Salesforce Implementation Failure: Reasons and How to Avoid Them

Technology is one of the most important tools that companies are utilizing to help them grow and expand their market share. One such piece of technology is the Salesforce platform. There is no doubt that Salesforce is the world’s leading cloud-based platform that is geared specifically towards helping organizations grow into more effective, streamlined and efficient businesses. Salesforce has evolved into one of the most innovative and comprehensive solutions available on the market since the late 90s as a result of being in the market since then. All of the needs of your business are met by this solution. In the years since Salesforce has been released, it has assisted a large number of organizations in better managing their customers and in expanding their business.

In order to enhance customer relationships, organizations are making every effort to make full use of Salesforce’s full potential to achieve their goals. There are, however, some headaches and mistakes you should be aware of, as not taking care of them will cause your Salesforce implementation to fail and that is the last thing you want to happen.

Regardless of the industry or size of the company, a failed Salesforce implementation can be a great deal of financial harm to the company. So, in order to make sure that you are prepared right, we have listed some of the top reasons why Salesforce implementations fail, and how to avoid these pitfalls in the future.

PLANNING-

1. Unclear Goals:

What is the primary reason for your purchase of Salesforce in the first place? Does your motive for implementing it have much to do with the fact that other businesses in your field have already implemented it, or is it due to your own specific business goals?

You need a clear vision, a clear set of goals, and a clear strategy in order to implement a successful Salesforce platform. To accomplish this, it is important to plan carefully and have open, clear communication with everyone involved in the project from the start.

Make sure you decide what pain points you wish to address with your CRM, how you would like to streamline your company’s workflows, and how you would like to enhance the customer experience with the CRM. The goals you set should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART goals). This way, you will know where to focus your efforts, how to measure your progress, and when you have successfully achieved your goals.

2. Confusing Business Strategy:

CRM business strategies that are vague or conflicting can lead to confusion and can interfere with your efforts to achieve the goals you have identified for your CRM implementation. To begin the implementation process on a good start, you should develop a clear and concise business strategy that will lay the foundation for success. Once you have defined your goals, you can create a roadmap that will guide you towards the achievement of those goals. As a company-wide initiative, this should be taken up by everyone. It is important to note that Salesforce will affect your entire organization, including your employees as well as your customers, if it is implemented properly.

At the end of the day, Salesforce is all about relationships and people. In order to facilitate a successful adoption process, you need to engage all stakeholders and listen to their suggestions in order to be able to create a more holistic strategy. A better customer journey will also result in higher sales and ongoing customer satisfaction, which will lead to a better customer experience.

3. Lack of Support:

For achieving a successful implementation, gaining the support of the executive team is vital. Senior management must be on board with your vision of what you plan to accomplish through the adoption of Salesforce. Involving executives at the beginning will:

• Allow them to provide direction.
• Ensure that the project is aligned with the overall business strategy, and
• Ensure that other top management players are on board with your plans.

The most beneficial way to ensure complete adoption of Salesforce for your organization is to identify an executive sponsor, such as your CEO, who is knowledgeable about the importance of Salesforce for your organization.

4. Insufficient Budget:

Salesforce implementations can fail when organizations do not budget enough money upfront to ensure success. In some cases, this is unavoidable. It is not always feasible for businesses to predict everything that their business will require at the starting point. In order to learn the ropes of Salesforce, some companies adopt the most basic form of Salesforce.There’s nothing wrong with either of these options.

Don’t forget to be open with your executive teams and stakeholders about your expectations in order to prevent under-budgeting or overpromising. Be sure to be as realistic with your budget as you can, to focus on your goals, and to anticipate scope changes when defining your budget. It is a good idea to include a ten percent buffer in your budget in order to account for any surprises that may occur along the way.

You should also consider the impact of Salesforce implementation on employee workloads and schedules. Maintain an estimate and amend your budget accordingly in order to keep everyone up to date with the progress of your project. 

5. Faulty Data:

The implementation of Salesforce can also fail if there is a fundamental problem with the data. It is possible to face a myriad of problems if your data is incomplete, inaccurate, or duplicate, such as:

• Inadequate customer experience
• Inaccurate budget and revenue forecasting
• Faulty business tactics
• Skepticism

To ensure the accuracy and organization of your data, all users, executives, and Salesforce administrators must be involved in the process. It is quite easy to define new objects and fields in Salesforce, however make sure you keep in mind the way you collect data (such as utilizing as few fields as possible to gather the data you need and prioritizing fields with dropdown values rather than open text values) in order to avoid poor reporting, unsatisfactory user adoption, and inability to scale as well as forms with long data input fields should be avoided.

The easiest way to prevent this mess is to make the data entry process as simple as possible for your users. The required fields should be clearly defined, allowed to auto-populate, and validating rules should be enforced so that the correct information is entered. As soon as you decide to move to Salesforce, you will need to clean up your existing data if it is “dirty”.

TECHNOLOGY-

6. Prioritizing Technology, not people:

One of the other pitfalls businesses face when it comes to technology or products is prioritizing them over the people who are using them. When you focus your attention on your customer or end-user, you can reduce the risk of CRM failure by focusing on their needs. It is important to put your end-user’s needs at the very core of your business mission and goals to ensure success.

It is important to note that Salesforce implementations are not technical projects. In order to make these projects successful, you have to focus on your employees and customers. Let your customers have a voice, keep them updated about changes, and make your organization better by incorporating their feedback. The end-user experience should be taken into consideration as part of your plans and processes.

In the past few years, PwC has rolled out Salesforce throughout its global network of 158 countries in a highly successful manner. What is the secret ingredient? Making the journey about the people rather than the process.

7. Unorganized IT Architecture:

It is very common for Salesforce CRM implementation plans to fail to take existing IT frameworks into consideration.Your existing IT infrastructure has likely been thoughtfully planned and implemented, so your Salesforce implementation must correspond and blend into it.

In order to integrate the new system with the current one, you will need to ensure your IT team understands the approach you plan to take. By aligning the two processes, it can give a faster time-to-market, a better customer experience, improve agility, and enhance profitability.

8. Inexperienced Support Team:

A number of businesses attempt to learn how Salesforce works in order to then configure it by themselves once they have learned the basics. It is important to note that when you implement Salesforce, you will likely encounter bottlenecks, slowed productivity, and an inability to scale, all of which are things you want to avoid in the first place by implementing Salesforce. If you are hoping to grow after an implementation that doesn’t include a quality support team at the onset, you may kick off a dangerous cycle in which you soon need to have to rebuild everything that has already been configured, which may lead to other components breaking too.

In order to ensure that you are implementing the platform efficiently, it is best to hire an experienced Salesforce support team. If you want to scale your business, you should ensure that your support team is highly qualified, capable of solving complex problems, and notifying you of necessary upgrades as and when encountered.

USER EXPERIENCE-

9. Lack of end-user involvement:

Most digital transformation initiatives are not profitable. In 70% of the total cases, this is because users do not adopt new technology, which results in failure.

In the end, your goal should be to make the lives of your end users easier as possible. If you want to accomplish this effectively, then it would be best if you involved them throughout the entire process.

• Let them know what’s in store and why it is necessary.
• Ask them for their opinions and get their buy-in during the initial stages to find out what they think would make an ideal CRM system.
• Address pain points and concern areas with respect to the user experience and interface.
• Show them how effective and useful the tool will be by planning and designing it accordingly to suit their needs.
• Make your audience want to be an active participant in the progress that you are making so they are eager to get involved.

In addition to giving users a sense of ownership, this can be a game-changer when it comes to implementing Salesforce.

10. Inadequate Training:

Despite the fact that your new Salesforce CRM platform might seem impressive at first, it could prove highly inefficient if you fail to train your users adequately on how to utilize it to its full potential. A complex system such as Salesforce requires proper training to ensure that it can be successfully integrated into your organization. A user must have a clear understanding of why he or she is implementing the system and how it can benefit their work and their life.

11. Poor Communication:

It is a recipe for disaster if an implementation team is isolated from other groups and stakeholders during the implementation period. Be sure that you understand the needs of all the key players within your organization in order to make the right decisions. Ensure that you involve end users (as discussed above) so they can give their input on the tools they will adopt and use regularly.

It is very important that you keep communication lines open at every stage of your process so that you can exchange ideas. Be sure to keep in touch with your team on a regular basis, and ensure that your project continues to meet your expectations.

12. Failure to Adopt after Implementation:

Salesforce implementation processes are disruptive – and that’s what’s supposed to happen. It is because of them that businesses must go through some significant changes. Data drives critical decisions within your organization and has a direct impact on everyone at all levels. The process of integrating the CRM system should be made as smooth as possible to avoid pushback from end users (or them refusing to use the CRM system).

Conclusion:

Following the advice provided throughout this guide, you will be able to avoid the problems that lead to a failure of a Salesforce implementation. In order to encourage full adoption, make sure that you address challenges along the way (like lack of commitment or buy-in) as well as communicate the benefit to all parties.

While you try your best to keep everything under control, don’t forget to hire experienced Salesforce implementation services for a hassle-free implementation process if you want to have everything running smoothly. Get the power of Salesforce CRM including Salesforce Sales Cloud, Field service lighting, Salesforce Service Cloud, Einstein Analytics, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Mulesoft Cloud and many more for your business by contacting us today.

Read Also: Flow Features in Salesforce

About the Author:

The author of this blog is Nandini Pathak with an area of expertise in technology. Uniquely blending her legal background to create engaging content. An avid dog lover, her warmth and empathy enrich her writing style. Nandini’s passion for learning and her SEO proficiency ensure her work stays relevant and visible, making her an impactful content creator who seamlessly integrates personal passions with professional expertise in the technology domain.