Chad Stewart, VP, Global SaaS Support Services
“Today’s Salesforce services market has a notable gap in post-implementation support for platform efficiency, productivity, and growth. Many Salesforce customers struggle to find a partner with extensive CRM services experience, a deep understanding of how CRM best fits into their enterprise-wide strategic roadmap, and an established global infrastructure, with a base of highly-satisfied and loyal customers.”
-Matt Stava, CEO at Spinnaker Support, March 2020
When we launched Spinnaker Support’s new Salesforce managed services practice a year ago, we understood the market needed help with customer-relationship management (CRM) platforms. We knew companies struggled to maximize their Salesforce return-on-investment (ROI). Creating a highly-successful Salesforce environment requires technological know-how, an agile mindset, talent that can execute, and a strong commitment to stay current with new releases and features. Even to this day, companies routinely fail to do this in-house.
This highlighted another problem. Salesforce customers are underestimating their ongoing support needs after the completion of their implementation projects. Companies continue to find themselves ill-prepared when their expensive, full-time consultants rolled-off of the project.
Fast forward one year.
Salesforce hasn’t slowed a bit in building out its product line. It has re-configured applications such as Einstein Analytics (now Tableau CRM), CPQ & Billing (now Revenue Cloud), and Communities Cloud (now Experience Cloud). They acquired Slack and launched Hyperforce. Salesforce’s pursuit of a 360° customer view extends from sales all the way to the back office.
These platform expansions create new opportunities for businesses to automate their processes, better service customers, and generate more bookings. But taking advantage of this growing ecosystem and the three-times-per-year update releases, likely overwhelms Salesforce customers. Last fall, we conducted third-party research to validate customer aspirations and roadblocks as they navigate the Salesforce labyrinth.
These key findings continue to resonate with me:
- Only 40% of respondents said their organizations are very good at handling basic administration, while 60% reported delays or confusion
- 38% reported only marginal success with adding new features, and only 8% gave their organizations the top mark for this work
- Integration (30%), optimization (29%) of existing systems, and adding a new cloud (29%) were among the top reported Salesforce goals for 2021
- Most companies reported a lack of the right personnel or expertise to achieve the specific goals they have in mind (62%)
This research should provide a stark wake-up call for any company or organization that runs Salesforce. When purchasing the most innovative CRM platform, you pay for the research and development that Salesforce provides. Companies that underutilize the new features and products, or fail to improve integrations, miss out on the true ROI Salesforce can provide.
Salesforce customers face significant challenges in delivering sustainable innovation within their organizations. Unless you get more help, the odds of achieving your Salesforce goals are not very good. But between high-cost implementation services and low-value traditional managed service offerings, how do companies stay on top of their CRM investment?
Companies need a new Salesforce managed services model.
We launched our Salesforce services practice to address this escalating market need for more and better support. But we have added a dynamic new twist to the standard support model. Unlike traditional managed services firms that operate on a reactive “break-fix” model, Spinnaker Support delivers proactive service to its Salesforce customers.
What does proactive Salesforce service mean?
- Continuous innovation via an agile delivery framework
- Monthly releases of new features through our Center of Excellence delivery model
- Long-term Salesforce solution planning, including roadmap creation and consulting
This new model fills the void that exists between Salesforce support, traditional managed services, and implementation-only specialists. Our proactive service delivery model works perfectly in tandem with existing in-house teams or as an “admin as a service model.” From building a strategic roadmap, to aligning delivery capacity, to installing new features, we deliver business value every month.
Our customers experience what we call “gradual and consistent innovation.” This results in engaged users who increase data quality, business agility with system changes that can keep up, and an agile mindset and partnership between the Salesforce owner and the business.
The Spinnaker Support managed services model explicitly addresses the current void in Salesforce management and innovation. Our solution addresses the common issues such as skills gaps, reactive support, identifying the correct Salesforce solution, and the sporadic execution of platform initiatives. Spinnaker Support also has the expertise to align and integrate Salesforce with enterprise resource platforms such as Oracle, JD Edwards, and SAP.
Customer Success and Pillars of Success
Over the course of the next several months, I’ll elaborate on these topics and showcase Spinnaker Support user success stories. This blog series will detail our “pillars of success” that enable us to deliver the best possible Salesforce support. Our unique approach to continuous innovation, through our Center of Excellence, allows our customers to enhance their current Salesforce environment while we simultaneously execute on a roadmap to expand their footprint – cost-effectively.
Spinnaker Support is a long-term, strategic partner for companies that place a high value on regular, periodic improvement and maximizing their Salesforce investment. Our various managed services packages help companies overcome resource gaps so that they can take better care of customers and more quickly move deals through the pipeline.
Contact us today to see if our innovative approach to ongoing optimization, maintenance, adoption planning, and release readiness is right for you.
