Tools
Salesforce is a CRM that will certainly be familiar to most who have already dealt with this topic. The tool is aimed in particular at medium-sized and large companies and has managed to get entire agencies to devote their business model solely to this CRM.
Salesforce Integration = Marketing Automation
For most people, the goal of a CRM is probably something like this: to identify, manage, generate and ultimately sell to leads. A CRM is usually the core of the company's sales activities. Entire departments are dedicated to this goal, but do the employees there really spend most of their time on sales? Probably hardly.
Because the more comprehensive a CRM is set up (and Salesforce truly offers countless functions), the more time is spent especially on organisational and administrative activities. Maintaining data, reconciliations, updating other tools used in the company. In the course of a working day, countless minutes are spent on small bridge tasks that are really important. But do these really have to be carried out by the employees?
No! Because the keyword here is: integrate Salesforce (or automate Salesforce, as you like).
Because via the API (interface), Salesforce allows us to connect with numerous other tools, but also within Salesforce there are tons of possibilities for small automations that take over the administrative tasks.
This gives the sales staff more time for value-adding tasks.
A study from 2020 showed that employees spend up to 60 per cent of their working day on routine tasks such as writing e-mails, internal and external communication or collecting data. It quickly becomes clear that productive working time that actually adds value accounts for less than half.
Of course, some departments and functions are designed to do just that: Communication. Writing emails or making phone calls is the main task. But especially in departments like sales, customer acquisition and care should predominate. Salesforce Integration can help to boost this time. The benefits are clear:
If the tools and software take over administrative tasks, such as data entry or scheduling, this saves the employees time, which they in turn gain for other, sales-oriented activities.
The entire process of a Salesforce integration is based on the optimal execution of existing processes. In our experience, it is often necessary to rethink and, if necessary, restructure these very processes. This process optimisation paired with the subsequent automation represents a huge benefit for companies.
As mentioned at the beginning: a customer relationship management system usually represents the heart of sales. All essential data is recorded and collected here. But these are not fixed. Data changes, different data becomes more important depending on the point in time of the customer journey, throughout the entire customer life cycle a CRM like Salesforce can and should support. Salesforce integration supports this aspect so that all significant data is always available at the right time.
Distribution does not happen by chance. Often there is a sophisticated strategy behind it that organises and aligns work processes. Its implementation can benefit from the Salesforce connection. Here is a simple example: automated reminders are used to remind employees of follow-up appointments or follow-ups at a specified time. It has already been 7 days since the first meeting and the promised response from the customer has still not arrived? Following up by phone or in writing can be important and Salesforce reminds you of this.
Of course, reporting is also part of sales. Reports and evaluations not only inform, but also show previously unused potential. Of course, we can also integrate reporting into Salesforce. This way, both employees and management are always up to date.
The term on which the Salesforce integration is built has already been mentioned before: API. An API is a programming interface that is provided by Salesforce but also by many other tools. Other programmes can be connected and linked to this interface. The API serves as a "translator", so to speak, because not all tools speak the same language. One can therefore also speak of Salesforce API integration.( The term is explained in more detailhere ).
That sounds like you need a lot of technical know-how, doesn't it?
Yes and no. There are more and more tools on the market that enable just this kind of API integration or automation of tools via a lean interface, without the users having to do much programming themselves. One of these tools is called Make. Make offers an interface on which numerous cloud apps can be connected with each other and thus execute countless functions. No programming skills are needed per se, but they are nevertheless very helpful. The core of these automations is always: data. Data is moved from A to B and, if necessary, C. Filters and functions help to do this. Filters and functions help to identify the data that is desired. But we have already written a more detailed blog post on Make and how it works. After all, this is about the Salesforce connection.
There are numerous overlaps in both fields. The transition from leads to customers is usually gradual. Marketing is usually responsible for identifying and addressing leads, while sales (of course) is responsible for selling them. During the life cycle from contact to lead to prospect to customer, it is important that, on the one hand, the company presents a coherent image and the communication fits, and on the other hand, that an insightful and data-driven profile of the person is created.
Basically, it can be stated that marketing automation focuses more on the first phases of a customer journey: Lead generation and nurturing. CRM automation or Salesforce integration can then build on this marketing automation and access comprehensive information about the (potential) customers.
A CRM like Salesforce offers an incredible number of possibilities to support a company. The functions are so comprehensive that it is usually not possible to exploit the full potential. Looking at the Salesforce integration can help to get more out of the CRM and at the same time reduce time for administration and maintenance. Moving data from A to B (for example from mails to CRM or from CRM to accounting) is an enormously important, but truly not a joyful task. Nevertheless, such activities take up a lot of time. Integrating and automating Salesforce can save this time and put it to good use elsewhere: in sales.
We are happy to support you in uncovering potentials, illuminating possibilities and implementing automation. To make your Salesforce integration a success, we analyse existing processes, optimise them and create unique automations that are scalable, sustainable and efficient.
Cloud Integration, iPaaS, SaaS, BPA… Ough, hard to keep track of all these terms. They are currently used frequently (and increasingly) in the context of automation, and it is sometimes difficult to make a clear distinction and distinction. We have already written blog posts on the terms iPaaS, SaaS and BPA, but we’ll take them up again here to make the difference.
But let’s start with cloud integration, because that’s the central umbrella term in which we embed all the other technologies in this blog post.
Arrange a free cloud integration consultation now
Arrange a free cloud integration consultation now
To illustrate these advantages, an example is suitable that we know well from our everyday work as an automation agency:
The central data to be used here is the data of a major customer. This can be the simplest information, such as the address. This address is required in numerous but completely different processes in the company: on the one hand, for correct invoicing in accounting. On the other hand, in the CRM system, where all the data of the large customer is also stored. But the address is also important in sales, for example, when employees go to the sales meeting on site.
Now the customer announces that the address of the company has changed after a move. This information will reach you by e-mail. There are now two options:
01. The e-mail is forwarded to all affected departments, accounting, sales, customer service, marketing… All persons open their corresponding program, CRM, accounting software, marketing tools (such as newsletter marketing) and change the data already stored there of the customer. This means that in multiple applications, different people do exactly the same thing: change one address.
02. But there is also an alternative: By connecting your applications, thus by integrizing them, the customer’s e-mail, or rather the information it contains about the address change, is automatically passed on to all affected applications: CRM, accounting, marketing, ERP. This does not require any clicks, because the cloud integration detects a trigger, i.e. address change, and thus automatically starts the process.
What sounds unimpressive in a single process becomes more effective when such a process occurs several times a day or weekly. Because there is a lot of data that is available in different applications and should always be correct. If these applications are cloud applications they are suitable for cloud integration.
But cloud integration doesn’t just happen. There are now a variety of applications that enable and implement this. Such tools usually allow us to link the relevant cloud applications on a central platform and define clear rules on when, how, where, how much data should be passed on and what happens to them.
To realize cloud integration, there are various applications and technologies that are sometimes used interchangeably.
We have made a first distinction between iPaaS and BPA here.
We explain the term SaaS in more detail here.
Cloud integration is rather an umbrella term that includes numerous technologies, such as SaaS, iPaaS and BPA, and this is also absolutely necessary. Cloud integration is a concept that is made possible by appropriate technologies.
However, all terms share the commonality that they are cloud-based and thus offer enormous potential for growth and scaling. In addition, they are often cheaper to implement and maintain because changed requirements are easy to implement.
As an independent automation agency, we implement cloud integration according to your requirements. We use a variety of SaaS tools and iPaas (strictly speaking BPA) software. Together we find individual solutions that are flexible and scalable.
