Written Best Practices

5 secrets for building a customer-centric business
Small and medium businesses can greatly increase their chances for success by becoming customer centric. Here are five secrets for achieving that goal.

How to get big results with a small budget
If you’re a small or medium-sized business, with around 20-500 users, the resources in this paper are for you. With so many Salesforce CRM features and other free or low-cost solutions out there, the challenge is finding those that give you a biggest bang for the buck. Explore these solutions now to see how they fit into your business strategy.

Meet — and beat — these 8 CRM challenges
By choosing a cloud-based solution such as Salesforce CRM you’ll find that the implementation process—and ongoing maintenance—is much easier than with traditional software solutions. Still, there are some red flags to look out for. We’ve identified the 8 most common issues when it comes to implementing CRM. Make sure you have these bases covered and you’ll be on your way to success.

Achieving outstanding CRM administration
With software as a service (SaaS), systems administration is much easier than with traditional on-premise software. Still, making sure you have the right administration resources—using either your employees or salesforce.com’s services—will be key to your success.

6 steps to making the most of each release
Each new major release delivers new features requested by our user community. Don’t miss this opportunity to make your organization more effective and your users more productive—three times a year.

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5 steps to a successful implementation
Whether you’re just starting out or are in the middle of an implementation, this document can help guide you to success.

Get these must-have administrator tools
Salesforce CRM has dozens of tools to help administrators do their jobs. This document highlights the best.

Managing your Salesforce CRM storage
Understand your storage limits, learn to make the most of your storage, and find out about your options for expanding storage.

6 steps toward top data quality
Don’t let bad data undermine your Salesforce CRM project—or your success as a company. Industry analysts point the finger at bad data as one of the top three reasons why CRM projects fail. Because bad data leads to misleading, incomplete, and confusing information, it lowers adoption— another major reason why CRM projects fail. Get your data under control with the approaches outlined in this paper.

Choose the right tools to customize and extend Salesforce CRM
Make the most of Salesforce CRM by customizing it to your needs. Ranging from point-and-click tools to sophisticated development environments, there are tools for every need—and level of technical expertise.

Using data access design patterns
Properly controlling access to sensitive information in your system is vital to CRM success. Start with this document to understand all your options for sharing settings, role hierarchy, sharing rules, and territory management.

Managing your Salesforce CRM storage
Understand your storage limits, learn to make the most of your storage, and find out about your options for expanding storage.

3 steps to managing members and donations with Salesforce CRM
Find out how to enhance your fundraising campaigns and build stronger relationships with your members.

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Tips for using incentives and rewards to boost adoption
User adoption is key to making Salesforce CRM a success. To ensure high rates of user adoption you need a long-term strategy, with ongoing efforts to drive adoption. Find out how to make incentives and rewards part of your adoption strategy.

Beyond login rates: three key areas for measuring adoption
User adoption is key to making your salesforce.com solution successful. To make sure you stay on track, you need to be proactive about measuring adoption. This document outlines three key areas for measuring user adoption.

10 tips for a successful training plan
Having a terrific training plan is a huge step towards getting Salesforce CRM off to a great start. After all, user adoption is the single most important ingredient in success. With more than a million users raving about Salesforce CRM, our customers confirm the importance of training when it comes to adoption. Get an overview of the key ingredients that will make your training plan a success.

How to develop a comprehensive training strategy
Training is one of the most important investments you can make. Find out how to do it right.

9 steps to effective change management
By continually enhancing your application, you’ll improve adoption, broaden usage, and improve your users' overall experience. To make sure you’re making those changes that will have the biggest impact on your business, you need a product release strategy that will “bubble up” those enhancements that will keep your application—and your users—performing at their peak.

8 keys to mobile CRM success
Mobile access to Salesforce CRM is one of easiest ways to get the most from your Salesforce CRM investment. To get started right, follow the tips in this document. It’s an approach that’s yielded great results for hundreds of customers.

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5 simple steps to reports and dashboards
To track and improve business performance, you need reports that show trends as well as real-time dashboards for up-to-the minute information about your business. Salesforce CRM makes it easy to create both.

3 tips to get unstuck when creating a formula
Salesforce administrators—Have you ever gotten stuck creating a formula? Here are 3 tips to help solve your problem.

For business success, mind your metrics
Metrics are measurements that quantify business performance. Metrics are also your ticket to increasing that performance, improving planning and control cycles, and ensuring accountability. This document highlights metrics relevant to CRM—particularly in sales, marketing, and in customer service—and shows how Salesforce CRM helps to make that information available to all who need to know.

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Choose the right tools to customize and extend Salesforce CRM
Make the most of Salesforce CRM by customizing it to your needs. Ranging from point-and-click tools to sophisticated development environments, there are tools for every need—and level of technical expertise.

Bring cloud computing to your entire company with the AppExchange
With hundreds of applications—ranging from dashboards that extend Salesforce CRM to full-featured financials applications—the AppExchange makes finding and deploying new applications fast, easy, and secure.

Create powerful Web sites on Force.com
Use Force.com sites functionality to build and run public, unauthenticated Web sites on Force.com. Learn about common use cases, needed skills, and considerations.

5 steps to using the content library
Follow these recommendations to set you up for success as you roll out the content library.

8 keys to mobile CRM success
Mobile access to Salesforce CRM is one of easiest ways to get the most from your Salesforce CRM investment. To get started right, follow the tips in this document. It’s an approach that’s yielded great results for hundreds of customers.

Turbo-charge customer communications with email templates
Make your sales reps more productive, enforce your corporate look-and-feel, and ensure your messaging is always consistent and on point.

4 questions to answer for a successful portal implementation
Rolling out a customer or partner portal involves careful planning and execution. This document will help orient you before you dive into a portal implementation.

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Overview

 9 reasons why sales manager love Salesforce CRM
Managing all aspects of sales productivity takes work. By providing 360-degree visibility into the sales process, however, Salesforce CRM makes that work easier—and more effective—than ever before.

13 reasons sales reps love Salesforce CRM
Regular use of Salesforce CRM is important to drive full adoption. To achieve this goal, sales reps need to know how the application benefits them, day after day. The bottom line: Salesforce CRM is not just a tracking tool, it’s a sales effectiveness tool.

Understanding the basic building blocks of Salesforce CRM
To take advantage of all Salesforce CRM has to offer, your sales reps and managers need to understand how to use the application to manage each deal. It’s the key to accurately predicting revenue, managing your people, and continuously improving sales performance.

How to measure and increase customer loyalty
Customer loyalty has a significant impact on a company's profits and its prospects for the future. This article provides insight on how you can find out where you stand with your customers and how to use that information to make your customers more loyal.

5 secrets to building a customer-centric business
Small and medium businesses can greatly increase their chances for success by becoming customer centric. Here are five secrets for achieving that goal.

For business success, mind your metrics
Metrics are measurements that quantify business performance. Metrics are also your ticket to increasing that performance, improving planning and control cycles, and ensuring accountability. This document highlights metrics relevant to CRM—particularly in sales, marketing, and in customer service—and shows how Salesforce CRM helps to make that information available to all who need to know.

How salesforce.com uses Salesforce CRM in marketing
Ever wonder how salesforce.com manages its marketing programs? Find out now—and you might just learn something to boost your own marketing efforts.

How salesforce.com uses Salesforce Chatter
Find out how Chatter is changing not just the way we work together, but the way we work. This document shares evolving use cases during the introduction of Chatter at salesforce.com.

Optimize lead and sales process

6 proven ways to generate more leads
Capture more leads and follow up on them more efficiently with Salesforce CRM. This document covers the tools and resources that will turbo-charge your lead generation efforts.

5 steps to effective lead management
Fine-tune your lead management process to get more leads and then make the most of them. Align sales and marketing, grow your pipeline, shorten your sales cycle, and turn more leads into customers.

9 tips for using lead scoring to close more deals
Properly scored leads mean higher sales productivity. Learn to effectively score and qualify new business to make the most of your leads.

8 steps to unlocking your pipeline with opportunities
Take control of your pipeline and your deals by making the most of the opportunity object in Salesforce CRM. Align your sales process with Salesforce CRM—and make your reps more productive as a result.

5 simple steps to reports and dashboards
To track and improve business performance, you need reports that show trends as well as real-time dashboards for up-to-the minute information about your business. Salesforce CRM makes it easy to create both.

Run and measure campaigns

5 steps to running your campaigns in Salesforce CRM
Getting quality leads and knowing how they perform is key to business success. The campaign management feature takes the guesswork out of campaigns, so you always know which campaigns result in the most leads—and the highest revenue.

Turbo-charge customer communications with email templates
Make your sales reps more productive, enforce your corporate look-and-feel, and ensure your messaging is always consistent and on point.

9 tips for successful email campaigns
Don’t waste marketing dollars on email campaigns that don’t produce results. Discover and make the most of new trends that optimize email marketing, for maximum return and highest open rates.

4 steps to getting started with Salesforce CRM and Google AdWords
Salesforce CRM and Google AdWords can help your organization track and measure the success of your Google advertising efforts.

How to make the most of search engine marketing (SEM)
Get in on SEM, one of the hottest trends in online marketing. Find out how to slash your marketing outlays by delivering qualified prospects at a reasonable cost. Learn how to fine-tune your product messages. And do it all from within Salesforce CRM using Google AdWords or other applications from the AppExchange.

8 steps to creating a social media strategy
Find out how to use social media tools for business—and how to tie that strategy into Salesforce CRM.

Become even more productive

Customizable forecasting: What’s in it for you?
Find out whether the customizable forecasting functionality is right for you—and how to prepare to implement it.

4 steps to deciding if territory management is right for you
Territory management can make your organization more efficient by organizing and sharing your data in a unique way. But it’s not for everyone. Find out whether it’s right for your organization. 

Tips for using incentives and rewards to boost adoption
User adoption is key to making Salesforce CRM a success. To ensure high rates of user adoption you need a long-term strategy, with ongoing efforts to drive adoption. Find out how to make incentives and rewards part of your adoption strategy.

8 keys to mobile CRM success
Mobile access to Salesforce CRM is one of easiest ways to get the most from your Salesforce CRM investment. To get started right, follow the tips in this document. It’s an approach that’s yielded great results for hundreds of customers.

How salesforce.com uses Salesforce Chatter
Find out how Chatter is changing not just the way we work together, but the way we work. This document shares evolving use cases during the introduction of Chatter at salesforce.com.

How salesforce.com uses Salesforce CRM in marketing
Ever wonder how salesforce.com manages its marketing programs? Find out now—and you might just learn something to boost your own marketing efforts.

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Track the 5 most important call center metrics
You’ve got your hands on the wheel, but the only way to get from 0 to 60 is to have your eyes on the dashboard. Visibility is as critical for your agents as it is for management. Find out about the top 5 service metrics identified by your peers.

7 tips for creating up-sell opportunities from your call center
Turn your call center into a revenue center by enlisting your customer service agents to up-sell and cross-sell as part of their jobs.

8 ways to maximize service agent productivity
Making your agents more productive is a game-changer in today’s business environment. You don’t have to hire hundreds of agents to keep your customers happy—just take advantage of the Service Cloud and these easy tips.

4 questions to answer for a successful portal implementation
Rolling out a customer or partner portal involves careful planning and execution. This document will help orient you before you dive into a portal implementation.

How salesforce.com uses the Service Cloud and Salesforce Chatter
Find out about the programs and processes salesforce.com uses in its support organization.

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How salesforce.com manages Salesforce CRM
As your company grows, so should your implementation of Salesforce CRM. In this document, salesforce.com shares its best practices for managing the application.

How salesforce.com uses Salesforce Chatter
Find out how Chatter is changing not just the way we work together, but the way we work. This document shares evolving use cases during the introduction of Chatter at salesforce.com.

How salesforce.com uses Salesforce CRM in marketing
Ever wonder how salesforce.com manages its marketing programs? Find out now—and you might just learn something to boost your own marketing efforts.

How salesforce.com uses the Service Cloud and Salesforce Chatter
Find out about the programs and processes salesforce.com uses in its support organization.

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