Customizing Salesforce for Small and Medium Businesses: Essential Tips
Small and medium businesses the world over are modernizing their technology stack and automating their business functions. Cloud implementations consisting of Sales cloud, Marketing cloud, Service cloud, and more, are increasingly being used to create the most profitable solutions for businesses. In this tech landscape, thinking about customization has gained immense importance, with Salesforce customization ruling the roost.
Salesforce is the leading vendor in the customer relationship management (CRM) applications market worldwide, Statista reports, with a market share of 22 percent in 2023. The company leads the market with a big margin: next in line to Salesforce are Microsoft, SAP, and Oracle with around five to three percent shares of the market.
The demand for Salesforce solutions has been rising rapidly across the world. Small and medium-sized businesses are thinking about customization to get the best from such tools. Ask any Salesforce development company in India and you will learn how it’s no longer just enough to hire Salesforce developers; you must know how to leverage the platform to engage your customers more effectively.
This guide will share several tips to help you get started with customization. It will show how to optimize your resources with Salesforce to make it more profitable.
Introduction to Salesforce Customization
Before we look at the tips, it is crucial to understand what Salesforce customization is all about. While it might seem obvious, there are certain aspects of this process that one must learn as the foundation of creating an effective customer engagement strategy.
Salesforce customization means tailoring the platform’s tools functionality and user experience for the organization’s needs. Your goal should be to enhance user experience and ensure maximum revenue generation. It’s all about aligning Salesforce with the unique workflows, processes, and data management processes of your company.
Customizing Salesforce may mean:
- Finding additional custom fields, objects, and relationships to meet the demands of your organization
- Building custom applications and components that correspond to your marketing strategies
- Modifying layouts and UI elements to make every tool easy to use for your customers.
- Automating tasks and processes for your teams to make them more productive.
There are three main types of Salesforce customization that you can leverage to meet your needs. Each of these approaches is designed for specific use and technical expertise.
They include:
Declarative
In this option, you can achieve customization through point-and-click tools. It’s the simplest approach since it does not require any coding knowledge. It’s the most ideal choice for basic adjustments like field addition and creating automation rules. Tools for such processes include Salesforce Flows, Visual Page Builder, and Lighting App Builder.
Code-based
As the name suggests, this type of customization requires coding knowledge. It promises maximum flexibility and complex customization. One needs to have programming skills in Salesforce-specific languages like Apes and Lightning Components.
Integration
Integration allows you to connect Salesforce to other applications like marketing automation and accounting software. It allows you to streamline data flow and get rid of manual tasks. You can achieve this using pre-developed connectors, custom APS, and integration applications.
Best Tips for Salesforce Customization
Salesforce is an amazing CRM tool; however, you may not get its full benefits unless you know exactly what to do and how to do it. Thus, adhering to the best practices for customization is crucial.
Here are the best tips to get you started.
Define your business needs
Whether you want to hire an experienced Salesforce development company or DIY, you need to understand your business requirements deeply to leverage the tool. This means clearly defining and understanding your business processes before optimizing Salesforce.
While Salesforce has many amazing tools to help you grow your business, not all of them may be useful. You can avoid wasting your time on irrelevant approaches by defining your specific needs and focusing on what matters the most.
Apply declarative tools
Customizing Salesforce is more about focusing on customer needs than anything else. You want to create your sales processes in a manner that makes the customer feel appreciated.
You can do this by leveraging the built-in declarative tools whenever possible. There are also the Validation Rules of customization that should offer added advantages for your strategy.
Follow the modular approach
A good Salesforce consulting company knows the importance of following the right rules in customization. While it might seem right to try different things, it’s always advisable that you follow specific rules to make your final results more viable. Anything else can easily result in problems later.
Design customization in a modular way and you will have the best results. Doing so allows you to easily manage and update the platform.
Focus on user experience
The main reason for using Salesforce is to bring more customers on board and keep the existing ones. The tools within are designed to help you grow your business by attracting more people to it.
Thus, you need to focus on customer experience in your customization journey. Keep your eye on enhancing user interface and experience to ensure a higher adoption rate and satisfaction.
Have a robust data strategy
A business can only grow if it has the right data for customer insights. Many big companies have invested heavily in data collection, management, and use. You need to do the same when optimizing Salesforce.
It’s not just about what customers want, but how they want it. Thus, a well-structured data model is crucial as it will support your business processes while ensuring data integrity.
Mind Salesforce limits
It’s exciting to use Salesforce for business growth. But it can also get messy if you are not careful. This is why experts recommend adhering to Salesforce governor limits and designing customizations to stay within the given limits.
Plan scalability and test thoroughly
Scalability should be the first thing on your mind when designing your customizations. The idea is to accommodate future growth and changes as per your business requirements. Most importantly conduct a comprehensive test for your customizations. This includes unit tests, integration, and user acceptance testing to ensure reliability and usefulness.
Conclusion
Whether you are looking to hire a software development company in India or engage your team in the process, the customization tips we have shared above should point you in the right direction. Remember, the key to a successful customization is knowing your business requirements and planning carefully. Also, remember to keep a balance between customization and configuration.
Engaging the best Salesforce customization services promises better results than DIY strategies. You don’t have to worry about getting it right, but you are assured of unlocking new potential for your organization’s growth.
