What is Salesforce adoption?
Everyone agreed Salesforce would be an organizational game-changer. Leadership approved the investment, teams were trained, and expectations were high.
But months later, department heads notice something’s off. Reports are unreliable, key deals slip through the cracks, and employees quietly return to spreadsheets and email chains.
Salesforce isn’t broken—people just aren’t using it. Without a strong digital adoption strategy, Salesforce is an expensive missed opportunity.
When Salesforce adoption isn’t central to implementation, its full potential remains untapped. 72% of leaders said that improving the ROI of the IT investment portfolio by at least 25% is a critical business objective. This shows that focusing on Salesforce adoption is not just an IT concern but a key driver for achieving business goals.
This article explores Salesforce adoption, covering its definition, importance, measurement, benefits, reasons for failure, and strategies for preparation, implementation, and post-implementation.
What is Salesforce adoption?
Salesforce adoption is the process of fully integrating Salesforce into a company’s daily operations. This includes ensuring that employees use the platform regularly and that it’s customized to meet the business’s specific needs.
Adoption in a modern context is more than just setting up Salesforce. It ensures teams understand how to use the platform, track activities, and update data in real-time.
For example, a sales team using Salesforce to manage leads and track customer success can gain valuable insights that help close more deals. However, Salesforce’s real value is only realized when everyone actively uses it as intended, making it a core part of digital workflows. Tracking usage, identifying gaps, and continually adjusting workflows are all key to a successful Salesforce adoption process.
Why is Salesforce adoption important?
Salesforce adoption is important because it determines how well your business can use the platform to get results.
If your team doesn’t thoroughly adopt Salesforce, even the best setup won’t help. Strong adoption means teams use the system to improve workflows, boost sales, and get better customer insights.
The strategic importance of Salesforce adoption includes:
- Aligning teams with business objectives: Ensures everyone uses Salesforce to support shared goals, driving collaboration and alignment across departments.
- Improving competitive advantage: Proper use of Salesforce enables businesses to respond faster to market changes and customer needs.
- Streamlining processes for scalability: As Salesforce adoption grows, it helps standardize workflows, allowing your organization to scale without losing efficiency.
The more teams use Salesforce, the more it helps improve efficiency and support growth. Leaders should look at Salesforce adoption’s impact beyond quick wins and focus on how it can position the business to thrive in an ever-competitive market.
How is Salesforce adoption calculated?
Salesforce adoption can be measured by tracking how effectively your team uses the platform.
One of the simplest ways to calculate adoption is through Salesforce dashboards. These dashboards provide insights into user activity, data input, and engagement levels across the platform.
You can start by using pre-built dashboards available through the AppExchange package. These dashboards track key metrics like login frequency, user activity, data completeness, and feature usage.
For example, you can measure how often users log in, how much data they enter, and how many tasks or opportunities they manage within Salesforce.
For a more tailored approach, you can create custom dashboards to measure specific adoption goals. This might include tracking certain features, such as the opportunity pipeline or report generation.
Monitoring metrics help identify adoption gaps, areas for improvement, and areas where users need further support or training.
What are the benefits of Salesforce adoption?
Understanding the benefits of Salesforce adoption is crucial because it transforms how teams interact with the platform.
For example, when sales teams fully adopt Salesforce, they can track customer interactions in real-time. This leads to quicker follow-ups and more closed deals, directly boosting ROI.
With clear insight into Salesforce’s value, you can make more informed decisions and ensure the platform enhances performance across departments.
Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of Salesforce adoption:
Increased user productivity
When Salesforce is fully adopted, teams are freed from manual processes. Take customer service, for example—agents can resolve issues more quickly as case histories and previous interactions are instantly available. Automation handling administrative tasks allows employees to focus on solving problems, significantly improving response times and daily output.
Improved revenue generation
Salesforce offers deeper insights into customer behavior, enabling sales teams to tailor their approach. For instance, account managers can use historical purchase data to predict needs, leading to upselling opportunities. With the right data at their fingertips, sales reps can focus on the most promising leads, enhancing conversion rates and driving revenue growth.
Accurate reporting
Salesforce centralizes data, offering a single point of truth. Marketing teams, for example, can track campaign performance in real-time. This access to up-to-date information ensures that reports are reliable and comprehensive. It allows leadership to make more confident, data-driven decisions without waiting for delayed or incomplete reports.
Why does Salesforce adoption fail?
CRMs like Salesforce usually fail due to poor user adoption, lack of proper employee training, and insufficient alignment between the platform’s capabilities and business objectives.
According to a study from ResearchGate, CRM implementation failures are alarmingly high, with estimates suggesting that 70% to 80% of these projects fail.
The above data shows how Salesforce adoption can often fall short due to poor user engagement and misalignment with business goals.
Lack of executive buy-in
For Salesforce adoption to succeed, leaders must be fully invested. If decision-makers worry about disruptions or costs, the project can stall. To ease their concerns, share examples of other companies’ success stories, showing how Salesforce improves efficiency and ultimately drives better financial results, which aligns with business goals.
Employee resistance to change
Employees who are used to older systems might feel uncomfortable using Salesforce at first. To ease resistance to change, explain how the platform will save them time by automating repetitive tasks. Encourage adoption by recognizing and rewarding those who use Salesforce consistently, turning the change into a positive experience for all.
Complex usage
Salesforce’s features can initially seem overwhelming, making it harder for teams to embrace them. To help, customize the system to fit your needs and simplify the user interface. Provide hands-on training so employees become comfortable with the platform, gradually making it part of their everyday workflow.
How to prepare for Salesforce adoption
Now that we’ve explored the benefits and challenges of Salesforce adoption, it’s time to focus on how to prepare for a successful implementation.
Most Salesforce users would say preparation is the most important step. Even the best tools and strategies won’t lead to long-term success without thorough planning.
Let’s take a closer look at how to prepare for Salesforce adoption:
Set project goals & requirements
Start by mapping out your current processes and identifying inefficiencies that Salesforce can address. Review each stage to pinpoint areas where automation can streamline tasks. Consult employees on their challenges with existing tools, focusing on gaps or unnecessary features.
Use surveys or feedback sessions to gather detailed insights on functional and non-functional needs, ensuring your solution meets everyone’s requirements. This will help you align Salesforce with your organization’s goals and lay the groundwork for successful implementation.
Create an adoption plan
When developing a Salesforce adoption plan, break it down into stages like customization, training, and feedback collection. Assign clear responsibilities, such as team members entering data or supporting colleagues using the platform. Include a change management strategy to handle workflow shifts.
Planning and adjusting based on feedback makes the process smoother and more effective. This ensures employees understand the platform’s value and are prepared for success. This approach helps maximize Salesforce’s potential and aligns everyone with company goals for better results.
Communicate the value of Salesforce to end-users
To encourage Salesforce adoption, clearly communicate its benefits to users. Show how the platform simplifies their daily tasks, improves productivity, and helps them achieve personal and team goals. Demonstrate how Salesforce automates tasks, giving employees more time to focus on important activities like customer engagement.
Use real-life examples or case studies to make Salesforce’s value tangible, highlighting how it improves efficiency and drives growth. Engaging employees in this way helps them see Salesforce as a tool that benefits them, not just the business.
How to implement Salesforce adoption
Once the preparation stage is over, implementation begins.
This is where most businesses struggle, as it involves deploying Salesforce across departments and ensuring everything works as planned.
At the implementation stage, it’s crucial to establish ongoing feedback loops so any issues can be identified and addressed early. Without active engagement from all departments, even the best-planned implementations can falter.
Let’s take a closer look at how to implement Salesforce adoption:
Tailor Salesforce to your needs
Customising Salesforce to suit your business can make a huge difference. Organize the dashboard to show only the most important features to each user. Set up automatic reminders and workflows to save time on repetitive tasks like follow-ups.
Integrate tools your team already uses, such as email or document storage, to make the system even more seamless. Ensure each department has access to the tools they need, avoiding confusion. Customising Salesforce in these ways ensures a smoother experience for employees and helps them use the platform more effectively.
Invest in user training
Investing in training is the best way to get over Salesforce’s learning curve. Give employees role-specific lessons to teach them how to use the platform for their tasks. Use Salesforce’s free Trailhead for guided learning, and add your own training materials to make it easier.
You can also include pop-up help and tutorials within Salesforce to guide users as they work. For extra support, point them to the Trailblazer Community, where they can find tips and solutions from other Salesforce users. This will help your team feel confident and get the most out of Salesforce.
Promote collaboration and team play
Encourage teamwork by showing how Salesforce helps departments collaborate. Use features like shared dashboards and collaboration tools to keep everyone on the same page. Promote open communication, where team members can share insights and track progress in real-time.
Integrating Salesforce into daily tasks allows your team to collaborate better, ensuring everyone contributes to achieving the same business goals. Building a culture of teamwork around the platform boosts its initial adoption and makes it easier to reach targets as a united team.
Post Salesforce adoption tips
Now that you’ve planned and implemented your Salesforce adoption strategy, it’s time to reflect on your choices and measure outcomes.
Like planning, the post-Salesforce adoption period is pivotal. During this time, many businesses become relaxed because they think things are working well.
However, the long-term success of Salesforce adoption is determined at this point. During this period, businesses must ensure that Salesforce is continuously adapted and refined to meet changing needs.
Let’s take a closer look at some post-Salesforce implementation tips:
Measure the results of Salesforce adoption
After you’ve implemented Salesforce, it’s important to check if it’s doing what it’s supposed to. Track key things like how much more efficient teams are, whether sales are growing and whether customers are happy.
You can do this by checking usage data, reviewing team feedback, and comparing sales figures before and after the system’s launch. If certain areas aren’t improving, this gives you a chance to make changes to improve performance. Constantly reviewing helps keep employees on track and ensures you get the most out of Salesforce.
Audit Salesforce data
Regularly auditing Salesforce data means checking the information to ensure it’s accurate and complete. If you spot outdated, missing, or incorrect data, it’s important to fix it straight away.
This step ensures that decisions based on that data are made with the most reliable information. Conducting frequent audits also helps ensure that your Salesforce reports, forecasts, and insights are grounded in solid data. This practice reduces errors and enhances the system’s overall performance.
Share positive results
Once Salesforce shows positive results, share these wins with everyone who will listen. Whether it’s more closed deals, improved customer relationships, or faster processes, celebrating successes motivates teams and builds confidence in the platform.
Highlighting Salesforce’s tangible benefits helps everyone see its value and makes them more likely to use it. When the team understands the gains Salesforce brings, they’re more likely to adopt it. Sharing wins also boosts morale and strengthens commitment to the system.
Maximizing Salesforce adoption in the long-term
To make Salesforce adoption stick, you need to keep it alive within the organization.
Think of it not as a one-off job but as an ongoing effort. How can you keep users engaged beyond the initial phase?
It’s about building a habit, continuously refining digital workflows, and aligning Salesforce with your evolving business needs.
Regular training, staying updated with new features, and encouraging feedback all play a part. However, the most important thing is never to let Salesforce become just another digital tool—it needs to feel essential to everyone.
The answer lies in keeping Salesforce adoption at the heart of your business operations.