Here’s How to Get the Most Out of Salesforce
The issue:
Salesforce is built on providing the eCommerce and CRM tools of the future, which means they’re constantly changing and evolving. New products are frequently introduced, and existing products are consistently improved.
For Salesforce users, the downside of all this positive growth is keeping up with it. If you don’t know which resources to stay on top of in Salesforce, it’s easy to fall behind and in effect — not get the most out of your products.
Below are some essential resources that will help you keep up with new Salesforce releases, and get the most out of the Salesforce products you already own.
Just explore!
Take the time to explore each app for yourself. Click all the buttons and see what they do, try out every customization and tool there is. You won’t regret it.
Leverage training resources on Trailhead.
Salesforce Trailhead is a remarkable tool that offers a massive volume of online training videos that are all publicly available. These videos cover a wide range of Salesforce skills that anyone can use, no matter what level their knowledge is currently at. Everything you learn is logged and tracked through the Trail Tracker tool as well.
There are various community groups, workshops, events, mentorships, and certifications available as well.
Become a part of the Salesforce community.
Salesforce Ohana is Salesforce’s famous community of employees, customers, and partners who are dedicated to collaborating and helping each other problem solve. Chances are, they have already solved some of the problems you are encountering in your own Salesforce journey.
The release readiness success community group is an amazing place to go for all of your quarterly release and product questions. Salesforce admins frequently share how they are using new product features, and links to helpful articles are plentiful.
Stay on top of every quarterly update.
Four times a year, Salesforce will roll out the quarterly update. This will oftentimes include new products and features, as well as updates to existing ones. Here are a few ways you can always be ready for the quarterly update:
Know exactly what’s coming and when. The Salesforce Trust calendar provides any and all relevant dates for your Salesforce account, including the release schedules for quarterly updates. The Salesforce Release Notes are published in advance of every Salesforce release, and they will provide all of the information you will need to know before the update. The notes are released in HTML form, so you only have to read about the products you own or are interested in.
Test out new products/features before the release. There are two ways you can test out new Salesforce products before they drop.
Sandbox Preview. Prior to every quarterly release, Salesforce will give you a window of time where you can test out your existing customizations and compare them to features in the new release. Not only is this a great way to know what’s coming, it will also challenge you to improve the apps you already own.
The pre-release developer environment. Salesforce gives you access to a sign-up page before every release, where you can gain access to a free development environment to test out tools and build new features. The Release Readiness Weekly Update Topic will tell you when this sign-up sheet is posted.
Follow bloggers and influencers in your niche.
The Salesforce community is chalked full of content creators focused on solving any and all problems in the Salesforce universe. Chances are, the ones in your niche have already created step-by-step guides to solve some of your issues, or are using
Use customization and automation to save time and boost productivity.
Salesforce offers a wide range of customization options, such as the ability to fully personalize each team member’s dashboard to display their tasks, and detailed graphs of the progress they are making towards their goals.
Automation can be implemented in so many different areas. One of our favorites is the fully customizable email templates that Salesforce provides. There are templates for nearly every type of interaction a user will have with a customer and can be sent automatically.
Integrations between products.
There are a vast amount of tools available to integrate Salesforce apps which we won’t go into in this article. However, the bottom line is that Salesforce products are designed to work together, so prioritize integration anywhere it’s possible.
For example, let’s say that you are a clothing company, and a girl named Sally stumbles upon one of your products on Pinterest. Sally clicks a link to your site where she is immediately offered a 15% discount upon entering her email address. Sally enters it, browses the site, picks a product, and checks out. On the purchase confirmation page, the headline says: “Thanks for your purchase Sally!” and below are some other products that Salesforce recommends to her based on the products she browsed moments before. The next day a marketing email is sent to Sally that includes other products she is likely to buy.
For this situation to play out successfully, there are a variety of Salesforce products that must be integrated, such as Marketing Cloud, Email Studio, and Einstein.
Just like running a business, getting the most out of Salesforce means constantly learning, refreshing, and staying ahead of the curve. Success on this platform will come in small doses over a long period of time, and will largely depend on your long-term roadmap.
In this article, we tried to cover the essential resources that anyone can leverage to get the most out of their Salesforce. But at the end of the day, having a genuine conversation with an experienced Salesforce administrator can make an enormous difference.
Melon is always available to chat and discuss what your priorities are on Salesforce, and how to get there with as little friction as possible. Contact us here.