Nowadays, personalized customer experiences are worth their weight in gold – and more and more businesses now recognize that one-size-fits-all solutions are no longer enough for that purpose. That’s why customization in Salesforce is becoming a new key driver of strong engagement, as it can provide each customer with what they specifically need. And data back it up – as per recent State of Sales, businesses that invest in Salesforce customization and optimization achieve a 400% ROI on average. But how?
In this article, we’ll dive into Salesforce customization and explore the elements you can customize, the tools Salesforce provides as well as many benefits and practical tips.
What Is Salesforce Customization?
Salesforce customization is essentially adjusting the platform’s features to meet the specific needs of a business – and going above what’s available out of the box. This usually means creating custom objects, fields, workflows, and code to shape the platform in any way a business wishes.
This way, if a business needs a custom object to track interactions that don’t fit neatly into the standard Salesforce model, they can easily set it up. With its help, they will be able to capture and analyze data that directly supports their goals, rather than forcing their processes into already existing templates.
What Can Be Customized in Salesforce?
Salesforce does offer a vast array of customization options, but what exactly can we customize? Let’s break it down into key areas that often go underappreciated.
Objects and Fields
You can create custom objects to track anything unique to your business – just as you can add custom fields to standard objects for more precise data capture. For instance, if your sales process involves a specific set of milestones, custom fields can be added to track these steps in detail, giving you better visibility.
Page Layouts and Record Types
Page layouts determine how information is presented to users, and customizing them will help your team see the most relevant data at a glance. At the same time, record types let you present different layouts and picklists based on the nature of the record, which is critical for businesses with diverse products or services.
Workflows and Automation Rules
You can also set up workflow rules to automate tasks like sending follow-up emails or updating records. On top of that, you can create complex process builders and flows that handle intricate operations – automatically assigning leads to sales reps based on geography or escalating customer issues that remain unresolved for a certain period.
Reports and Dashboards
You can create custom reports that pull data from various objects, applying filters and formulas that are important to your team. Dashboards can then visualize this data in a way that highlights trends and outliers, helping you make decisions that are grounded in your specific data and not generic templates.
Integration with External Systems
Lastly, custom APIs can connect Salesforce with your ERP, accounting software, or marketing platforms. This integration can be both simple (pulling in social media data) or complex (syncing real-time inventory levels).
Salesforce Customization Tools
To help customize Salesforce, the platform offers a range of useful tools. They vary in complexity, from simple drag-and-drop interfaces to advanced coding environments, catering to both non-developers and experienced programmers. Let’s look into some of the most powerful ones:
Lightning App Builder
The Lightning App Builder is the go-to tool for creating custom user interfaces without writing any code. It allows you to design pages for the Salesforce desktop and mobile app using a simple drag-and-drop interface. You can add components like lists, reports, and charts, and organize them in a way that makes sense for your users.
Flow Builder
Flow Builder is where you can visually design sophisticated automation processes. Unlike basic workflow rules, Flow Builder allows for more complex logic, including branching paths, loops, and decision points. And the cherry on top of the cake is it provides all of these powerful capabilities without needing deep programming knowledge from your side.
Apex
Apex is a programming language that lets you write custom code to control Salesforce’s backend. It can be used to create triggers, custom business logic, and integrations with other systems – for instance, you can write Apex triggers that automatically update related records when changes are made, or create custom APIs that let external systems interact with Salesforce in real time.
Visualforce
While Lightning Components will probably surpass it, Visualforce is still an important tool for creating custom user interfaces, especially for legacy systems or specific use cases that Lightning doesn’t cover. Visualforce allows you to build pages with a high degree of control over the layout and functionality, using a combination of HTML, CSS, and Apex.
AppExchange
Salesforce’s AppExchange is a marketplace where you can find thousands of pre-built apps and components that can be installed directly into your Salesforce instance. While not a customization tool in the traditional sense, AppExchange apps can significantly extend the functionality of Salesforce without needing to build everything from scratch.
Salesforce CLI and Developer Console
Lastly, Salesforce Command Line Interface (CLI) and Developer Console are essential tools for developers that manage and deploy customizations. The CLI allows you to interact with Salesforce from your command line, enabling version control, automated deployments, and script-based management of your environment. The Developer Console, on the other hand, is a web-based tool that provides a more traditional development environment that is useful for writing and debugging Apex code, running tests, and analyzing your performance.
How Salesforce Customization Enhances Customer Engagement
As much as Salesforce customization is supposed to serve your internal purposes, its ultimate goal is to make your customers happier and boost your Salesforce ROI. Here’s how it can happen:
Dynamic Personalization
Dynamic personalization means that you can set up algorithms that will adjust your offers and communication based on a customer’s recent activity. If a customer frequently visits your product pages without making a purchase, Salesforce can be customized to trigger a unique promotion that is specific to their browsing patterns, not just their purchase history.
Custom AI-Powered Strategies
Salesforce’s Einstein AI can be also customized and trained to identify more nuanced patterns in customer behavior – if you feed it enough custom datasets. For instance, an advanced Einstein model might recognize that customers who interact with certain types of content are more likely to convert if contacted within a specific time frame.
Custom Automation for High-Value Interactions
Automation in Salesforce is often associated with repetitive tasks, and customization can take it a step further. You could create a custom workflow that automatically sets up a series of personalized touchpoints for high-value customers, including scheduled follow-up calls, exclusive offers, and personalized content.
Integration with Niche Tools
While many integrate Salesforce with common platforms like email or social media, you can also customize it to connect with other niche tools. For instance, if you operate in a highly specialized industry, integrating Salesforce with industry-specific software can allow for more detailed customer profiling.
5 Important Things to Keep in Mind When Planning for Salesforce Customization
Understand the Needs, Not Just the Symptoms
It’s tempting to start customizing Salesforce based on the obvious pain points your team mentions, like “We need a better way to track leads” or “Our reports aren’t giving us the right data.” But these are often symptoms, not the root problems.
That’s why you need to spend time digging deeper; the reason may be that the current system is too rigid or is there an underlying issue with how leads are defined or assigned. Only this way can you truly solve problems as opposed to just applying a temporary fix.
Future-Proofing Isn’t Just About Growth
We often think of scalability in terms of handling more data or users as your business grows. But equally important is the flexibility to pivot when your priorities may change.
You need to build with the understanding that your business might need to alter direction quickly, whether that means shifting focus to new markets or integrating new technologies.
User Involvement Is Non-Negotiable
There’s often a gap between what people say they need and how they truly operate day-to-day. That’s why make sure to shadow your users – watch how they interact with the system, and see where they struggle or create workarounds. These insights are far more valuable than any wish list, and they’ll help you design customizations that will genuinely improve your efficiency.
High Data Quality Should Be in Your Culture
Poor data quality is a common problem, so you need to create a culture where data integrity is everyone’s responsibility. This means training your team to understand the importance of accurate data entry and making it clear how sloppy data impacts everything from customer relationships to business decisions. For that purpose, try building custom prompts or guided input fields to help them enter data correctly the first time.
Think About Maintenance from Day One
Customizations need care to stay functional and relevant – and you need to plan for this from the start. Make sure to allocate time and resources for regular audits, and consider appointing a Salesforce champion within your team who can keep an eye on things and advocate for necessary updates.
How Long Can Salesforce Customization Take?
From our extensive experience, the most honest answer is – it depends. The timeline for Salesforce customization can vary widely – for example, simple adjustments, like creating custom fields or modifying page layouts, might only take a few hours to a couple of days. However, more complex customizations (building custom apps, integrating with external systems, implementing advanced automation) can take several weeks or even months.
It’s also important to account for testing and user training, which are crucial for the customization to work as intended – this alone can take an extra couple of weeks or months.
Choosing the Right Salesforce Customization Partner
We’ve already talked in great depth about how you can secure the best Salesforce customization company available; meanwhile, in this section, we’ll only go over the basics:
- Review Their Technical Expertise: Verify that their team has deep technical knowledge of Salesforce, including advanced features like Apex coding and integration know-how.
- Assess Their Implementation Methodology: Ask about their process for managing projects – how they handle requirements gathering, testing, and change management.
- Evaluate Their Customization and Integration Capabilities: Make sure they have experience with both basic customizations (fields, page layouts) and more complex integrations with external systems, such as ERP or marketing automation platforms.
- Examine Their Problem-Solving Track Record: Ask for examples of how they’ve dealt with unexpected issues or obstacles in past projects.
- Check Their Client Communication Practices: Assess how they communicate with clients throughout the project – clear, proactive communication is a must.
- Look for Post-Implementation Training and Support: Confirm that they offer training for your team and provide support for troubleshooting as well as system updates.
- Evaluate Cost Transparency and Value: Ensure they provide a clear breakdown of costs and what’s included in their service. Avoid partners who have hidden fees or vague pricing models.
All of those qualities (and more) you are guaranteed to find in OMI – a certified Salesforce customization services provider with decades of experience under our belt. So if you feel that your team may benefit from collaborating with such a partner, don’t hesitate to reach out – we will make your Salesforce work better than ever.