December 3, 2020 | John Lange | Senior Manager, Product Marketing
The Salesforce portfolio offers a dizzying array of clouds, applications, and user resources – with three major release cycles per year. It can be quite the task to stay current on this non-stop innovation.
You may be wondering: “How do other companies perform at adding new Salesforce features and maintaining their existing environment?” We were, too.
To answer this question, we sponsored a third-party research project with Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) to identify and canvass dedicated Salesforce decision-makers and professionals. For two months this fall, TEC conducted its survey, eventually gathering responses from over 130 companies.
The resulting report, titled “Salesforce Customer Success: Roadblocks and Recommendations,” identifies the challenges that companies face to not only maintain but also improve their instance of Salesforce.
You can download the research here.
In Part 1 of this three-part blog series, we review several critical business scenarios that companies experience with Salesforce: 1) keeping up on the basics, 2) implementing new technology, and 3) finding the right talent.
Key Takeaway 1: Keeping Up on Basic Salesforce Tasks Needs Improvement
The survey asked participants how they would rate their company’s ability to perform Salesforce administration and maintenance. Most of the respondents (60%) indicated that their company does a “marginal job” at adding or removing users, addressing bugs, and handling seasonal releases.
This illustrates the primary challenge companies face with managing Salesforce. Many businesses – large and mid-size – often underestimate the resources needed to just keep up with the basics.
Key Takeaway 2: Many Companies Fail to Implement New Functionality
Considering that many companies struggle with the day-to-day execution of basic Salesforce management, it’s no surprise that companies would have a difficult time with innovation. Nearly 40% of the respondents indicated that adding new apps, functionality, and strategic workflow changes pose serious challenges.
We often hear this from our clients. Innovation deployment is one of the major reasons why companies choose to work with a managed services provider such as Spinnaker Support.
Key Takeaway 3: Lack of Talent Prevents Companies from Expanding Their Salesforce Environment
The research highlighted that the primary reason companies struggle with routine tasks and innovation is the shortage of talent to manage and improve their Salesforce systems. Over 60% of respondents indicated that not having the right personnel or expertise is the main roadblock they experience to achieve a better Salesforce experience.
As we noted earlier this year in a separate blog, the Salesforce skills gap is real, and companies should take action to ensure they get the most out of their Salesforce investment.
What Does This tell Us?
These results indicate that companies want to innovate and improve but are struggling to make it happen. That’s the challenge with Salesforce: To make it work, you need to continually invest in the platform.
Salesforce provides companies with a wealth of opportunities to manage important business processes – and they charge a premium for their service. Companies that sign up for Salesforce but then under-invest in managing and maintaining the platform are missing out on the full capability of the world’s most popular best CRM. So make sure you invest for ongoing maintenance and upgrades.
At Spinnaker Support we help you and your team realize the potential of Salesforce, cost effectively, through our various Managed Services packages.
Download the Full Research Report
This research provides you with a tool to benchmark your organization against others and identifies ways to improve your Salesforce investment. This survey report provides compelling details regarding the Salesforce practices of peer organizations. Our hope is that this will inform public and private discussions concerning Salesforce-related business strategies.
Download the complete research
