1. 11 steps to success
with Salesforce®:
Shifting from adoption
to addiction
By Daniel Plume for NewVoiceMedia
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2. For significant revenue growth, it is critical
sales teams are engaged and operating at
their highest potential, completely aligned to
corporate objectives. For most of us that means
investing in world-class productivity tools such as
Salesforce® for our sales and marketing teams.
In order to support informed sales and marketing investment
decisions, a growing reliance is placed on the accuracy of
the data maintained within the CRM system. It is therefore
imperative your CRM system has a complete and accurate
dataset that can be used with confidence as the single
source of truth at all times.
However, sales reps often view the use of a CRM system
as a burden on their day, something useful for management
but delivers little value to them. As a result, if the day-to-day
users fail to see the value and are simply not engaged and
using the system, it is highly likely you are failing to achieve
your objectives.

3. A well-implemented CRM system supporting a highly
engaged sales force delivers many benefits, for example:
For sales managers
• The delivery of “believable” pipeline reports in
real-time that drive accurate revenue forecasts
• The ability to measure prospect interaction touch
points and ensure deals forecast to close receive
appropriate attention
• The ability to benchmark and assess current sales and
marketing processes against industry gold standards,
eliminating wasted cycles and squeezing the most from
expensive sales and marketing resources
• A customer and prospect “interaction memory” that
allows for better decision making and highly targeted
marketing campaigns
For sales
• A sales enablement tool that turns every rep into a
one-person sales and marketing machine; increasing
individual productivity and effectiveness and boosting the
chance of over-achievement against target
• A richer understanding of customers and prospects
leading to faster lead conversion and expanded cross
and up-sell opportunities
• A collaboration tool for effective team selling and faster
prospect and customer issue resolution
• Targeted sales coaching based on factual data gained from
insight into where reps are actually spending their time
In both cases the ultimate outcome is revenue
growth, which in turn fuels personal success!

4. We all know Salesforce® is only as good as the data
being captured by users. If you have an issue with low
user adoption, then it is likely you also have poor data
quality. This in turn will result in sales management making
inaccurate revenue forecasts and other departments, such as
marketing, making business investment decisions based on
data that represents only a fraction of the truth.
So, if you are launching Salesforce® to your sales,
marketing or customer service teams, or if you are
thinking of re-launching; here are 11 tips you should
review to ensure you are set for long-term success.

5. Your CRM vision allows your employees to understand
what the ideal customer experience should be. Are you able
to articulate the definition of sales and service excellence for
your organisation?
This has to come from the top, with a senior executive owning
the vision, motivating staff to understand, engage and buy
into achieving the vision and to execute it with customers
and prospects.
This will allow you to further differentiate your core
business proposition with customer interaction excellence.
1. Document your CRM vision
and align executive sponsorship Example CRM vision statements:
Build and maintain long-term relationships
with customers by creating personalised
experiences across all touch-points and by
anticipating customer needs and providing
customised offers.
Deliver a customer experience that
consistently develops enthusiastically
satisfied customers in every market in
which we do business.
We will be a leading financial services
company which is trusted by you and
renowned for getting it right.
“ “
“ “
“ “

6. These are the clear, measurable strategies and
KPI’s supporting your vision. You will find a common
list of compelling business strategies driving most
CRM initiatives with “Revenue Enhancement” and
“Customer Satisfaction” usually somewhere near
the top. However, most organisations have multiple
objectives behind their CRM initiatives and successful
leaders do a good job of documenting these
objectives in the form of CRM metrics.
Evaluate your overall business strategy
Gather the metrics used by executives in your
organisation to measure customer facing
departments
Audit your current customer position
Seek input from multiple sources on the
current causes of customer pain
Document your CRM strategies including business
objective, problem, solution, and metrics for success,
to create the desired customer experience.
2. Document CRM success strategies
and metrics
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There are 5 simple steps to developing your CRM
strategies and KPIs:

7. Your CRM metrics enable you to manage, track and
evaluate your success. CRM metrics are both internal and
external indications of accomplishment. They are used to
justify, monitor, and track CRM success and are a feedback
mechanism for the continuous development of CRM
strategies and tactics.
Success metrics should be tied to compensation for all
employees and ideally tracked and monitored within your
CRM system using real-time performance dashboards.

8. Sales Metrics Service Metrics Marketing Metrics
Number of prospects Customer satisfaction score Number of campaigns executed
Number of new customers Average number of cases handled New customer retention rates
Number of retained customers Average number of service calls per day Number of leads by campaign type
Number of open opportunities Average time to resolution Revenue generated by campaign
Close rate Cost of service Number of customers acquired by campaign
Renewal rate Average handle times Numbers of customer referrals
Number of sales calls Average talk time Pre-pipe to pipe conversion rate
Number of sales call per opportunity Average hold (wait) time Pre-pipe drop off rate
Amount of new revenue Number of escalations
Amount of recurring revenue Compliance with service SLAs
Amount of cross-sell / up-sell revenue Number of hand-offs to low cost channels
Time to close by channel Number of product bugs raised
Margin Customer defection rate
Sales stage duration Complaint time to resolution

9. CRM calls for a fresh approach to business processes,
rethinking how they appear to the customer and reengineering
them to be more customer-centric so they deliver greater
customer value and satisfaction.
Many enterprises fall into the trap of automating existing flawed
sales and service processes. If you haven’t already, you should
use your CRM deployment as an opportunity to re-think,
automate and streamline your customer facing processes.
This should be an iterative review process that suits the
dynamic nature of your business. As your business grows
and changes along with the advent of new customer
communication mechanisms such as social media, you
will need to constantly review these processes.
3. Continually review
customer facing processes

10. Communicate the vision, plans and
report progress often
Listen early and regularly to all user feedback
Re-launch at regular intervals to keep the
system alive
You should plan and invest for a proper launch of your Salesforce® investment. To maximise
adoption you should allocate sufficient funds for the initial and ongoing training of your users.
Six quick tips for success:
Leverage executive sponsorship and use this to
endorse all communications
Don’t roll out too much at once, drip feed new
functionality slowly
Invest in training users regularly, at launch and
with frequent training updates.
4. Plan for a proper launch (or re-launch)
and invest in adequate training
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11. CRM success demands high data quality. A poor initial data
load or an inability to keep data clean will result in users
rapidly disengaging from the system.
A recent PwC Global Data Management Survey found:
• 75% of respondents reported significant problems as
a result of defective data
• 50% had incurred extra costs due to the need for
internal reconciliations
• 33% had been forced to delay or scrap new systems
• 33% had failed to bill or collect receivables
• 20% had failed to meet a contractual or
service-level agreement
5. Place a strong focus on
initial and on-going data quality

12. Avoid the temptation to roll out lots of additional mandatory
fields; it is the fastest way to turn users off and drive down
adoption rates. Roll out the system and introduce changes
gradually, ease of use is critical to success.
Think very carefully about what data it is absolutely vital
for you to collect during each stage of the prospect /
customer interaction process and what is really just “nice-
to-have”. Contemplate deferring certain pieces of data
collection to later in the sales process for example, making
additional fields become mandatory when the sales stage
advances beyond a certain point, and so avoid the need
for collection too early.
6. Keep it simple –
ease of use is key

13. Ensure every manager conducts every sales meeting from
within Salesforce® using the dashboards and underlying
data to evaluate every individual opportunity. Ask your
sales managers to adopt the attitude, “if it isn’t in the CRM
application it doesn’t exist”, as this is a sure fire way to
increase user adoption.
Coach every manager to not just use the CRM application to
manage by numbers, but to use the tool to help coach sales
reps, to make sure all bases are covered in every deal, and
to ensure your chosen sales methodology is being carefully
adhered to.
7. Insist managers manage
with the application

14. Conduct regular reviews to ensure Salesforce® continues
to reflect the current business process. If the process has
changed and fields have become redundant, remove them
from view. Keep screens uncluttered and the data collection
process smooth and easy to understand.
Before building new functionality consider reviewing the
AppExchange® to see if there are tools already available
for the community that would meet your needs and can
be quickly and easily incorporated into your processes.
8. Be strict about your change
management process

15. Encourage users to adopt Chatter as a mechanism to share
experiences, best practices and to solve customer and
prospect issues faster. Switch on Chatter for those objects
where it makes sense for automated data sharing via Chatter
feeds and email digest reporting, enabling users to join in with
relevant discussions and areas they can contribute towards
and drive success.
Train every user in the use of search, reports and analytics
so they understand the ease and value of how to access and
report on their own data. One of the biggest adoption barriers
is the perception of users that it is easy to enter data, but hard
9. Encourage collaboration,
sharing and reporting
to extract information and get value from it. Once trained in
the ease and power of reports and dashboards this adoption
barrier diminishes rapidly.
Teach users the power of the personal productivity tools
that will enhance their daily lives, turning them into one-
person sales and marketing machines. For example the use
of mass email, HTML email tracking, Salesforce for Outlook
and Stay-in-Touch reminders are all fantastic productivity
enhancements that are often overlooked.
for the community that would meet your needs and can
be quickly and easily incorporated into your processes.

16. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that “if you build it they will
come”. If you launch a sophisticated CRM system such as
Salesforce® it doesn’t necessarily follow you will get good user
adoption. Think of adoption as a behavioural issue you will
need to embrace.
To start with you need to overcome the typical sales view that
the CRM system is a management tool that adds no value to
them. To solve this, you will require the use of motivational
techniques such as the introduction of regular rewards, which
include peer recognition for doing the right thing. The use of
the stick, which is the first resort of sales managers, is proven
not to work and can often have a negative effect on morale
over the medium and long term.
10. Turn change into a positive
and fun process
Appeal to the fact sales professionals have a highly
competitive nature. The introduction of leader boards,
points, badges and rewards are a sure fire way to get them
motivated. Hook it all up to Chatter to communicate progress
and generate wider peer recognition and even the staunchest
resistance will crumble!

17. The final step on this journey to CRM success with Salesforce®
should be to evaluate computer telephony integration, or CTI,
to create a single customer success platform designed around
customer interaction.
CTI delivers some exceptional benefits to your Salesforce®
investment, including things like:
Improve your sales teams’ activity with
click-to-dial
Simplify coaching and sales team management
11. Integrate your communications
platform with Salesforce®
Integrating your communications platform with
Salesforce® creates a single user interface for your
sales and service teams. Making it their single view of
the truth and their only required business application
means adoption comes as standard.
Track and record all your activities inside
Salesforce® for deeper insight into your sales and
service departments
Improve first contact resolution and reduce
average handling times through intelligent routing
Offer your callers powerful self-service or an
option to connect to a live agent through an
intelligent and integrated IVR
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18. 1. Document your CRM vision and align executive
sponsorship
2. Document CRM success strategies and metrics
3. Continually review customer facing processes
4. Plan for a proper launch (or re-launch) and invest in
adequate training
5. Place a strong focus on initial and on-going data quality
6. Keep it simple - ease of use is key
7. Insist that managers manage to the application
8. Be strict about your change management process
9. Encourage collaboration, sharing and reporting
10. Turn change into a positive and fun process
11. Integrate your communications platform with Salesforce®
Simply by embracing the final recommendation and
introducing game mechanics into the adoption equation
can drive significant results. Through our customer
implementations we have seen some truly surprising
outcomes that include:
In summary, to truly drive a successful CRM implementation
and gain the greatest return from your investment, pay close
attention to the following 11 areas:
Conclusion
★ 50% increase in user adoption
★ 60% increase in social collaboration
★ 25% increase in lead conversions
★ 20% sales productivity
★ 30% reduction in sales cycles

19. To find out more about gamification and its huge
potential for your business head to our website:
Gamification for Sales
Gamification for Service
To find out more about integrating
your communications platform with
Salesforce® head to our website
ContactWorld for Sales
ContactWorld for Service

20. Daniel curates the creation and distribution of marketing
content at NewVoiceMedia. Daniel has worked in the
telecommunications and IT sector for 5 years, almost
exclusively with cloud technology. In his spare time he is
a keen sports enthusiast, playing cricket throughout the
summer, football in the winter, and can be found playing
darts mid-week.
About the Author

21. NewVoiceMedia powers customer connections that
transform businesses globally. The leading vendor’s award-
winning cloud customer contact platform revolutionises the
way organisations connect with their customers worldwide,
enabling them to deliver a personalised and unique
customer service experience and drive a more effective
sales and marketing team.
For more information visit www.newvoicemedia.com
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