.

By customizing Salesforce, you can streamline operations, increase efficiency, and enhance user adoption.

Tip #3: Leverage Automation with Workflows & Processes:

Salesforce offers powerful automation tools like workflows and processes that can save you a tremendous amount of time, eliminate any manual tasks, and boost overall productivity.

Take advantage of these features to automate routine processes, such as lead assignment, opportunity updates, and email notifications.

Check out our WhiteRock Salesforce Optimization Page

By setting up advanced workflows, you can make sure that the right actions are triggered at the right time, allowing your team to focus on high-value tasks, strategic actions, and results.

Tip #4: Equip Your Sales Team with Sales Cloud:

Salesforce’s Sales Cloud is a highly intelligent solution designed to streamline your sales process.

Provide your sales team with the tools they need to thrive, such as lead and opportunity management, pipeline tracking, and collaboration features.

Customize the Sales Cloud dashboards and reports to gain valuable insights into sales performance and identify areas for improvement.

By equipping your team with Sales Cloud, you can enhance their efficiency, close deals faster, and drive revenue growth.

Tip #5: Enhance Customer Service with Service Cloud:

Exceptional customer service is crucial for business success, and Salesforce’s Service Cloud can help you deliver just that.

Use Service Cloud to centralize customer interactions, manage cases, and provide personalized support. Implement self-service portals and knowledge bases to empower customers to find solutions on their own.

Utilize WhiteRock’s Expertise & Get the Most From Salesforce

You are capable of leveraging Salesforce to its full potential, but you may need some external support to get it right. As your partner in all things Salesforce, WhiteRock is here to help. If you believe that further optimization may be needed for your team to be successful with Salesforce, that happens to be WhiteRock’s sweet spot. We want to set you up for success and see your team succeed on your CRM journey.

At WhiteRock, we take the time to understand your needs and map out a plan to optimize the right solution. WhiteRock has the experience needed to help fine-tune your complex processes through highly accountable change process flows related to improvements in your CRM and related systems. Reach out to us at learnmore@whiterocktech.net or via the form below!

Bring It Together With a Salesforce-ERP Integration

CRM, Integration, Salesforce, White Rock Value

Salesforce ERP Integration

For a successful sales strategy and toolset, integrate your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system with Salesforce. By bringing these two key business tools together, you extend the capabilities to optimize the business process flows that reflect how your business serves its customers and prospective customers.

Many companies navigate day-to-day work by leveraging both their CRM system and their ERP system separately. Below, you will find a few approaches bringing your two most powerful customer data tools together through a Salesforce-ERP integration and the associated benefits.

3 Approaches to Integrating

How your company chooses to approach integration efforts depends heavily on your needs, your technical expertise, and your IT budget. Let’s explore these 3 together.

1. Build Your Salesforce-ERP Integration From Scratch

If your organization has a deep technical understanding, you may choose to manually register your data from one system to the other. Keep in mind that building from scratch takes a lot of time, money and resources to be successful. If your organization finds the trade off of added control and customization worth it, this approach may be worth exploring.

With this approach, it never hurts to consult with a partner to consider the pros and cons of an investment in building this yourself. At WhiteRock, we can certainly tailor a solution for your needs, though we rarely face use cases that are so unique that they haven’t already been resolved in our current target customer market space.

2. Utilize a Connector

Salesforce offers purpose-built connectors that can directly connect your Salesforce account to another system like your ERP system. These are limited to the more popular ERP platforms like Oracle ERP and Microsoft Dynamic ERP. Therefore, your options for this approach may be limited based on your system.

In most cases, utilizing a connector will do the trick for the best price. However, there are a few limitations that we’ll want to discuss to ensure you are accomplishing what you hope to. When fewer endpoints are needed to sync and no future change is anticipated, then we will recommend this solution type.

3. Buy an ERP Integration Platform (iPaaS)

An integration platform as a service (iPaaS) is an application that helps connect your IT environment and manage your integrations. iPaaS solutions go beyond what connectors offer with the capability to build multiple integrations and have several use cases. These tools provide seamless integration, automatic data sharing, and error control with a wide range of features and prices to fit your needs.

This approach is typically the best fit for our customers. Some of these tools can be pricey but the benefits of a cost effective solution will provide the most dynamic, customizable, and maintainable solution.

Benefits of Integrating

A Salesforce-ERP integration can bring major benefits to your organization. Better customer experience, simplified decision-making, increased efficiency, improved data quality and reduced risk of error are just a few improvements that you may notice after choosing to bring these systems together.

Provide a Better Customer Experience

There’s nothing quite like having a crystal clear overview of your customer’s journey. By integrating Salesforce with your ERP system, you will gain an accurate 360-degree view of customer data across your organization. This will allow your team to serve customers in a more personalized way thanks to access to reliable up-to-date information. Providing this single source of customer truth leads to improved customer satisfaction, allowing your customer to feel seen and heard. Bringing the accurate pricing power of your ERP system together with fast quoting capabilities of your Salesforce CRM also elevates your customer service.

Simplified Decision-Making

Enhance your decision-making process by integrating Salesforce with your ERP system. When you bring data from across your organization together, you access a true 360 view of your real-time business health. This level of visibility also serves to improve the internal decision making capabilities key to getting ahead of the competition.

Enjoy Increased Efficiency

Another major benefit of integrating these two essential systems is an increase in team productivity stemming from ease of access to important customer and sales information. When your sales team can see inventory levels from your ERP system from within Salesforce for example, they get back that time previously spent switching systems. With all information from activity and sales history to credit limits brought together, team collaboration and communication across departments is greatly simplified. Less time is needed to search for accurate information when you have a single source of data truth to rely on. Integrating your systems provides you with an end-to-end view of business processes from order placement to delivery.

Improve Data Quality & Reduce Risk of Error

Speaking of your single source of data truth, the power of Salesforce allows you to automate data management tasks to ensure absolute accuracy. Manual data entry, especially when being conducted in two separate systems has a significantly greater chance of error. By integrating your systems, you open up a world of automation possibilities to make it even easier to keep your data clean and reliable. Reducing or eliminating errors can play a big-time role in helping your organization save money.

Are You Ready to Integrate?

As you consider your own integration journey and how the benefits could impact your business, be sure to consider whether a partner like WhiteRock could help make this a painless and worthwhile endeavor. No matter which approach you choose, we are here to help and have the experience with this process to ensure your integration goes smoothly and successfully.

Why WhiteRock?

With the right partner of Salesforce experts that you can trust and count on, your integration can be greatly simplified and you can feel confident in your new and improved single source of truth. We bring our knowledge of marketing and sales flows, digital transformation, and what “parts to order” for your business into this partnership. At WhiteRock, we take the time to understand your needs, and map out a plan to optimize the right solution. As your organization changes over time, you have us to keep your systems aligned. We support you and set you and your systems up for success.

WhiteRock has the experience needed to help fine-tune your complex processes through highly accountable change process flows related to improvements in your CRM and related systems. Reach out to us at learnmore@whiterocktech.net or via the form below!

The Relationship Between CRM and Accounting Systems

CRM, Integration, Salesforce, White Rock Value

How can a CRM system be beneficial to produce performance changes in your sales process without the accounting history of your accounts and contacts? I strongly believe that it is not possible. As Salesforce has evolved from a CRM platform to a platform to integrate all systems to your customers and prospective customers, the transformation of a common, simple view of all data in one place has never been more important. Integrating accounting transaction history, credit limits, and other key data in the accounting system to the CRM account/contact view in Salesforce or any CRM drives a faster pace for decision making and simplicity. On this topic, I want to share four examples of the value of integrating your CRM and accounting systems and then conclude with a suggestion for you to consider for your organization.

Example 1 – Knowing the “flight path” of your buyer’s journey to a sale promotes a healthy forecast for your whole organization

The days of flying by the seat of your pants in sales are ending and have evolved into a sales process that can be executed consistently by all sales team members. The result is relevant sales activity is captured quickly, easily, and affordably by sales deal stages in a CRM system. Over the last several years and peaking in 2020, the sales efforts must be quantified and organized for understanding and forecasting the predicted sales timing and dollar amount. When this flow of work is consistently input by all sales team members, then revenue and cash flow will be known and can build a revenue forecast that can be relied upon. When the sales team has this insight along with current customer sales history, credit limits, terms, and product/service lines used, the sales team will have all the valuable data needed to support their newest sales and find common characteristics to continue to guide their success.

Example 2 – Accrual vs Cash basis of sales opportunities

I mentioned in Example 1 how the days of flying by the seat of your pants in sales are obsolete. What this means is working on your sales deals and not tracking the progress of that deal. When this happens, a sale technically is only known when the deal closes. From an accounting perspective, if you do not accrue expenses and only book when the expense is paid, this is the cash basis method. Therefore, the same holds true in tracking deals in the CRM system. If you are not tracking sales progress in the sales process, this is equal to a cash basis sales approach. We do not have forecast or prediction capabilities until the sale is closed. Organizations need to “accrue” their sales process just as the accounting system accrues expenses and other events that are recognized but paid or closed yet.

Example 3 – Valuing the importance of information in the CRM and accounting systems equally

One thing is for sure: you cannot prepare a correct tax return for the organization without an exact and organized accounting system. The same is true about the sales process: if the sales activity is not organized by sales stage from learning about the prospect’s interest to the sale close, then there is not a reliable forecast of revenue and cash flow that can be used to capture the whole picture accurately of the business performance.

Example 4 – How and what to integrate between CRM and Accounting

If I have convinced you of the importance of integration, then the next step is how to integrate and what to integrate between your CRM and accounting systems. First, how? Depending on what CRM and accounting system is in place, there are dozens of solutions usually. If your team does not have the experience and skillset for this, then there are many innovation and technology companies that can help. Certainly, our firm can help. Second, what? This depends; but for sure at a minimum, you need insight into sales history, quotes, and other specific information like past due status, credit terms and credit limits are important. All these components from accounting need to be displayed on the account view.

I will finish with this: if you believe that integrating your CRM and accounting systems is valuable but you cannot achieve this without help, then call me. And, if you do not believe this and don’t care to achieve this then I want to know why, so call me. Having a solid integration between these two so systems will unify your information systems, enable faster decision making, and better experiences for all of your folks and your customers and future customers.

Cultivating Connected Customer Experiences in 2023

CRM, Integration, Salesforce, White Rock Value

Connected Customer Experience

Today, the way your company cultivates connected experiences for customers may be worth evaluating. Salesforce’s latest State of the Connected Customer report highlighted cultivating cohesive and connected digital experiences as an up-and-coming trend shaping the future of customer engagement.

Customer experience is definitely a key differentiator for reaching and keeping customers. As such, it’s a great area to keep a pulse on and to continuously improve as expectations increase. The connected consumer values their brand relationships and experiences. Studies have found that customers view their experience as being just as important as the product or service provided.

The Increasing Expectations For Customer Experience

66% of customers say that they feel like companies treat them like a number. Thus, customers hope for companies to show them that they see them as unique individuals. They also expect that unique treatment regardless of the communication channel that is used. Additionally, customers want companies to understand how and where they want to engage.

A truly connected customer experience will set a company apart. It brings customer touchpoints and data together across the organization in a noticeable way. Every team and every system is synchronized and aligned when it comes to engaging with customers.

Cultivate Exceptional Connected Experiences

Exceptional connected customer experiences require action. So, what steps can you take to build and create these experiences for your customers? By utilizing cross-channel strategies to deliver consistency from all individuals contributing to the customer experience, you will be one step closer to serving up the unique experience customers crave.

Eliminate Silos to Prioritize Consistency

Integrated customer experiences aren’t created from siloed data. Prioritize your customer by organizing your data architecture around them and give your team a 360-degree view. When your customer data comes together, you can eliminate disconnects between departments and start providing a consistent, personalized experience. Without fragmented customer support, customers will feel more like a valued individual and less like a number.

Bringing your data together also takes a heavy burden off of your team. The more you integrate your CRM and other systems to make data accessible from one central location, the more productive your team can be. Giving team members that time back allows them to be more focused on providing the top-notch service customers seek. Plus, 83% of customers say they’re more loyal to companies that provide consistency across departments. Ditching silos in favor of consistency is a big win-win!

Leverage AI for Improved Connectedness

Leveraging the AI features in Salesforce Service Cloud can assist your team in (ironically enough) better humanizing digital customer experiences. Features built into calling systems or live chat pull data from past experiences with a customer and their preferences to help service agents provide a more personalized experience.

Salesforce Makes It Possible

Salesforce provides companies with the tools needed to cultivate connections with customers and provide a seamless customer experience. The ability to turn massive amounts of customer data from across systems and departments into actionable solutions is truly a game changer for your customer experience.

WhiteRock Brings It All Together

Partnering with a team of Salesforce experts that you can trust and count on allows you to feel confident that your customer data is properly integrated into a single source of truth. We bring our knowledge of marketing and sales flows, digital transformation, and what “parts to order” for your business into this partnership. At WhiteRock, we take the time to understand your needs, and map out a plan to implement the right solution.

As your organization changes over time, you have us to keep your system aligned. We support you and set you up to exceed your customers’ expectations.

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