Salesforce CRM tools are dynamic and quite robust. These tools are designed with both the customer and the end-user in mind. Your business is empowered to track contacts, assist customers, address concerns, find solutions, and provide value. Salesforce makes it possible for you to put customer success first, and as a result, focus on your business performance.

We’ve got Salesforce, but we’re not using it as well as we should. What can we do better, and how can you help? As a Salesforce Service Partner, we hear this all the time.

You want to improve your business by using Salesforce, the most comprehensive CRM solutions available today. It is a complete software as a service (SaaS) platform designed to provide businesses of all sizes with effective solutions throughout the entire customer lifecycle.

Salesforce also has a proven track record of providing unparalleled data security and innovative business solutions. With dozens of CRM tools on the market, and more being introduced every year, Salesforce has maintained its superiority through constant adaptation and innovative business solutions. It has been able to remain relevant and cutting-edge in a continually changing market.

On top of all of that, Salesforce offers nearly limitless personalization and customization options along with the best CRM apps available today. With Salesforce CRM capabilities already operating client/business interactions across a range of industries, Salesforce-optimized apps are extending CRM. They are also improving other business processes and are revolutionizing businesses, both large and small.

The broad range of Salesforce products includes:

• Sales Cloud — helping you find more customers, accelerate sales productivity, and close deals faster.

• Service Cloud — supporting customers from anywhere and holding seamless conversations throughout your organization.

• Marketing Cloud — tools to unite marketing and sales on one platform and to engage with clients via different channels.

• Commerce Cloud — creating a personalized shopping experience.

• Community Cloud — building communities for employees, partners, or vendors to improve engagement.

• Quip — a collaboration platform to organize your team’s work.

• Salesforce Platform — a unified platform that allows you to customize solutions, build your apps, add security levels, etc.

So how do you use these tools to your advantage? Let’s focus on three areas Sales, Marketing, and Analytics.

Sales

Goal: You want to develop an effective and repeatable sales cycle.

The first step to improving sales using any CRM is automating your sales pipeline. No more waiting for a forwarded email or faxed contract. Salesforce Sales Cloud is designed to take you from lead to sale to future forecasting with minimal repetition of the task and maximum time to connect with your client.

At Cloud Next Level, we can help you get your system set up so your sales team can do what they do best – sell. Sales Cloud features include:

• Account and Contact Management – Giving you a 360-degree picture of each client by tracking their activities, contacts, communications, and discussions.

• Opportunity Management – Helps Team members stay informed about deals, product tracking, payment, delivery terms, and other details in real-time mode and can step in help when needed.

• Lead Management – Routing your leads to the right sales rep will expedite conversion from lead to a sale.

• Mobile – Your phone is your office for some days. Salesforce mobile access puts information at your fingertips – literally!

• Sales Forecasting – AI-driven algorithms make accurate forecasts based on all the available information. Provide timely updates and necessary adjustments, set reasonable goals, and track your team members’ performance.

Marketing

Goal: Use marketing automation to streamline your lead to the sales process.

A unified marketing automation tool eliminates the need to deliver information and content on multiple platforms. Salesforce Marketing Cloud can consolidate your marketing process in one easy-to-use interface. Features include:

• Journey Builder – to make connections across all channels and power 1-to-1 relationships with clients.

• Email Studio, Data Studio, Social Studio, Advertising Studio, Mobile Studio, and Interaction Studio – All built to personalize campaigns and engage with clients across multiple channels

• Pardot – A favorite of Cloud Next Level, is a service to support the B2B segment, coordinating the actions of the marketing and sales departments when working with corporate clients.

Analytics

Goal: To track and analyze customer activity in or to better anticipate customer needs.

It goes without saying that with better data analytics, you can make better decisions for your company and your customers. Who doesn’t want to maximize their efficiency and impact at the same time? Salesforce offers countless ways, LITERALLY COUNTLESS, to analyze your data and use your time better. Here are just three of the analytics features that Salesforce offers and that Cloud Next Level can help you use better.

• Salesforce Analytics Cloud – This product was already robust.  Now with the integration of Tableau, it’s even easier to use and more intuitive in creating the data insights that your company needs.

• Dashboards – Salesforce offers endless ways for you to personalize and configure your dashboards, so each user has the up to date information in front of them whenever they need it. By compiling the reports you frequent on a daily basis, the dashboard gives you a quick visual overview of everything most important to you.

• Einstein Analytics – The AI-driven tool can consolidate data from all sources, analyze all possible combinations, make predictions, and give recommendations. Read more about Einstein Analytics here in our most recent blog post.

So how can your company get the most out of your Salesforce investment?

You can investigate some of the tools mentioned above. Use the Salesforce Trailhead to learn and implement everything you can. Or you can consider investing in a consulting partner to get the most out of Salesforce. At Cloud Next Level, we’d be glad to sit down with you and evaluate what you are using well and what you can be using better. It’s not doing your company any good if you’re paying for tools you’re not using. Let us help you create a plan for implementing the best features of Salesforce for the best use in your company. We can take your work to the next level! CloudNextLevel.com