How to Finalize a Salesforce Partner for Your Organization?
Whether you are planning to step into the world of Salesforce or have already done so, you must be aware of its exceptional out-of-the-box capabilities and limitless possibilities. These capabilities are often not explored by most businesses due to a lack of platform knowledge or fear of failure.
If you are not sure whether you will be able to reap the full potential of your Salesforce license or not, then you must select an experienced Salesforce partner. Salesforce solution partners are registered firms that implement and maintain CRMs on Salesforce’s behalf.
However, selecting the right firm can be a difficult choice as there is no dearth of development companies in the online space. As a Salesforce gold consulting partner, we would like to shed some knowledge on the hiring aspect which is often not discussed by established development firms. We hope this blog enables Salesforce users to make a well-concerted decision for their business.
Best Considerations To Hire A Salesforce Consulting Partner
- Make Use of Your Network
Most business recommendations are done via close associates and friends. If you are not sure where to seek development help, just reach out to your business partners and they will likely suggest you a name or two based on their experience. Additionally, they will educate and support you on lessons they learned over time. With a multitude of information about potential consultants, their products, and their projects, you will be able to make a choice.
- Rely on AppExchange Marketplace
If your business network does not have credible links, you can always rely on the AppExchange listing of Salesforce solutions providers. On Appexchange, you can find detailed information regarding the best Salesforce Partners in USA, Asia-Pacific, or Europe regions. You can search for companies, apply filters, and view entire details about a partner. The typical info you can get from a partner’s AppExchange listing includes a year of establishment, experience in projects, number of certified professionals, price per hour, portfolio, project description, testimonials, etc.
- Ask for Demos Not Just Proposals
Request for proposal is a good way to know what a development partner thinks about your Salesforce needs and how they will make your vision a reality. But a proposal should not be the only thing you should ask your development partner about. Ask them to show some working solutions they built for your industry. A good working demo will be a good indication of their tech acumen and experience in Salesforce implementation.
- Choose Experience Over Cost
Budget limitations are a genuine concern that prevents most teams from hiring the best technology implementation partner. We see many firms get trapped by newly-founded agencies that offer nil ROI while taking a hefty amount from businesses. To ensure you get the right value for money, choose experience over cost. However, don’t overspend on implementation. Choose a Salesforce partner that offers you cost-effective implementation and ongoing support so that you can keep CRM up and running post-launch.
- Beware of Data Migration Cost
While Salesforce is not hard to manage, data migration can be super tough especially when you are looking to switch your legacy data to Salesforce. So if you are planning to migrate excel spreadsheets, newsletter databases, outlook contacts, and large heaps of data in separate formats, be ready to spend slightly more on migration than you expect. Do discuss with your Salesforce consulting partner migration complications and possible costs before onboarding them.
- Check their Availability and Skill Sets
Many teams sign-up contacts with Salesforce solutions partners only to realize that they are too busy with other projects and their project has not started yet. To prevent these things from happening, teams should check the availability status of professionals. Make sure they are bound under contractual obligations. Additionally, a Salesforce project requires diversely skilled professionals including tech architects, developers, strategic consultants, change management consultants, project managers, administrators, etc. Do check the certifications and availability of professionals and then only onboard them to your project.
Bottomline
Finalizing a Salesforce partner is a challenging task no doubt, however, with slight research and acumen to hire talent, you can make a great hiring decision that will be both cost-efficient and return-oriented. If you have shortlisted a few consulting partners but are still not sure which one to go with, simply reach out to all of them. Conduct interviews, know their development approach and challenges they see, check their availability, gauge their vision, keep cost vs budget considerations in check, and you are all set to finalize the best-fit development firm.
