Salesforce is a powerful tool for businesses, but it can be overwhelming to handle the administration yourself. You probably have enough to do as it is.
Many businesses are turning to salesforce outsourcing or even custom software development agencies for help with their sales and marketing campaigns. However, not everyone is the right candidate for salesforce outsourcing.
This guide shows you everything you need to know about outsourcing Salesforce, from the basics to advanced tactics and tricks that will save you time, money, and energy.
Table of Contents
- What is Outsourcing Salesforce?
- How Do Salesforce Outsource Services Work?
- What You Should Know Before You Outsource
- 9 Benefits of Outsourcing Salesforce Administration
- How Do All These Benefits Affect Your Business?
- What Salesforce Tasks Can You Outsource?
- Who Should Outsource Salesforce Administration?
- How to Choose the Right Salesforce Outsourcing Agency
- Questions to Ask Before Choosing an Outsourced Company
- The Best Salesforce Outsourcing Agencies
- Outsourcing Salesforce: Final Thoughts
What is Outsourcing Salesforce?
Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) application companies use to manage their sales, marketing, and service functions.
Businesses widely use it because it has several built-in features that make it easy for users to track their leads, contacts, accounts, and other data.
As of 2022, nearly 30% of Salesforce CRM customers are from the professional services industry, according to Statista. 90% of Fortune 500 companies use this tool.
Salesforce outsourcing is a business process outsourcing (BPO) that involves contracting with a third-party services company to manage one or more aspects of your business's sales process.
Outsourcing your sales process involves more than simply hiring a sales team. You must also consider the CRM platform you decide to use, the tools within that platform, training and support materials your team members need, and more.
Salesforce is a very commonly outsourced service. Many businesses outsource their Salesforce administration rather than hiring an in-house team or an individual contractor.
How Do Salesforce Outsource Services Work?
When you outsource your Salesforce administration, you hire a third-party company to manage your account, including data entry, management, reporting, and training.
They will create reports from your data and provide training for your employees on how to use the platform effectively.
Their responsibilities range from day-to-day tasks like updating contacts, accounts, and opportunities in real-time for you, and running more complex sales processes such as lead qualification or mass email deployment campaigns.
What You Should Know Before You Outsource
Choose the best type of outsourcing service for your company.
You may consider different options depending on your company's specific needs.
For example, if you have a small number of employees who need to access Salesforce, then an on-premises solution is probably the best fit.
However, if you have a larger team and need more resources than can be provided by in-house staff, your business might better suit a SaaS model.
Know what your business can realistically afford.
As with any business decision, you must consider your budget. Before outsourcing your sales functions, take the time to understand what your business can realistically afford.
You should also know the costs of hiring an in-house sales team versus outsourcing your CRM needs.
Make sure you understand the terms and conditions of your contract.
Before you sign a contract with a third-party company to manage your sales functions, make sure you understand the terms and conditions of your agreement.
Read and understand the fine print in your contract before you sign it, and always keep a copy of your signed contract in a safe place.
Identify your pain points.
Before you choose a third-party CRM provider, you must determine your pain points. What is your company's biggest challenge regarding your sales process?
Once you identify your pain points, you'll be more equipped to find an outsourcing solution that meets your needs.
9 Benefits of Outsourcing Salesforce Administration
In today's fast-paced and highly competitive business environment, you can no longer afford to get stuck in old ways of thinking.
To stay ahead of the curve, you need to think out of the box and explore options that will give your business an edge.
A way to do that is by outsourcing some of your company's functions, including Salesforce administration.
Salesforce administration may seem like an easy task at first, but it can quickly consume hours of your day and leave you wishing you could get back to doing what you love. It doesn't have to be that way.
You can expect to take advantage of the benefits of outsourcing your Salesforce administration. Here are the pros of delegating your Salesforce to an agency:
- Business Expansion: Salesforce is meant to help businesses grow. If you outsource your administration to a company specializing in Salesforce, they will likely bring more clients to your company.
- Time Investment: Outsourcing is not just about saving money. It's about investing in your business. More time in the day can lead to more revenue, more opportunities, and better customer relations.
- Focus on Your Strengths: There is nothing wrong with being honest about your skill set. If you know you're not a good fit for Salesforce administration, outsourcing your CRM administration is a great idea.
- Increased Efficiency: CRM is the engine that drives your sales process. A glitch in your CRM can cause your sales team to grind to a halt. Outsourcing your CRM needs gives you access to highly experienced professionals who can keep your CRM running smoothly. In turn, it increases your sales team's efficiency, allowing them to focus on closing deals.
- Quick Help: You won't have to worry about downtime or other technical problems because someone else will take care of them.
- Cost Efficient: You won't need to pay high consultation rates when you need help managing data and records in your system, making it more affordable than hiring an employee or contracting another company.
- Language Barrier: If your company employs people who speak a different language than English, Salesforce outsourcing might be a good option.
- Data Security: It's no secret that hackers love to steal data. If you decide to keep your data in-house, the chance that a hacker will steal your data increases. Outsourcing your Salesforce administration keeps your data safe.
- Demand for Salesforce Experts: Finding a contractor or employee who can meet those needs can be challenging if you have a specific need for your Salesforce platform. If you outsource your Salesforce administration, you can be more specific in your requirements.
How Do All These Benefits Affect Your Business?
Salesforce is an integral part of any company. It should be a priority for businesses to ensure that it runs efficiently, with the most up-to-date features and data.
However, this responsibility doesn't end with in-house IT staff; the person or team responsible must also stay abreast of every new development and change.
The business world is constantly evolving, and it's vital to have someone on hand who can keep up with all these changes.
What Salesforce Tasks Can You Outsource?
What tasks specifically would you need to outsource? Here are some examples:
Data Analysis
If you need help analyzing large amounts of information, an outsourced sales force expert is most likely your best bet.
Data professionals can quickly understand the information, find patterns, generate reports and make predictions based on those insights.
An outsourced partner will also be able to advise you on how to use that data more effectively in your business strategy.
Lead Management
Outsourcing lead management allows you to focus on sales while another company handles administrative tasks like lead follow-up, tracking pipeline, and managing deals.
With this option, there is less pressure on your team since they are not bogged down with administrative duties while they focus on closing leads.
Account Maintenance
Handling account maintenance can be time-consuming when you consider all the different records that need to be updated or added, but with an outsized partner, this task becomes easier for your team.
Outsourcing gives them more time to work on revenue-generating activities, such as prospecting new accounts or managing current accounts.
User Training
User training often takes a lot of time and resources to implement, especially if you have many employees who require user access.
Training partners can provide ongoing support for your staff through refresher courses or new modules related to system changes.
There are also instances where experts from third-party providers will come into your office and train your staff. Hence, they know exactly how to navigate specific tools or perform tasks that would otherwise take up valuable staff hours.
System Upgrades
Implementing system upgrades is often seen as a necessary evil by businesses because the process involves downtime and technical difficulties.
Outsourcing these services makes sense because IT professionals are usually skilled at doing this sort of thing already, so the changeover process goes smoothly without any interruptions.
Customization and Integration
You don't have to limit yourself to off-the-shelf software packages, let alone choose just one package.
You can outsource customization and integration services from experts who will customize your existing platform according to your needs.
For example, you might want custom fields unique to your industry or something done differently than the way it was initially programmed.
Hiring outside specialists allows you to gain the expertise needed without spending years developing those skills internally.
Who Should Outsource Salesforce Administration?
Many companies would argue that the best candidates for outsourced Salesforce management are either cloud-based firms or non-profits.
Outsourced Salesforce management provides both of these with powerful CRM software without the need to spend much time learning and managing their own CRM.
If you see your business listed below, it means you should take advantage of outsourcing your Salesforce administration:
- A small business that doesn't have an IT department to maintain their systems
- Companies who do not want to spend money or resources on training staff
- Businesses with limited knowledge and don't want to spend too much time or money
- Organizations with seasonal customer bases
- Companies who have limited budgets but still need a robust toolset for customer service
- Startups that only sell online and don't need extensive customer contact options
How to Choose the Right Salesforce Outsourcing Agency
Use a trusted and experienced Salesforce outsourcing partner.
Your selection process should focus on finding an agency with experience in your industry, a vital track record of successful implementation, and excellent customer service skills.
Ensure that the agency has experience working with companies similar to yours.
If an agency claims it can handle any size company or business model, ask for examples of their work with companies like yours that are similar in scale and complexity.
The vendor should have expertise in all aspects of Salesforce administration.
See to it that the third-party agency can handle all aspects of Salesforce administration, including the following: data management, system support, user training, analytics, customization, integration, project management, and training services, among others.
Request an RFP.
An RFP, or request for proposal, is a document that you send to potential providers asking them to outline the services they provide and their prices.
Establish a list of criteria for choosing a provider, and then select providers that meet those criteria.
Ask those providers to respond to your RFP by providing information about their services and prices.
Questions to Ask Before Choosing an Outsourced Company
The company you choose to partner with must be able to meet your specific needs and provide you with reliable results.
Here are a few questions to ask when you're choosing a Salesforce outsourcing partner:
- Does the company specialize in Salesforce? You risk receiving mediocre results if they do a little bit of everything.
- What is the outsourcing company's reputation? Check online reviews, and talk to other business owners who have worked with them.
- How long has the company been in business? The longer the company has been around, the more reliable they are likely to be.
- Does the company have a client onboarding process in place? It can help you understand how reliable the outsourcing company is and what to expect from them.
The Best Salesforce Outsourcing Agencies
1. SF AppWorks
- Location: San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94110, United States
- Average Hourly Rate: $75/hr
- Expertise: Mobile App Development, Website Development, UI/UX Design, Software Development
SF AppWorks is a San Francisco-based software agency that's all about using "technology as a force for good." Their expertise is built over 10 years of building websites, apps, and custom digital experiences.
As experts in software development and IT staff augmentation, they can help businesses of all sizes scale their teams and improve their development processes. They also have the know-how in powerful sales and marketing automation.
SF AppWorks's long list of clients includes Golden Globe Awards, AARP, Georgetown University, Vanguard, and Boyd Gaming.
2. IntexSoft
- Location: Leopoldstraße 2-8, Herford, 32051, Germany
- Average Hourly Rate: $40/hr
- Expertise: eCommerce Development, Mobile App Development, Website Development, Magento Development, UI/UX Design, Software Development, Managed Services
IntexSoft offers "painless software development." By honing in on businesses' unique needs and challenges, they are able to deliver solutions with less friction.
With over 20 years under their belt, they've built massive expertise in various programming languages, key frameworks, storage and cloud technologies, CMS platforms, and testing tools.
IntexSoft is based in Germany and caters to companies in the US and EU. They've worked with clients in enterprise, eCommerce, telecom, HR, and logistics industries.
3. Hexaview Technologies
- Location: #7, Quaker Dr., East Brunswick, New Jersey 08816, United States
- Average Hourly Rate: $35
- Expertise: Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Enterprise Software Development, 360-degree Digital Services...
Hexaview Technologies is a FinTech-focused organization that has leveraged values in this ecosystem for the past 11 years. They have backed various start-ups for a successful exit from big fishes valued over billions. The agency has been strategically allied with 150+ clients globally focused on the BFSI industry.
Hexaview designs, develops, and implements complex data and software solutions that leverage the most advanced technology infrastructure to critical business needs. Their niche spans technology pillars like – Salesforce, Cloud, AI, NLP, ML, and more.
Hexaview is an official partner to AWS, Microsoft, Salesforce, and NVIDIA Inception Program.
4. Cerebrum Infotech
- Location: 5858 Horton Street, Suite 101, Emeryville, Oakland, California 94608, United States
- Average Hourly Rate: $19
- Expertise: Product Design, Magento Development, Shopify, Software Development...
Cerebrum Infotech has designed and delivered more than 500+ projects with a 100% success rate to their clients. They develop scalable yet customized applications and software solutions by brainstorming, wireframing, developing, designing, and testing our software solutions to deliver the best ones in the market.
Cerebrum InfoTech partners with SMBs, startups, and enterprises and delivers the same level of dedication and sophistication to each one of their projects.
Clients include Flipkart, Mahindra, Drivematics etc.
5. HomeTree Digital
- Location: 1 W End Avenue, Suite 18B, New York City, New York 10023, United States
- Average Hourly Rate: $150/hr
- Expertise: Salesforce, Salesforce Consulting, Lead Generation, Digital Marketing...
HomeTree Digital is a New York-based digital marketing agency that specializes in the financial service industry.
Their Salesforce expertise includes administration; functional lead, planning and implementation; development; and dashboards and reporting. They also assist in the setup of Salesforce tools and other integrations like DocuSign. Further, the agency takes pride in its flexibility, working with other CRMs chosen by clients and helping align sales and marketing teams.
HomeTree Digital also offers digital advertising, web design, brand identity and automation services.
Outsourcing Salesforce: Final Thoughts
Today, many companies are considering Salesforce as an essential business investment.
There are a few reasons why many business owners have chosen to outsource their Salesforce, including a heavy workload and scaling.
Many businesses would instead focus on what they do best while outsourcing other functions to experts who can deliver high-quality service at competitive rates.
Outsourcing your Salesforce administration is a smart move for your business as it allows you to keep track of your customers, sales leads, and contracts.
Most importantly, having an outsourced Salesforce is a great way to expand your business without putting a strain on your internal team.
The right CRM outsourcing company can help you meet your business goals while keeping an eye on your bottom line.
