A Salesforce project implementation requires close cooperation between the client and the Partner to be successful. As a Partner, we must fulfill the client’s needs, eliminating pain points in their processes and making their daily work as effective as possible. To achieve this and deliver a successful product, there needs to be an open and constant line of communication, keeping the client up to date on our progress, and also allowing the client to provide feedback on the features being delivered.
At the start of every Salesforce project, a clear guideline is presented to the client, explaining each phase of the project, the party responsible for its completion, and the expected timeline. Nonetheless, challenges often arise during implementation.
According to our experience over the years, these are the top implementation challenges and our strategies to overcome them:
- Process Structuring
- During the requirements-gathering phase, we usually meet with top management. Despite clearly requesting more hands-on people, the response is almost always that they shouldn’t be involved yet. However, we believe this is exactly the issue, because very often, the top management doesn’t have specific knowledge of how their processes actually work.
- It’s only during the implementation phase that we start realizing there are far more details about the process than initially indicated. This leads to greater complexity and changes to the customization, which consequently delays the overall project delivery.
- We believe that the Requirements-Gathering phase should always include two people from each department/area of the process that will exist in Salesforce – a manager and their employee. Prior to the requirements gathering with the implementation partner, these two individuals should have an internal meeting to discuss and document the end-to-end process (including other departments’ involvement), the pain points they are facing, and suggested improvements. With this structure already defined, the requirements-gathering session will be more efficient and quicker, ensuring the implementation partner has the right tools and information to proceed with development. It will also foster more confidence between both parties.
- User Acceptance Testing
- As an implementation partner, we rely on the client’s expertise of their own process to test all the developments, as per the requirements, and confirm that everything aligns with their day-to-day operations. The client’s involvement at this stage is crucial to the successful delivery of the project.
- The ideal testing environment should include one employee from each persona who will be using the platform. According to Salesforce best practices, these tests should take about two weeks to complete, including any necessary adjustments to the process. Unfortunately, the client is often unavailable to perform these tests within the allotted time frame, or with the ideal number of people to go through the entire process. This lack of availability results in further delays and potential flaws in parts of the process that may not have been thoroughly tested.
- Despite our complete understanding of the client’s process, we can never fully adopt their perspective during testing. If the client can organize a team of people responsible for the CRM implementation, the testing phase will proceed more smoothly and be completed closer to the assigned timeline.
- Data Migration
- By the time we reach data migration, all developments should be completed and properly tested by the client, so the data can be imported into the organization. Before the final import, however, the data must be cleaned and filtered by the client to ensure only the most important and up-to-date information is inserted into the platform. The last thing a new, improved process needs is dirty data, which can impact the effectiveness of the Salesforce platform.
- Unfortunately, cleaning data is a long and tedious process, so it is usually left for last by the client. Due to our experience with this part of the project, we always raise this topic early on – sometimes even during the Requirements-Gathering phase – to encourage the client to start filtering the data they want to import. This proactive approach can speed up the final stage of implementation once all the development is complete and approved.
- It is crucial for the client to assign people to manage the data migration and ensure it is properly cleaned. The implementation partner is not responsible for data cleaning, as we don’t have the knowledge of what information is crucial to retain.
- Training and User Adoption
- This is the final stage of Salesforce project delivery. All development, testing, and client approvals are concluded, and all users are ready to access the production environment. At this stage, we arrange a training session with all users and provide thorough training, both practical and theoretical, fully adapted to their customized platform. For some users, it may be their first time seeing and using the platform, which can lead to many questions. Since we’ve developed the solution according to the requirements, we try to clarify all doubts based on our knowledge of the platform. However, we often find that several employees are still struggling to accept the change and adapt to the new process. At this point of the project, our goal is to simplify the explanation as much as possible to help users understand how the new platform will improve their daily work.
- That said, it is not our responsibility to convince the client’s employees that the new platform will make their lives easier. This “convincing” happens throughout the development and testing phases, where they can prove it for themselves.
- To ease this transition, we recommend that the client send out an internal communication to all employees who will be using the platform, prior to Go-Live phase. This communication should explain the context of the training, what is expected of them and clarify that their involvement and partnership with us is necessary to reach the final goal. This information will make them feel part of the project, even at a final stage, which we believe will also make them feel more engaged and will likely be more receptive to the changes.
A Salesforce project requires a great deal of willingness and availability from the client. As a Partner, we need to understand every part of their process and all its intricacies. There must be a high level of trust and confidence from the client that we will deliver a competent and efficient solution. For this to happen, the client must have the right mindset and be open to change. When we meet a client with these characteristics, we can deliver the most successful projects. It’s easy to grow – Grow Simple.
