In the world of customer relationship management solutions, Salesforce is something of a household name. It is a set of well-crafted tools that, when correctly implemented, brings a whole raft of benefits to business operations. You can get a bird’s eye view of your business, or dive into details. The software can give insight on any given client, present a profile with insightful information, and even, using AI, predict whether leads are likely to convert. In general, it helps businesses to get closer to their clients and improves their efficiency in several fields of operation – marketing, sales, and services included.
If that sounds like an amazing proposition, that is because it is. However, the catch is that it has to be implemented correctly in order to yield results. Businesses realize this, and so a significant amount of investment goes into getting the expertise to help with this. Hence the managed services vs in-house discussion that we are going to get into in this article.
What is Salesforce Managed Services?
Getting Salesforce to work properly for you can be quite complex. For one thing, there are a lot of moving parts to any business. So the solution quite often has to be tailored to the way a particular organization works. The system must be set up in such a way so that it provides for the business processes that are considered most critical. This process of customization can get pretty complex depending on the needs. Some aspects of it may need technical, specialized expertise.
On top of all that, the solution itself requires some maintenance and management. You need to stay on top of updates, perform fixes when things go wrong, and, in general, one must make sure you are getting the most out of what is a powerful package. Salesforce managed services take these headaches off of a business by providing skilled and experienced teams to handle all of that.
Salesforce Managed Services: Key Activities
Salesforce managed services perform activities that keep your installation shipshape and ensure it is tuned to your needs. If there are updates, they ensure that they don’t break whatever customized setup you have running. They take care of security and ensure that you are running the most recent versions of the software, as well as any third-party tools you may have incorporated into your setup. When you need to tweak the system, they can help you with the implementation of the additional functionality you require.
In essence, what Salesforce Managed Services gives you is around the clock technical support, reliability assurances, peace of mind, and the freedom to focus on tasks that are directly business-related.
Managed Services And In-House Specialists Compared
| Managed Services | In-House Specialists | |
| Operational Costs | Cheaper, as they are paid based on service | More costly, as there are benefits, remuneration, and other HR-related cost considerations |
| Onboarding time | Shorter, involves reviewing options, selecting a service and hiring them | The process of interviewing, vetting, negotiating, and hiring can be drawn-out for in-house staff. |
| Communication | More difficult as the external team may need time to get accustomed to particular business processes. | Easier, as in-house staff are well-acquainted with the needs of the company. |
| Data Security | Exposing internal data to third parties carries an inherent risk as they may be working with other players in the same industry. | There is a greater level of trust with internal staff as their service is typically exclusive to one company. |
| Expertise | Managed services offer specialized professionals with a targeted skill-set that will enable them to resolve any issues you encounter. | Internal staff typically need to be trained, and even then, may lack some of the skills and experience that dedicated professionals devoted to Salesforce normally possess. |
Benefits of Salesforce Managed Services
Getting specialized expertise to handle the management of your Salesforce installation may at first seem like an additional expenditure – something that just adds to the total cost of ownership of the platform. However, there are practical benefits that you can reap if you get the right expertise. Salesforce is a powerful solution, but it has to be deployed effectively in order to give you significant returns on your investment.
A practical example is how Good360, a non-profit that connects philanthropists and people in need worldwide, partnered with OMI to implement their Salesforce stack and fine-tune it to work their IT infrastructure. Good360 had been grappling with communication problems and inefficiencies in the management of their resources, including Salesforce.
Bringing in the specialized services of OMI – seasoned Salesforce experts – enabled Good360 to centralize their data capturing process, improve service delivery in their partnership programs, and even launch a Covid-19 response community online. With their newfound efficiency, they were able to serve a whopping 87,000 non-profits by harnessing the power of Sales, Service, and Community Cloud.
Tips to Hiring a Salesforce Managed Services Provider
If you’re considering bringing experts on board, keep a few things in mind:
Take a look at their past projects and the feedback from previous clients. This will reveal a lot about how well they are able to meet the designated requirements. After all, a CRM should work for your company, not the other way round.
Also ensure you have a good understanding of the scope of their services. Can they maintain, customize, and carry out the integration of a Salesforce installation into your infrastructure? Here you also want to vet the experience and expertise of their staff. Are they adequately trained and experienced?
Find out the extent of the support they can provide. You don’t want to be left out in the cold or paying out of pocket if things go wrong after the system has been set up. Here, again, testimonials from past clients might offer some useful insight.
You, of course, also want to make sure that the pricing of their services is reasonable and competitive on the market, given the scope of work they offer to undertake.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, the implementation of a CRM system is all about getting results. Once you do, there is no denying its value. This is why getting the right expertise to squeeze every ounce of performance out of your Salesforce stack is simply a no-brainer. In addition, you get the peace of mind and assurance that any issues will be tackled by people who know the ins and outs of this solution. Careful approach in this situation will put you in the best position to get a significant return on your possible investment.