The Ultimate Salesforce Implementation Checklist

The world’s #1 CRM, Salesforce, assists emerging businesses in organizing key operations and improving customer relationship management. Salesforce has the potential to give rise to unlimited opportunities when leveraged effectively. 

As Salesforce is a comprehensive and complex platform- it becomes challenging to customize and implement as the size of the company grows. For the best business outcomes, you need to know how to make the most of the CRM capabilities.

Selecting a reliable Salesforce consulting partner is crucial to avoiding unnecessary risks and carrying out the implementation process itself as effectively as possible.

To help you launch Salesforce at your workplace and get the best possible return on investment, we’ve included a detailed breakdown of the implementation steps.  

Salesforce Implementation Checklist

To get the most out of Salesforce, make sure to carefully consider each of the implementation activities on our checklist.

Set clear goals

With a variety of products, additional integrations, and features, Salesforce hosts a large number of software packages. When there are so many options and customizations available, it’s simple to lose sight of your goals.

You can find yourself setting high goals with the wrong tools. As you switch to Salesforce technologies, it’s crucial to establish a precise set of objectives.

Consider the following preliminary questions

• Which challenges is your company struggling with?
• What objectives do you have for your business?
• Where does Salesforce fit into the picture?

 The above-mentioned questions will have a strong impact on your final Salesforce solution. You ideally want to align your business pain points, goals, and Salesforce implementation. 

Try to set SMART goals that are

Specific, 

Measurable, 

Achievable, 

Realistic

&

Time-bound

Further, you want to break down the overall project into smaller targets because doing so will make it simpler for you to design an implementation plan and monitor the results.

Choosing the right Salesforce package

With your business objectives clear, it’s time for the next step. How to meet them?

The answer to this question becomes easy when you need only one Salesforce solution. But most businesses require a combination of packages to take care of their needs. Because of this, Salesforce provides full integration with all of its software solutions. 

Your business can achieve a 360-degree overview of your customers by investing in a comprehensive digital transformation that integrates several Salesforce solutions. Instead of focusing on what is least important to your organization, you can use robust CRM tools to drive extraordinary results. 

Risk evaluation

Like any other critical process, implementing Salesforce carries some risk. Recognizing the frequent issues enables you to prepare for them and think of solutions in advance.

• A lack of proper budget planning- results in an over budget project.
• Employees are not implementing best practices and are underutilizing the platform
• Wasting time on irrelevant features
• Poor Data Quality
• Project delay

Set a timeline for implementation

Since there are so many delicate aspects to the Salesforce implementation process, it cannot be rushed. Concerning your other important projects, your implementation project shouldn’t conflict/ overlap with them.

Apart from that, the availability of your team members can vary occasionally. For your project to be successful, you should also be mindful of the availability of other resources.

To establish an achievable timeline, you must have an open discussion with the experts. The implementation of Salesforce should maintain a timeframe that causes the least amount of disruption to your company possible.

Staff onboarding

People are at the center of strategic transitions. You need the right talent if you want your salesforce implementation to be effective.

You are likely to require various team resources to execute the Salesforce implementations, depending on the scale & time of release.

Try to assign distinct roles and duties to make sure your Salesforce rollout is effective and timely.

The advanced features of this user-friendly platform may require extra support for your staff, so be sure to put in place a training program that includes everyone on the team.

You must make sure to educate your staff both before and throughout project implementation.

Check your progress

To make sure you’re on track to hit your launch date, track your progress at all times.

While your success KPIs will be quite flexible and specific to the Salesforce product combination you choose, your performance metrics will represent your implementation goals for Salesforce.

Regardless of how extensive your project is, don’t forget to establish KPIs.

Data Cleansing

Data is essential to the success of a Salesforce implementation because, without it, your team will not be able to spot issues and take appropriate action to fix them. 

Try these to make sure your data is accurate:

✓ Evaluate the currently available data to see if it meets your requirements.

✓ Verify the accuracy and integrity of your current data sources.

✓ Check to see if any additional data is required for analysis.

✓ Decide which data to prioritize and which to overlook based on your goals.

Utilize customer feedback

After launching your Salesforce solution, interact with end-users and leverage their input. Get feedback from users to see whether they believe that their experience is getting better or not.

Make sure your team takes care of any end-user complaints and ensure that all inquiries are answered.

Summing up

Deploying Salesforce solutions can initially appear intimidating. With so much to choose from, it’s simple to lose sight of the original objective of your business. It may be challenging to comprehend Salesforce’s standards, features, and pricing options. It’s understandable that potential users feel overwhelmed given the planning and challenges required to adopt Salesforce quickly.

With almost 15 years of expertise, CEPTES is a globally recognized Salesforce implementation partner. We’ve teamed with businesses of various sizes and sectors, offering them our Salesforce knowledge and assisting them in unlocking growth potential.

Request a Consultation today.