How to find the right Salesforce Implementation Partner?

The Salesforce ecosystem is made up of over 170k experts spread across consulting firms and digital agencies all over the world. You need to find your best fit in a partner who not only has the deep technical skills and Salesforce expertise, but also speaks the same language you do, has the same culture and is in the same industry as you.

In your search to find your best fit, here are a few points you need to keep in mind while hiring the right Salesforce Implementation Partner

1. Utilise Your Network For Research

Once you have a thorough understanding of what services are needed from Salesforce to meet your company’s requirements and goals, you need to conduct additional research by reaching out to your network to seek advice from other industry contacts that have gone through a similar process. The idea is to look for a dependable Salesforce Systems Integrator (SI) who knows how to identify the real needs of your business, analyse the current market trends, and develop a custom solution tailored for your business model and requirements.

You can trust your network to provide an unbiased and honest review of their experience working with a Salesforce partner, someone who goes beyond having just the right technology skillset, and is a true collaborator to work with and shares the same vision, company culture, and communication style as you.

2. Use The AppExchange Platform

You can also get started with your Salesforce consultant hunt, with AppExchange. There you will find a directory of Salesforce consultants along with their user ratings. There are two quick ways to start your search. You can use the filters on the consultants page to narrow down your search based on parameters like product or industry expertise, location, ratings, certified experts and consultant tiers, like registered, silver, crest, platinum, etc. Or, you may type a partner name into the AppExchange search bar to validate the expertise of a consulting partner you’re looking for already.

3. Get A Cost Estimate

While looking for the most cost-effective Salesforce implementation partner, Salesforce Managed Services should never be regarded as cheap. As it is working with an implementation partner does provide you with more value for money than recruiting a staff of Salesforce administrators. Nevertheless, doing some good research about the expenditure, preparing a budget or having an idea about the current rates and getting the cost estimates from two or three potential partners is helpful, before you narrow down to your final Salesforce partner.

Ideally, your budget should not be too rigid, so it can be adjusted as needed. Although, having a general notion in mind can help you be better prepared to avoid unnecessary superficial costs and stay focused on the vital elements.

4. Ensure Salesforce Certifications

You need to make sure that your partner is a proven Salesforce expert. Salesforce certifications validate if a consultant has the Salesforce knowledge and experience and is up-to-date with the Salesforce releases, to be able to estimate the optimistic, pessimistic, and overall most likely scenarios for your project timeframe and budget, followed by handling your implementation efficiently. Certifications also validate the ability of consultants to surface the challenges and risks and suggest the most efficient yet cost-effective solutions for data migration, customization, and app development.

Salesforce offers multiple certifications like Certified Salesforce Administrator, Certified Salesforce Developer, Certified Salesforce Marketing Cloud Consultant, etc. Your shortlisted consultant should at least hold both Administrator and Developer certifications, while the rest depends upon your unique requirements.

5. Look For Ongoing Support For A Long-Term Relationship

Choosing the right Salesforce consulting partner needs to be more than just entering a business contract to quickly finish off your current requirement. Your focus should be to find a Salesforce partner that can provide you with post-implementation support for on-going long-term account management and assistance. Since Salesforce customers frequently need guidance, support, and upgrades beyond their primary setups, in case they encounter obstacles like a lack of assistance during a difficulty while managing their platform, the absence of a Salesforce administrator on board, or an inability to undertake larger projects due to scalability issues. All this calls for a dependable Salesforce Managed Services Provider who would be worthy to be your ideal solution.

What’s more is, these Salesforce specialists also have built-in tools for proactively identifying hazards, even before an issue can arise, further highlighting the importance of a good partner for a long-term engagement.

6. Ask The Right Questions

There are multiple variables to consider while selecting the right SI. You may want to conduct an assessment in an attempt to select the right partner. Here are some assessment questions to consider asking your potential partners.

Can you describe a similar project and the results you achieved. Do you have customer references or case studies?
What are the technical skill sets and certifications that your team offers for my project requirement?
What is your experience in my industry and how many similar deployments have you done?
What is your local or global presence? Do I expect partner resources to be on-site, remote, or hybrid?
How would you describe your company’s work culture?
What are the obstacles faced commonly with this kind of business transformation? And how did you help your customers overcome them?
Can you train our admins and users?

We Are The Ideal Salesforce Partner You’re Looking For

We are ETG Digital, an IT services, consulting, and business solutions organization with more than two decades of experience in partnering with Salesforce to transform clients’ business ecosystems. We are a Crest Level Salesforce Partner, headquartered in Plano, Texas with diverse global teams across the US, Canada, UK, Australia, UAE, and India. With a 4.85 client satisfaction score, our Salesforce certified experts help clients complete their entire projects right from scoping requirements, to solution engineering, implementation, QAT, integrating with third party systems, deploying and maintenance.

Our Salesforce Service Delivery Models are designed to produce high quality solutions with a clear focus on increasing ROI and reducing service delivery costs. And, to achieve this, our onsite Salesforce Consulting Services are complimented by our Offshore Salesforce Development Team of consultants and developers, ensuring the ideal solution with fast TOT. This hybrid model makes way for flexibility and scalability to not just meet, but exceed your customer’s requirements and expectations.

Onsite, Offshore, or Hybrid, no matter what your preference is, all our models are flexible, can be measured and tweaked as per your needs. There are no overheads and you own the source code developed and Intellectual Property Rights of the development work we do for you under our agreement.

Talk to our experts. Book your free consultation now!

Or mail us at info@etg.digital or call +1 469 666 1119