Jenna Trott  |  NOVEMBER 27, 2023  |  5 Minute Read

Salesforce, a name often synonymous with success, has a longstanding reputation for transforming businesses across a variety of industries. This is especially true within the world of banking. As the banking industry continues to evolve, institutions are constantly seeking ways to gain a competitive edge. With the dawn of new technologies, customer expectations are higher than ever, and banks must find innovative solutions to meet these demands. Salesforce emerges as an obvious solution for banks with a range of tools and features specifically tailored to the needs of the banking sector. As banks increasingly adopt Salesforce, they often find themselves grappling with a sense of overwhelm; thoughts race through their mind to the tune of “wait, what now?”, “how can I get the most out of this investment?”, “what tools will be necessary for accelerating productivity for my team?” In this article, we will explore which Salesforce features most benefit banks, common challenges that emerge after implementation, and what your bank can do about it.

Key Benefits of Implementing/Integrating Salesforce CRM in the Banking Sector

In the banking sector, where customer trust and loyalty are crucial, CRM plays a vital role in enhancing customer experience and building long-term relationships. It enables banks to streamline their operations, personalize their services, and gain valuable insights into customer behavior. Salesforce CRM takes this concept to the next level by providing a comprehensive platform that encompasses all aspects of customer relationship management, here’s how:

Centralizing Customer Information
Traditionally, banking operations involve disparate systems, resulting in fragmented customer data and inefficiencies. Salesforce consolidates all customer data, interactions, and transactions, providing a unified, comprehensive customer view. When information can be found in one centralized location, it deepens bankers’ understanding of customer needs, enabling tailored interactions. Further, Salesforce facilitates seamless omni-channel interactions, allowing customers to engage via preferred channels. Whether by phone, email, chat, or social media, bankers are empowered with real-time customer insights to deliver the right message at precisely the right time.

Improve Sales and Lead Generation
Salesforce proves instrumental not just for customer service but also for optimizing sales and lead generation within the banking sector. It equips bankers with robust sales management tools like lead tracking, opportunity management, and sales forecasting, facilitating efficient management of the sales pipeline. Moreover, the platform boasts superior lead generation capabilities, empowering banks to pinpoint and engage potential customers based on their preferences, behaviors, and financial requirements. This empowers banks to refine sales processes, enhance cross-selling and upselling opportunities, and ultimately, bolster revenue growth.

Increase Efficiency and Productivity
Efficiency and productivity are critical for banks to stay competitive in today’s rapidly evolving environment and Salesforce offers a range of features and tools that can significantly improve efficiency and productivity in banking operations. Between workflow automation capabilities that can automate routine tasks and collaboration tools that enable bankers to work together seamlessly, regardless of their geographical location, Salesforce makes it easy to maximize your work output without breaking a sweat. Further, with the recent release of Einstein GPT, communications can be streamlined by allowing users to ask natural-language questions within Salesforce CRM. As a result, users receive an ongoing flow of AI-generated content customized to changing customer details and preferences. This approach not only eliminates the need for manual content creation but saves your team valuable time.

Turn Data Into Action
For banks, having better insight into customer behavior and market trends is directly linked to an overall improvement in business performance. Salesforce offers banks a competitive advantage with robust data analytics and reporting features, empowering banks to glean invaluable insights from their customer data. Within this platform, banks can examine customer interactions, spot patterns and trends, and craft informed strategies fueled by accurate data. Furthermore, Salesforce CRM offers customizable dashboards and reports, helping banks closely monitor key performance indicators and chart their trajectory toward their goals.

Superior Security
Banks must do more than offer seamless experiences; they must also provide support to their customers. Customers seek assurance that their entrusted financial information remains secure in the hands of their chosen financial institution. Banks leveraging Salesforce receive robust security measures, including stringent access controls, encryption protocols, and continuous monitoring, ensuring the protection of confidential information against unauthorized access or breaches. With compliance with industry standards, Salesforce provides a secure environment for banks to operate within regulatory frameworks. Finally, the platform’s multi-layered security architecture, routine security updates, and proactive threat intelligence measures fortify banks’ defenses, fostering trust among customers and stakeholders regarding data protection and confidentiality.

Key Banking Sector Challenges Following Implementation/Integration

Although Salesforce offers numerous advantages, the process of implementing or integrating Salesforce can pose significant complexities and challenges. Companies frequently encounter difficulties following go-live that often result in project delays, budgetary strains, and occasionally, project failures. This includes:

Data Loss
A key challenge during Salesforce implementation and integration is data migration. This intricate process involves comprehending data mapping, conversion, and cleansing while transferring data from legacy systems to Salesforce. Consequently, banks grapple with data quality problems like duplicate records, and missing or inconsistent data formats, causing errors and disparities within Salesforce. Moreover, handling substantial data volumes proves time-consuming and resource-demanding, potentially causing project delays and unforeseen costs.

Bad Data
Encountering a data disaster post-Salesforce implementation or integration is detrimental and often stems from these critical issues:

→ Inaccurate Data Mapping: Accurate data mapping is vital for precise data transfer from source systems to Salesforce. Inadequate mapping leads to inconsistencies, affecting processes, decision-making, and revenue due to inaccurate reporting. A thorough understanding of data fields in both systems and rigorous testing ensures accurate information transfer and consistency.

→ Validation Rule Weaknesses: Validation rules safeguard data quality in Salesforce by setting criteria for data storage. Implementing these rules prevents issues like duplicate records or incomplete data, ensuring accurate information and informed decisions.

→ Loose User Permissions: User permissions control data access, preventing unauthorized alterations. Tailoring access levels maintains data accuracy, securing sensitive information and enabling focused business activities.

Low User Adoption
Despite the array of advantages Salesforce provides, numerous banks encounter challenges with user adoption. Employees might resist altering established workflows or lack comprehensive knowledge of maximizing Salesforce’s functionalities. Insufficient training and ineffective communication regarding Salesforce’s benefits further impede adoption rates. Low user adoption poses significant problems as it hampers platform effectiveness, hindering companies from unlocking Salesforce’s complete potential.

Customization Challenges
One of the greatest aspects of Salesforce is its seemingly innumerable customization capabilities that empower banks to align the platform with their unique needs and processes. Yet, challenges often emerge with customization. This includes having insufficient technical expertise within the organization, leading to potential delays, errors, or incomplete customizations failing to meet organizational needs. Conversely, vague requirements can prompt excessive customization, amplifying complexity and introducing the risk of errors and maintenance complications.

Security Concerns
Despite Salesforce’s robust security offerings, organizations encounter challenges in effectively securing their data and systems. Inadequate authentication and access controls present a prevalent concern, fostering unauthorized access or misuse of sensitive information. Additionally, improperly configured security settings create vulnerabilities, inviting cyber threats and potential data breaches. Lack of employee training and awareness escalates security risks, as employees may inadvertently expose sensitive data or become victims of phishing scams.

What Your Bank Can Do

To mitigate these risks, banks will often hire an administrator responsible for maintaining the Salesforce instance and any problems that arise. While this is a great strategy, the numerous responsibilities can pose significant challenges. Consequently, banks and the evolution of the Salesforce platform exceed the ability of in-house staff to keep pace with the rapid growth and changes. So, what can your bank do to prevent system failure and maximize the Salesforce investment? The answer is simple.

Managed Services for Salesforce
Managed Services for Salesforce functions as a means for businesses to enhance their workflows and operations. These services encompass strategic planning and staying updated with the latest technological advancements via Salesforce system updates, delivering necessary changes for your business. It extends beyond mere optimization, guaranteeing that your Salesforce ecosystem becomes a driving force rather than an obstacle to your operations. Here’s how:

→ Strategic Planning: Discuss what your goals are and work with a team to define a vision and align resources with what you’re looking to achieve.

→ Salesforce Optimization: Your Salesforce org should be helping your business – not hurting it. If you’re finding yourself with cumbersome work processes and diminished productivity, this is something you should consider.

→ Optimization Services: Analyze your current system to ensure that it supports the objectives of your company. Industry experts can identify any areas of misused functionality and redesign the system in a way that boosts the overall productivity of your team.

→ Salesforce System Updates: Salesforce updates their system three times a year! Make sure that your system is up to speed and that new features are being properly utilized with system support from managed service experts.

→ Salesforce Post Go-Live Support: Move forward with confidence. Once your project is launched experts will be there to help ​​with any user, technical, or change management issues.

→ Salesforce Implementation Support: Any successful Salesforce implementation requires a strong foundation. Start off on the right foot and ensure success throughout every step with a planned approach to integrate new software into the existing workflow of an organizational structure.

→ Salesforce Support Ad-Hoc: For companies already using Salesforce but are looking for occasional support or maintenance without a monthly commitment, this would be a great option to verify system success.

→ Salesforce Customizations: Salesforce is robust but sometimes the default system needs to be tweaked to best suit your business’s unique needs and goals. Managed services can tailor configurations specific to what it is you’re trying to achieve.

→ Salesforce Data Clean-Up: Data is the lifeline of your business and bad data can significantly hinder work processes. Scrub any incorrect, incomplete, irrelevant, duplicate, or poorly formatted data for faster, more consistent, and accurate business insights.

→ Salesforce In-Flight Project Support: Have a project that’s already in progress but are unsure if it’s heading in the right direction? Salesforce In-Flight Project Support can help monitor and supplement your journey to ensure that you’re unlocking the full value of your project.

→ Salesforce Documentation Support: Clear and easily accessible internal documentation enables streamlined onboarding, aids in faster problem-solving, and ensures a solid knowledge management process for your team.

→ Salesforce AppExchange Installation, Testing, and Go-Live: Salesforce’s Appexchange is their cloud computing marketplace with over 7,000 applications to further customize and supplement your system. A managed services partner can help ensure that the apps you’re downloading are not only compatible but are configured to work in the most effective way. This includes testing and continued support throughout the entire process.

→ Subject Matter Expert Support: Salesforce SMEs offer a deep understanding and knowledge in a specific area or topic, and boast unique qualifications to provide superior guidance and strategy. With SME managed services support, your company will benefit from organizational evaluations and recommendations of the most suitable technical solutions.

→ Legacy System Integrations: Legacy system integration tackles the challenge of integrating information from on-premises systems into your new system without the risk of losing critical data.

→ Existing Salesforce Team Support: If you already have an existing Salesforce team but need additional support with other Salesforce requirements and recommendations, this is the best option for you. Customize the assistance you need and address chief concerns.

→ Process Automation: Automation has infinite possibilities; it can assist with maximizing productivity, decreasing company costs, reducing errors, increasing customer satisfaction, supporting employee retention, and much, much more. Take the stress out of automation with intelligent solutions by expert managed service providers.

→ Quarterly Reviews: Quarterly business reviews prove to be an invaluable opportunity to assess performance levels, identify any unresolved issues, and develop strategies to tackle any deficiencies for the next quarter. This serves as a key moment for both the client and partner to take accountability for what is working well and what could be improved upon.

→ Ongoing Solution Management: At the highest level, a managed services provider can offer long-term, in-house support to handle the daily operations of specialized applications and ensure end-to-end solution success.

→ Admin, Developer, or Architect Support: Provide essential proactive and reactive support for the key duties and tasks associated with admin, developer, or architect roles.

Why AGG?

For financial institutions entrusted with managing and safeguarding members’ money, delivering trustworthy services and support is essential. Selecting the right allies, those who share your goals, become paramount in the journey to build that trust. This is precisely where Access Global Group excels, offering a unique blend of global deployment expertise coupled with the agility of a boutique firm. With a remarkable track record spanning over 15 years in diverse industries and holding the prestigious Salesforce Platinum-level partner status, AGG ensures that your financial institution’s needs and expectations are not only met but exceeded throughout the entire process.