State Of Salesforce: Study Reveals Best Business Practices

State of Salesforce

Salesforce is the world's dominant CRM solution and the most-widely adopted cloud platform for sales, service, marketing and analytics.

Each year, Bluewolf, one of Salesforce's largest channel partners, surveys Salesforce customers to gain insight into the best business practices for using Salesforce.

This third annual study was compiled in collaboration with the MIT Sloan School of Management. The survey was comprised of more than 1,000 Salesforce customers. Fifty-nine percent of the respondents were managers or higher in their companies, and 27 percent were developers or administrators.

"This year’s State of Salesforce is our most ambitious report yet. We continue to look at the top initiatives companies are prioritizing for 2015, including product and cloud adoption metrics, and budget trends," said Bluewolf CEO Eric Berridge.

Key Findings

Almost half of C-level executives surveyed -- 46 percent -- said Salesforce has measurably improved their customer experience. Another 34 percent cited innovation as their top technical challenge.

Revenue growth and improving customer experience were cited three times more often than any other business challenge.

Business Outcomes Drive Strategy

Digital disruption and customer empowerment have restored the core focus of many companies back to the key drivers of success: business outcomes, such as growth and savings.

Just over half of the survey's respondents -- 51 percent -- said using Salesforce has improved top-line growth and bottom-line savings.

"Technology should align to business strategy, not drive it. Previously, business processes and employees were constrained to rigid technology, and market competitiveness was limited by a company’s ability to scale infrastructure," the Bluewolf report said.

Customer Engagement Powers Growth

Companies are focusing on customer engagement and investing in ways to measure how effectively employees engage customers, especially frontline employees who most-directly interact with them.

Of the respondents, 53 percent say they are investing in programs to measure customer engagement -- twelve percent are doing so substantially.

"Engagement is the currency that allows brands to improve market share, wallet share, customer retention and cost containment," the report said.

For 37 percent of respondents, using Salesforce has measurably improved the customer experience.

The takeaway: "Measurement is only the start. Ensure investments cover programs that encourage public advocacy from customers. Leading organizations are investing in programs that reward customers for acts of public promotion."

Employee Engagement Improves Outcomes

Companies are increasingly investing in employee engagement, understanding that the more they implement solutions that positively impact their employees, the better performance they see from them when engaging customers.

Just over half of the respondents making those investments in employee engagement say they are maximizing Salesforce innovation potential. That number is only 30 percent for companies not making such investments.

One way companies can maximize employee engagement is by consulting with users before system changes are made. Of the respondents, 82 percent said they do just that.

Another way is investing in ongoing training and communication, and 73 percent of respondents told Bluewolf they provide training after new functionality is released.

Multi-Cloud Is The New Standard

Fifty-four percent of respondents use at least two of the four Salesforce clouds: Sales, Service, Community or Marketing.

With those solutions, companies have realized their business outcomes -- 66 percent are seeing efficiency and productivity gains, 34 percent are seeing better customer experience, 32 percent are seeing revenue growth and 21 percent are seeing cost reductions

"Salesforce.com has set the industry standard with solutions that impact the end-to-end customer experience. Companies are quickly taking a combined cloud approach in an effort to more broadly impact customer experience and business outcomes," according to Bluewolf.

Industry Customizations Yield Results

Fourteen percent of respondents said they are investing in industry-specific AppExchange solutions. But those that are making such investments see three times more innovation potential from the Salesforce platform.

A quarter of those that are investing in industry-specific AppExchange solutions are high-tech companies, and 18 percent are financial services companies.

"An industry-driven approach often solves specific business challenges and accelerates time-to-value. Regardless, industries are embracing an end-to-end approach in order to have the broadest impact on their customer experience," the report said.

Sales Leads Business-Driven Innovation

The maturity of Sales Cloud and the size of its user base are big incentives for developers to create a wide range of applications for that community. The following three sales AppExchange categories should see significant adoption in 2015:

Sales Intelligence -- Not only dashboards and BI tools, but also applications that inject prescriptive insight into a salesperson’s day.

Geolocation -- Strong adoption of mobile means applications that help salespeople manage their physical territories are in demand. Because three-quarters of Salesforce customers use the Salesforce1 Mobile App, a rise in mobile customization projects is likely.

Contract Management -- Companies have realized that enabling sales, finance and legal teams to share one system for generating, signing and approving contracts can result in a dramatic decrease in contract processing time.

The AppExchange Boosts Performance

With more than 2.5 million installs and 2,400 apps available, the Salesforce AppExchange will only continue to grow and become an even more valuable resource for companies, according to Bluewolf.

Of the survey's respondents, 60 percent have installed one to five AppExchange apps, 16 percent have installed up to 10 apps, 7 percent more than 10 apps and 17 percent have installed none.

Sales has the most solutions on the AppExchange -- 41 percent of the total. Advanced document generation saw the largest jump in investment in the past year.

Salesforce Enables Digital Leaders

In today’s competitive marketplace, two market trends are creating the need for digital transformation.

Customer Expectations -- digital has empowered customers by eliminating barriers to information. As a result, customers have higher expectations and less patience for difficult or unsatisfactory experiences.

Digital Disruptors -- Companies are taking advantage of new digital-driven models to disrupt the status quo and pioneer new products and services business.

"Leading companies are using Salesforce to meet rising customer expectations and achieve positive business outcomes," the report said. "Discussions on digital strategy tend to center around marketing and customer service. But to embrace digital, all employees must play a role. This is more than just an emerging technology or channel -- it is a business-wide shift and impacts product development, business models, operations and company culture."

Marketing's Vision Leads Digital Transformation

Marketing has been the quickest to adopt a digital mindset and address rising customer expectations, and marketing’s influence over company-wide change has grown.

More than 90 percent of respondents tell Bluewolf their marketing teams have a strong executive voice.

"With influence beyond direct customer acquisition, marketing is increasingly responsible for the entire customer experience," Bluewolf said.

Marketing's role has expanded to the entire customer lifecycle, and 64 percent of marketers place more value on existing customers than on acquiring new ones. But many marketers are struggling to measure complex metrics within Salesforce, such as content marketing, social activity and mobile engagement. Sixty-three percent said they don't have a single Salesforce dashboard to measure marketing activities.

Service Is The Command Center Of The Customer Voice

Service teams have more customer data and knowledge than any other department.

Fifty-four percent of service professionals surveyed said Salesforce delivers a better customer experience.

"By investing in Service Cloud, service organizations are unleashing data, making it more accessible across the company. With a single system to work, monitor and respond from, service teams have an integrated view of customer interactions, and are able to positively impact business outcomes," the report said.

"Advances in common channels, like email and phone, and new channels, like SMS and social, are enabling service teams to gather increasingly holistic and accurate data on customer satisfaction and experience," the report said.

Service Teams Are Investing In Three Key Initiatives:

Advanced Metrics -- Mature service centers have a single contact center dashboard that measures all customer-experience-related metrics. Traditional call center metrics, like first call resolution, are dropping in priority, while overall satisfaction metrics are on the rise.

Community Cloud -- Thirty percent of service departments are invested in Community Cloud. Bluewolf projects that to double over the next year.

Channel Integrations -- The right channel strategy is about focusing on the quality of the channels and finding those that bring the most value to the customer and your business. Of the respondents, 64 percent have three or more channels integrated with Salesforce, and 45 percent have integrated CTI with Service Cloud, enhancing customer interaction data.

Mobile Is The Cornerstone Of Digital Transformation

"Mobile is currently the single largest disruptor and enabler. Mobile devices and applications are getting smarter, and capabilities like push, geolocation and near-field communication are being combined with customer data to create enhanced frictionless experiences," the Bluewolf report said.

It's no surprise then that 45 percent of respondents said they plan to increase their investments in mobile in 2015

"Since its introduction one year ago, use of the Salesforce1 Mobile App has exploded," the report said.

In 2013, 42 percent used Salesforce1 mobile apps. This year, that number climbed to 89 percent. The survey also found that Salesforce1 mobile app users are twice as likely to build a custom mobile app on the Salesforce1 platform.

Salesforce Mobile Toolbox

Salesforce customers ranked mobile strategy as the top mobile challenge.

"Companies are still experimenting with building mobile experiences that meet the needs of their users and translate to positive business outcomes. While 'mobile-first' is top of mind for enterprises, lack of a collaborative, organization-wide mobile strategy is still a challenge," Bluewolf said.

The report listed three approaches to mobile Salesforce development: first-party Salesforce apps, off-the-shelf configurable apps and custom mobile applications.

"There is no one-size-fits-all approach to mobile development," the report said. "Successful strategies embrace the idea of an app suite -- a collection of tools, each individually targeted at specific workflows -- versus the ’kitchen-sink’ approach of one monolithic, do-everything app."

Unleash the Data

More than 70 percent of respondents said their companies will increase investments in analytics, and 20 percent will do so substantially. Almost 90 percent of sales teams use some BI or analytics tools.

"Data is at the very heart of digital transformation. With the explosion of channels and devices, more data is being captured about customers than ever before. Through the promise of analytics, organizations are racing to transform data into consumable insights that drive actions aligned to their business outcome objectives," the report said.

The report concluded that while extracting insights from data is complex, every department must focus on data to "achieve a holistic view of their customers and deliver relevant, actionable data from disparate systems to employees and customers."

Data Quality Is An Ongoing Initiative

Essential to any data strategy is master data management. Companies need to invest in ongoing programs to cleanse, enhance and back-up critical data.

Almost 40 percent of the survey's respondents said they are not confident in their instance's data. Just more than half are currently invested in data cleansing tools and 26 percent plan to invest next year. Some 19 percent rate their use of predictive analytics as 'mature'.

"When approaching all of the potential use-cases for predictive analytics, prioritize ones that involve frequently recurring decisions. They are easier to model than strategic decisions and will have the most impact," the report advised.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Tools Are Critical

As companies build and integrate more applications with Salesforce, they need tools to ensure new releases will not negatively impact existing workflows.

Some 18 percent of companies that responded to the survey said they are already using an ALM tool. Another 27 percent plan to invest in one.

Those considering an ALM tool for Salesforce should consider these four criteria: release planning, release management, environment management and quality assurance.

"Companies executing Salesforce releases at least quarterly that include custom code or a bi-directional integration should invest in Salesforce-specific tools that support release and environment management, as well as quality assurance," the Bluewolf report said.