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Cultivating Connected Customer Experiences

Cultivating Connected Customer Experiences

Connected Customer Experience

Cultivating truly connected customer experiences is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a business imperative. According to Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer report, customers expect seamless, personalized, and consistent experiences across every interaction and channel.

Customer experience remains one of the strongest competitive differentiators for attracting and retaining customers. Today’s connected consumer values meaningful brand relationships and expects companies to know them, not just sell to them. Research shows that over 80% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services.

The Rising Bar for Connected Customer Experience

The pressure is on: while 73% of customers now say companies treat them as unique individuals (up from 39% previously), many still feel companies aren’t using their data to deliver real value. Only 49% of customers believe companies use their personal information in ways that benefit them.

Customers expect to be recognized as individuals with unique needs, preferences, and histories, whether they’re interacting via email, chat, phone, or in-person. They also want companies to engage with them at the right moment, through the right channel.

A truly connected customer experience integrates data and touchpoints across the organization, allowing every team – from sales to service to marketing – to act in sync. This level of alignment turns fragmented, frustrating experiences into smooth, personalized interactions that build loyalty.

How to Build Exceptional Connected Customer Experiences

Delivering personalized customer experiences requires intentional action. Companies that implement cross-channel strategies create consistency across every department that touches the customer, from initial inquiry through ongoing service and support.

Break Down Data Silos to Unlock Customer 360

Disconnected systems and siloed data make it nearly impossible to deliver a cohesive experience. The first step is organizing your data architecture around the customer, creating a unified Customer 360 profile accessible to your entire team.

When data flows freely between systems like your CRM, ERP, and marketing platforms, your teams gain full context for each interaction. With centralized customer data, you eliminate confusion and empower your staff to deliver proactive, relevant, and highly personalized service.

Integrated systems not only enhance the customer experience but also drive internal efficiency. When your team no longer wastes time chasing down scattered data, they can focus on building stronger customer relationships. In fact, 83% of customers say they’re more loyal to companies that provide consistent experiences across departments.

Use AI to Personalize Customer Interactions at Scale

AI-powered tools, like Salesforce Einstein and Service Cloud AI, are transforming how companies create connected customer experiences. AI can analyze historical interactions, customer preferences, and behavior patterns to guide service reps in real time, suggest next-best actions, and even automate routine communications.

Rather than replacing the human touch, AI helps your team deliver more empathetic, relevant, and timely interactions – at scale. Features such as AI-powered chatbots, intelligent case routing, and predictive service help streamline operations while improving customer satisfaction.

However, customer trust in AI remains a work in progress. Only 42% of customers currently trust businesses to use AI ethically, while 71% are increasingly protective of their personal information. Companies that lead with transparency, clear communication, and responsible AI practices will have a competitive edge.

Why Salesforce is the Foundation for Connected Experiences

Salesforce remains the leading platform for creating seamless, connected customer journeys. Its Customer 360 approach brings together data across sales, service, marketing, and commerce into one unified system, turning vast amounts of customer information into actionable insights.

With Salesforce, companies can:

    • Break down departmental data silos
    • Personalize every customer interaction
    • Automate processes for greater efficiency
    • Deliver real-time, AI-powered service and support
    • Build long-term customer loyalty

WhiteRock: Your Salesforce Partner for Connected Customer Success

At WhiteRock, we help organizations design, build, and optimize connected customer experiences on Salesforce. As a Salesforce implementation partner, we bring deep expertise in CRM integration, marketing automation, and AI-powered customer experience solutions.

We start by understanding your business goals, processes, and challenges, then map out a plan to configure Salesforce in a way that fits your unique needs, not a one-size-fits-all approach. As your business evolves, we stay alongside you, continually refining your CRM and related systems to ensure long-term success.

Whether you’re breaking down data silos, integrating new platforms, or implementing AI-driven service tools, WhiteRock can help you deliver the connected experiences your customers expect.

Reach out to us at learnmore@whiterocktech.net or via the form below to start the conversation.

Originally published November 2022. Updated with fresh insights June 2025.

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Is It Time for a Salesforce Check-Up? Assess Your Salesforce Utilization & Health

Is It Time for a Salesforce Check-Up? Assess Your Salesforce Utilization & Health

Salesforce Check-Up

With constant growth and changes to the Salesforce ecosystem and rapidly evolving business needs, how can you be certain about the health of your system? Are you confident that you are utilizing the latest and greatest Salesforce capabilities properly?

With your investment in Salesforce, as with any investment, it’s essential to regularly evaluate how your investment is paying off. So let’s discuss a few reasons why it may be time to evaluate your Salesforce ecosystem and next steps for assessing.

Importance of Continuous Evaluation & Improvement

Regular evaluations of your Salesforce system can give you peace of mind, particularly as you prepare for a new year. Additionally, conducting assessments can help with identifying potential issues and areas of improvement so you can address them proactively and avoid unwanted surprises. 

Salesforce Genie Readiness

Now may be an especially good time to consider a Salesforce Assessment for your business to see whether you are ready to leverage the power of Salesforce Genie. Salesforce just unveiled Genie at Dreamforce in late September. As the first-ever real-time CRM, Genie brings the power of in-the-moment data to Customer 360. You won’t want to miss out on Genie’s benefits!

Questions to Consider

With a healthy Salesforce ecosystem, your team should be able to answer these questions with confidence. Take a moment to think these through and consider whether it may be time to assess your system.

  • How accurate and up-to-date is our data?
  • Are we utilizing the 360 view?
  • How are our systems integrated? Is this integration automated?
  • Are we utilizing proper metrics?
  • Have we encountered new pain points since we last optimized our system? 
  • Can our system be better-optimized to address new pain points?
  • Are our reports and dashboards reflective of our performance? Are they easy to update?
  • Is our reporting structure appropriate for where our business is today? Will it be appropriate for tomorrow’s business?
  • Is Salesforce customized to our unique business needs?
  • Does our system meet the latest company security standards?

Considering these questions should assist you in determining your confidence level in the health of your Salesforce ecosystem. If your confidence level is low or unclear, further assessment may be an appropriate next step.

Salesforce Assessment Services

Having a third-party partner with an outside perspective come in and assist in gathering this information can be extremely helpful. 

At WhiteRock, we provide detailed assessment services to measure and learn how your Salesforce platforms are utilized and leveraged to meet your needs. We cover the details of the assessment in a workshop with your team to confirm findings and discuss options. After that, your team receives an assessment report detailing the findings, solutions, and the order of implementation of the changes found in the assessment (your CRM journey map). 

From there, you are welcome to use this assessment to tackle the needs identified. Additionally, if you would prefer, WhiteRock can tackle this for you and provide service with full accountability and reporting of progress throughout the journey.

Benefits of Working With A Salesforce Partner

Partnering with a team of Salesforce experts that you can trust and count on allows you to feel confident that your systems are running effectively.  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 as you serve your customers in an unavoidable, ever-changing environment. 

So, Are You Confident in the Health of Your Salesforce Ecosystem?

In our opinion, it is highly valuable to ask this question regularly and to pursue continuous improvement of your system. Above all, keep your organization confident that all systems are functioning as expected and that you are leveraging relevant features to help address your needs and achieve your goals. 

Increase the value of your Salesforce ecosystem with regular check-ups and improvements. If you have questions about how to begin this process, we’re here to talk this through or to provide an assessment for your business. Reach out to us at learnmore@whiterocktech.net or via the form below!

Is Your Customer Journey a Repeatable & Valuable Experience?

Is Your Customer Journey a Repeatable & Valuable Experience?

customer-journey-experience

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:

  1. They currently have no CRM
  2. They have a CRM but don’t use it
  3. 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.

Proper metrics drive great decisions

Proper metrics drive great decisions

 

Proper metrics great decisions

How do you know if your CRM system is REALLY working?

Sales metrics: How well are you closing valuable deals?

What does sales success look like for your business? Here are 5 metrics to measure sales team performance and CRM success.

Close rate

Your close rate is the number of deals closed compared to the number of leads in the pipeline. If you have 100 leads in your pipeline and only 10 close, your close rate is 10%.  It’s the holy grail of sales metrics.  Pretty much every sales team under the sun uses close rate as a measure of success — but close rate alone doesn’t always tell the whole story.

What’s the missing information?

  • Business 1 closes 75% of their deals.
  • Business 2 only closes 5% of their deals… but makes more money. How?!

Higher average deal size. Make sure to look at average deal size alongside close rate. How much are your closed deals actually worth? Compare your close rate for the six months leading up to the implementation of a new CRM system with the six months after. If your CRM’s doing its job, your close rate should increase.  If it decreases, it’s time to take a close look at your sales team productivity and the quality of your leads.

Upsell rate

Upselling: Convincing the customer to spend more than they originally planned. Your upsell rate is how many customers buy things that they weren’t originally planning to buy.  Let’s say you run sales for a home cleaning company. Upselling might involve selling customers:

  • A year’s worth of monthly cleaning, instead of purchasing month-by-month
  • Deep cleaning services instead of the basic option

If you convince 1 out of every 5 customers to upgrade their purchase, your upsell rate is 20%.  A CRM can help increase your upsell rate by helping you predict which leads are most likely to upgrade or buy other products. If finding predictors increases your upsell rate, congratulations — your CRM works.

Net-new revenue

New revenue means spend from new customers.  How long a customer stays “new” depends on your business model.

  • If you sell yearly subscriptions, new revenue is the revenue generated by customers within their first year.
  • If you sell one-time products, new revenue is the revenue generated by customers’ first purchases.

Why measure net-new revenue? It tells you how much money your sales team is making. Tracking new revenue and close rate tells you how valuable your newest batch of customers is.

What can you do with the right CRM in place?

  • You should be able to identify more high-value deals
  • You should be able to close more high-value deals
  • Your net-new revenue should steadily increase

Length of each pipeline stage

How long does the average lead stay in each stage of your pipeline?  Stages are the steps of your pipeline (or sales process). Tracking stages helps you find bottlenecks in your sales process (like if deals tend to get stuck in a certain pipeline stage).

Let’s say leads stay in the proposal creation step 10x longer than any other step. Sure, creating proposals takes time, but how can you help your sales team move these leads to the next step more quickly?

  • Is there a way to automate some of the proposal creation process?
  • Do you have proposal templates?
  • If so, are they easy to use (and is your team using them)?

The more effective your CRM system, the faster deals move through each stage of your pipeline. Which brings us to… 

Length of sales cycle

Also called lead velocity, which sounds more fun (and science-y). Lead velocity measures how long the average deal takes to close.  If a lead’s first conversation with your sales team is in early January, and they make a purchase or sign a contract in early July, your sales cycle is about six months long.

These two factors play a big role in length of sales cycle:

  • Number of decision makers involved
  • Cost of product or service

The more people involved in the decision to purchase, the longer it will take to close. Same goes for price: the more expensive the product or service, the longer the sales cycle.  Those factors are out of your sales team’s control. But you want to speed up the sales process and close deals more quickly.  Which is exactly what CRM software was made for.  CRM makes your sales process more efficient, meaning you can sell more in less time. A match made in heaven!

Keep an eye on this metric over time as a way to measure CRM success.

Marketing metrics: Are you marketing the right message to the right people?

Is your marketing team making the most of CRM? Here are 5 metrics you can use to measure marketing success.

Customer lifetime value (CLTV)

This metric predicts how much revenue you can expect from a single customer account.

To calculate CLTV, you need 4 pieces of information:

  • Average purchase value: Your company’s total revenue over the course of a year divided by the number of purchases that year.
  • Average purchase frequency rate: The number of purchases over the course of a year divided by the number of unique customers who made purchases that year. This tells you how many times per year the average customer buys from you.
  • Average customer value: The average purchase value multiplied by the average purchase frequency rate. This estimates how much money the average customer spends with you per year.
  • Average customer lifespan: How long the average customer continues to purchase from your business.

Once you have all the above info handy, multiply average customer value by the average customer lifespan. Voila: your company’s average CLTV.

The right CRM helps you:

  • Increase the average customer lifespan by improving retention and satisfaction
  • Target more high-value leads through your marketing

When your customers spend more and stay longer, your CLTV goes up.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Your CAC is the total sales and marketing spend required to close a customer:

Effective CRM helps you lower your CAC by:

  • Targeting more qualified leads
  • Automating sales and marketing tasks

When you target more qualified leads, you close more deals. Automation makes your marketing team more efficient, which saves you time and money. Combine the two? Your CAC will drop.

Revenue generated by campaign

How do you know that your email marketing campaigns work? Sure, you’re getting clicks and your unsubscribe rate is low, but how does a series of emails contribute to your company’s bottom line?  This metric answers just that. If you run an ecommerce business, this metric is especially important. The goal for (almost) all email campaigns: to convince people to buy from you.

Breaking down how much you make from each campaign can help you identify what resonates with your customers. This lets you test and improve:

  • Email length
  • Calls to action
  • Subject lines
  • Images
  • “From” field
  • Number of emails in the campaign
  • Much more!

CRM gives you insight into customer behavior and preferences. Knowing what your customers want helps you send the right messages to the right people.

Email list growth rate 

This metric measures how much your email list grows over a certain time period.

To calculate email growth rate:

  • Subtract the number of unsubscribes from the number of new subscribers
  • Divide by the total number of contacts on your list
  • Multiply by 100

Say you have 500 new subscribers and 50 unsubscribes. Your list has 5,000 contacts total. Here’s the math:

  • 500 new subscribers – 50 unsubscribes = 450
  • 450 / 5,000 = 0.09
  • 0.09 x 100 = 9% email list growth rate

 

Your CRM helps your marketing team increase this metric with:

  • More opportunities for opt-in forms (pop-ups, gated content, etc.)
  • More targeted emails → fewer unsubscribes

Customer service metrics: How well are you meeting your customers’ needs?

You might think of CRM as a way for sales and marketing to gain new customers — but it can also work wonders for keeping your existing customers happy. Here are 4 customer service metrics to measure.

Net promoter score (NPS) 

How likely are your customers to recommend your business to someone else? NPS answers that question on a scale from 1 to 10.

To measure NPS, you need to send customers a survey with some variation of these questions:

  • On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?
  • What made you choose that score?

Respondents are broken into three categories:

  • Promoters (9-10): People who are really pumped about what your business has done for them (and want to shout it from the rooftops!)
  • Passives (7-8): People who get what they want from your business, but aren’t particularly excited about it
  • Detractors (0-6): People who had a less-than-great experience and are likely to switch to a competitor

What does NPS have to do with CRM? (Besides fun acronyms?)

  • CRM helps personalize the customer experience, which makes people happier (and more likely to give you a higher score!)
  • CRM keeps all customer info in one place, letting you see a customer’s NPS and how it changes over time at a glance
  • CRM lets you automate sending out NPS surveys and reporting on the findings.

You can automate sending out NPS surveys through ActiveCampaign. In this automation, NPS surveys are sent only to customers who have been active for longer than six months.

One caveat of NPS…

Before you get too excited about measuring NPS, you should know that this metric has its fair share of data-backed criticisms.

  • NPS is not a strong indicator of retention
  • NPS rarely correlates with churn

If you’re looking for a metric to predict churn and revenue, look elsewhere — like to your financial and retention metrics.  As Patrick Campbell of ProfitWell says, “NPS is still useful, but likely only as a framework for identifying those customers on an individual basis who are raising their hands in frustration.”  Where NPS really shines is as a pulse check at the account level. Regularly collecting customer feedback helps you address customer frustrations and stop would-be bad reviewers in their tracks.  You can also use NPS to find your biggest potential brand advocates. Right after a customer gives you a high NPS is a great time to automatically follow up and ask them to review you (or ask for a customer story).

Churn rate 

The dreaded churn.  This metric tells you how frequently customers leave. It’s the opposite of your retention rate. To calculate churn rate, divide the number of churned customers by your total number of customers.  68% of customers who churn do so because they believe you don’t care about them. CRM makes it easier to prove that you do. Track customer interests, activity, and interactions, then use that information to:

  • Send personalized emails based on previous purchases
  • Ask for customer feedback
  • Reward customers for hitting certain milestones

The more appreciated and listened to your customers feel, the more likely they are to stick around.  Another way to lower churn with your CRM: look at accounts who have churned in the past. What do they all have in common? Keep an eye on indicators that a customer might churn, then work with at-risk accounts before it’s too late.

Average time to resolution 

The right CRM system should lighten the team’s workload and help them serve customers more efficiently.

Average time to resolution: How long does it take your customer service team to resolve the average support ticket after it’s been opened?(Pro-tip: Measure this metric in business days or hours so that it doesn’t factor in off-hours.)

Look at your overall average time to resolution, then drill down to a rep-by-rep level. If certain reps take way longer than others to resolve tickets, make sure they have the right tools and training they need. Analyzing this metric can help you figure out where certain reps might be struggling.  If your CRM works (and your team knows how to use it), the average time to resolution should decrease. We’ll get into the “why” in just a minute, but first…

Average number of follow-ups per ticket

Lucky number 13. How many callbacks or emails does it take for the average issue to be resolved?  This dives a little deeper than the average time to resolution. It doesn’t take into account how quickly the rep or customer replies. Instead, it measures how effective the responses are.  How can CRM help you lower these two metrics?  Make sure your support team gives customers the most relevant and tailored info the first time around.  CRM software makes it easy to see everything about your customer — behavior, preferences, activity, previous support tickets — in one place. Use it! Incorporate this information into the solutions you offer customers. The more background your customer service team has, the better (and faster) they can help your customers solve their issues.

Run the right CRM reports to measure success

Use these CRM metrics as a starting point — but don’t feel pressured to use all of them. Choose the KPIs that measure the things you want to improve.  Your KPIs should tie closely to the goals you set as part of your CRM strategy — why did you put this new CRM system in place originally? Make sure you’re measuring how well you’re meeting those original needs. (If you set SMART goals, you’re already halfway there.)

Once you know what you want to measure, you need to figure out how to measure it. Many CRMs offer built-in reporting that lets you track the same sales, marketing, and customer service metrics we just ran through.

Here are 4 popular CRM reports you can run to measure some of your chosen metrics:

Sales forecast report 

A sales forecast report uses your lead data and sales trends to predict future revenue.

With ActiveCampaign, you can use win probability to take revenue prediction one step further. Win probability uses machine learning to analyze hundreds of factors, then predicts how likely you are to close a certain deal.

Win probability helps you figure out which actions lead to closed deals and which are unimportant.

Sales conversion report 

This report tells you what percentage of leads convert within a certain date range — aka your close rate.

You can break this report down by lead source to see where these leads came from. Do more inbound leads close vs. outbound leads? What about leads from social media vs. organic search?

This report has the answers.

Sales performance report 

sales performance report gives you a leaderboard view of your sales team’s current and historical performance. These are the KPIs for this dashboard:

  • Sales performance metrics, including total deal value, total number of deals, and average deal value
  • Bar graphs depicting the deal value by stage and number of deals for each sales representative on your team
  • A table of each deal in a pipeline with deal owner and deal value
    Deals sorted by Deal Status (Open, Won, or Lost), Currency, or Pipeline

In ActiveCampaign’s CRM, this graph breaks down the total deal value and total number of deals by stage. This can help you ID bottlenecks and inefficiencies in your sales process.

Lost deals report 

Analyzing your wins feels great, but don’t forget to learn from your losses, too. Finding out why someone said ‘no’ to your business can be even more important than knowing why someone else said ‘yes.’

A lost deals report shows you which deals your team didn’t close — and why. Use this report to:

  • Find common reasons that leads fail to close
  • Figure out how to handle those objections from other leads as they come down the pipeline

The (success) story is in the data

“Data, I think, is one of the most powerful mechanisms for telling stories. I take a huge pile of data and I try to get it to tell stories.” – Steven Levitt, Co-author of Freakonomics

Measuring the right metrics can be the difference between a success story and a cautionary tale. If you know how to measure your CRM success, you can keep track of how close you are to reaching your goals.

If you find yourself off-track, be willing to test different ways of using CRM to meet your business goals. Try something new, measure the results, rinse, and repeat. You got this!

Maximizing Salesforce Potential: Leveraging ISV Partners for Tailored Solutions

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.

      CRM coordinates the efforts for the customer

      CRM coordinates the efforts for the customer

      CRM

       How Do You Know If Your CRM Is Adding Coordination Value?

       

      Have you ever thought about the value that a coordinated business flow has to your team and your customers?  In my mind, this is such a big deal.  Why is this a big deal?  Here are some of my thoughts related to a coordinated business flow for your team and your customers.

      1. Like a perfectly executed double-play in baseball, it begins by knowing what to do before the play occurs. In business, that translates into what to do for a new-found buyer of your products and/or services.  It stands to reason that if your buyers all have similar characteristics and needs then your process for converting the prospect into a buyer should be the same.  Like turning a double-play with two outs and a man on 3rd with a left-handed batter.  Thus, a coordinated business flow begins with consistently handling the steps from prospect to customer by your team by role.
      2. The business flow is as good as your data inputs related to the people in and around your business. I can’t tell you how many instances where we have been asked to come help an organization with their CRM that is full of empty fields, irrelevant information, and poor quality data in the contact records.  I’ll ask why they have all of those empty fields and the response is usually something like “our IT guy said these are good fields to have”.  I’ve been in technology and innovation for over 30 years and I promise you that is not the person to be laying out what your operations, sales, and marketing people need to see as they do their jobs.  We work tirelessly for our customers to focus on easy to input, highly valuable, less is more type data for all records.  We focus on not just this but how can we protect that field from input errors as well as how can we populate a field automatically based on the input of another field.  This drives consistency and a coordinated value for our customers.
      3. The outcome of items 1 and 2 are that the reporting and forecasting results are accurate and reliable for decision making. How many times have you experienced a revenue forecast change at the last minute before a board meeting?  Tough to explain a material change to the board when prior forecasts were different.  Even worse, the cash projections that follow the revenue forecast are off so now the bank and/or CFO are up in arms.

      CRM is so valuable to an organization when executed properly.  I’ve seen enough instances where the execution as been poor and not only is there no value from a coordinated team but there are so many other problems that get created that really adversely position an organization.

      Are you finding that this is happening with your team?  Call me.  We can solve this for you and it won’t break the bank.