Salesforce Premier Support: What you should know

Salesforce Premier Success is almost always sold to new customers who are just starting their Salesforce journey. There are many good reasons for this but to truly understand why some form of Salesforce support is a good idea, it is best to understand what Salesforce is and even more importantly, what it isn’t. Then it will be easier for you to determine the level of support your company will need to ensure your Salesforce vision becomes a reality.

New customers often make the mistake of thinking that Salesforce comes pre-configured for their particular business needs and processes and are quickly frustrated when they learn that purchasing the licenses is the first step of their journey, not the finish line.

This harsh realization is not to say that Salesforce isn’t the best CRM solution in the world because most experts will agree that it is. The reason for that opinion is that no other CRM is as flexible and customizable as Salesforce and no other CRM integrates as well with all the other software tools your company uses today or may use in the future. No other CRM has the sheer number of features and robust functionality built into the software that can be enabled by “clicks” not “code”. This means the software already does many of the things you need without the extra expense of hiring software engineers to customize it for your specific needs. It does need to be turned on though, and that is where support is needed in most cases.

Think of Salesforce as a huge storage bin full of Legos™. All the parts are there and the possibilities are virtually endless, but the end result often depends on the skill level of the builder.

If you are a small business that simply wants to use Salesforce as a basic CRM doing basic CRM things, chances are you can get 99% of what you need “off-the-shelf” and you may not even need to hire an implementation partner to be satisfied with your purchase. (Like building a rectangle building with Legos™)

But more often than not, you bought Salesforce BECAUSE it does those cool things that your current system does not. As your needs specific business requirements increase in complexity so does the need for someone who knows what that weird-looking asymmetrical Lego™ piece at the bottom of the bin, actually does.

So you’ve decided that you don’t have the chops to get Salesforce set up and running the way you need it and you want to have support in those efforts. Good news: you have options! Bad news: there is no silver bullet support solution.

To stick with metaphors; Salesforce Premier Success is like a gym membership. Getting value out of that gym membership has much more to do with the person who buys it than the gym itself. If you don’t use it, chances are you’ll think of it as a waste of money. We’ve also all seen those funny social media videos of people using gym equipment in hilariously wrong ways, often leading to disaster.

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To get the most out of a gym membership some basic training on how to use it is required. It may also be a great idea to even hire a personal trainer for a while to teach you routines that are custom fit for you. Premier Success is the gym. You can always go there. You can always ask for help. But it doesn’t promise you the result you are looking for. That responsibility still rests on your shoulders.

Q: So should I buy it?

A: If you use it a lot and use it the way it was intended to be used, yes.

Q: Is it all the support I’ll need?

A: Probably not.

Q: Will it help me achieve my goals?

A: Yes

Q: Will I achieve my goals faster and get a more personalized result with a support partner?

A: Absolutely

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