Salesforce services providers must understand that client satisfaction, results from collaborative and flexible partnerships that meet customers’ business needs

Salesforce services clients tell us that the top reason for selecting a service provider is client reference feedback—not the marketing blurb you can present during the RFP process, nor how many digital agencies you can acquire. It is all about what it’s like to work with you, which we can only gauge from speaking to existing and past clients. Clients have moved on from client-vendor relationships to true partnerships, where the service provider invests time and effort to understand and engage with clients to meet their business needs successfully.

Moreover, having an existing positive relationship with a services provider is now a top-five reason for partner selection (see Exhibit 1). For many years, just having any existing relationship with a provider was the top reason to stick with that provider for additional work, using the “better the devil you know” mantra. Now it’s clearly important to have a positive experience, one that no doubt demonstrates collaboration and partnership and leads to strong client reference feedback.

Exhibit 1: Client references, technical expertise, and focusing on business needs top the list of reasons clients select partners

 Source: HFS Research, April 2020

So, as a service provider, how do you foster this collaborative experience for clients?

Here we outline a few critical best practices that clients highlighted in our recent Salesforce Services Top 10 report 2020.

Knowing your customer’s industry sector specifics will get you in the door and increase CSAT throughout the engagement

Enterprises often downplay the importance of a service provider having strong industry sector experience. They do, however, focus on the importance of the service provider meeting the client’s business needs. Clearly, these are linked, and successful service providers lead engagements with their industry sector-flavored services and solutions. When asked about the service providers’ understanding of their industry sector expertise post-deployment, clients tell us this is “extremely important” and even the “primary reason for winning the contract.” Clients who experienced successful Salesforce services engagements tell us that the service provider had a “strong understanding” of their industry specifics or at least demonstrated the “ability to learn and adapt.” In the Salesforce services market, this translates as industry sector templates, best practices, and accelerators that cater to specific industry sector requirements.

Partnerships are key to satisfaction

Successful engagements result from a partnership relationship between the client and service provider. For the Salesforce services clients we spoke to, this means a service provider that is “very responsive” and offers “regular feedback sessions.” You should facilitate easy access to senior team members and provide proactive advice and recommendations to clients throughout the engagement to increase client satisfaction. One client who experienced this said that this had “exceeded all expectations,” while another pointed out that a key reason for the success of their Salesforce services project was that their service provider was “dedicated” and “always available.” Adopting this approach means that you will always be aligned with your customers’ business goals, which is imperative for a successful engagement. This also includes ensuring that your customers are able to support their solution post-deployment. One client we spoke with appreciated that “the partner is helping us to maximize our Salesforce investment.”

The Bottom Line: Getting the right team to engagements will drive higher CSAT.

It might sound obvious, but you must allocate the right level of resources to a project for success. This is one of the biggest challenges for service providers, as demand always outweighs supply, and your resources are often stretched to serve multiple customers. While this is part and parcel of most IT services engagements, failure to meet client expectations is not acceptable. You must assess resource allocation up front and align teams to clients accordingly. Importantly, a senior business-focused resource should be working with each client throughout the engagement. Where this has been successful, clients have positive experiences and high CSAT. They tell us that, “We clearly have the A-team on deck,” “resources were very knowledgeable and skilled in Salesforce technologies,” and that “their knowledge was end-to-end.” While Salesforce deployments are typically delivered centrally from a headquarters location, local expertise is still appreciated. As one client pointed out, its service provider “had the resources where and when we needed them.”

So, to be a successful Salesforce services provider, you must understand your customer’s business needs, adopt a partnership approach to engagements, and align the right team to the project. Prospective customers will ask to speak to references in the provider selection process, so a high CSAT in the industry is imperative for continued success.