Complexity is bad for growth.
What with scattered data, team silos, and stalled revenues.
Here’s an example.
Finance teams may have to reject good orders because of multiple invoices generated in different systems for different products.
This is where Salesforce comes in.
Salesforce products are hub and spoke.
They fuse teams and data into one, connected system.
It enables you to open and scale new revenue streams without a hitch.
But, your Salesforce ROI depends on how you integrate it into your business.
Why Do B2B Companies Have Low ROI?
In 2023, B2B companies face several revenue challenges.
Recession, longer sales cycles, lower ACV, and lack of funding are eating into profits.
While these are largely market-led, there are other systemic problems:
Reasons for low B2B ROI:
1. Fragmented revenue processes
Sales and Finance often use different systems to manage orders and billing.
This means hours lost in manual tracking and incomplete data.
The result: longer sales cycle.
For example, approvals for discounts take weeks.
There’s no way around it.
Without first checking the contract terms, finance teams risk making compliance errors.
2. Lack of automation in channel sales
It’s one thing to automate direct sales.
But this is much harder to do with channel partners.
Without the right tools, you may have more unknowns than known data.
For example, poor pipeline visibility may make it impossible to predict revenue.
If you cannot track their sales activities, you cannot help with marketing campaigns or deal reviews.
3. Revenue teams working in silos
Revenue teams often stick to their turf when it comes to customer experience.
More often than not, this happens because they don’t have a complete customer view.
Marketing and sales don’t see finance data and finance can’t help sales teams with configuring products and quotes.
If each function gets access to the big picture, it can speed up the revenue lifecycle by a mile.
How to Boost Salesforce ROI in 2023?
IBM’s State of Salesforce 2022-23 report recommends that B2B businesses:
1. Automate revenue processes
85% of companies plan to use Salesforce to automate business processes.
Among other things, it offers plenty of options for pricing and order management.
For example, generating quotes based on call transcripts.
This allows sales reps to close deals quickly.
The right Salesforce products can also improve average order value and customer satisfaction.
The key is to think strategically about how processes scale and leverage automation at the right places for revenue growth.
2. Build a single customer view
Data integration is one of the biggest USPs of Salesforce.
Yet, only 33% of businesses have integrated all their data sources into it.
This results in poor visibility, friction, and inadequate insights.
The truth is you cannot survive an economic downturn by merely cutting costs.The key is to make strategic investments in your tech stack.
By customizing multiple Salesforce products, you can build a 360-degree customer view and discover new revenue streams.
3. Invest in partner relationships
80% of sales to B2B partners will take place via digital channels by 2025.
So, sellers must treat their partners like customers.
The key is to develop a deeper understanding of their pain points and deliver a quality experience.
The right Salesforce products can match different phone numbers or emails to specific partners.
This can help you build stronger partner relationships where you both grow together.
Check the gaps in your salesforce reports, with an no-obligation free CRM scan report.
4. Adapt to cookie-less marketing
The end of third-party data is reshaping marketing across industries.
Many teams are shifting gears to direct—to—consumer (DTC) campaigns via email, SEO, and social media.
Salesforce can unify customer activity across channels and help create targeted campaigns.
It can provide quality first-party data and accelerate the revenue lifecycle.
5 Salesforce Products to Boost ROI
The Salesforce ecosystem has thousands of products.
Many Salesforce products have overlapping features.
The key to growing ROI is customization – getting various elements to work together.
Here are some building blocks you can use:
1. Sales Cloud
Sales Cloud has been around since 1999.
It provides lead scoring and customer analytics for sales reps to focus on the best leads.
Managers can automate sales cadences and use reports to optimize planning.
Sales Cloud has some powerful add-ons that further add to its prowess:
- Sales Engagement
High-Velocity Sales is now called Sales Engagement.
It allows sales reps to prioritize leads, identify key decision-makers, follow up faster, and close deals.
It’s a key tool for inside sales teams today.
- Salesforce Anywhere
Salesforce Anywhere is a collaboration tool that merges many message threads into a single view.
It allows you to make updates across Salesforce products in real-time.
You can set alerts to track deal progress and share your insights with others.
It is like Slack in many ways.
- Lightning Dialer
This is an advanced telephony tool.
This means you can make and answer calls, add call notes, and capture call logs – all from one screen.
- Lightning Scheduler
It allows clients to schedule appointments through your website or app.
It will then capture lead information, and schedule follow-ups for sales reps.
Managers can track response times and C-sat surveys completed by clients.
Pro-tip:
- Map your sales process to Sales Cloud to plug existing gaps
- Consider integrating third-party tools to allow seamless multi-thread conversations.
- Leverage Salesforce Engagement to build a high-velocity sales process
2. Service Cloud
Service Cloud helps customer service teams handle calls and follow up with clients.
For managers, it simplifies workflow approvals and queue management.
It can also generate agent productivity reports for managers.
Some key add-ons:
- Digital Engagement
This tool provides real-time mobile, web chat, and social media messaging across channels.
You can run bulk messages, provide live customer support, or use an AI chatbot for self-service.
- Service Cloud Einstein
Einstein is an AI engine that can:
- score deals based on historical trends.
- Predict customer churn from C-SAT data
- Auto-populate quotes based on interaction history
- Service Cloud Voice
Call it the Service Cloud counterpart of Lightning Dialer.
It transcribes calls in real-time, suggests next steps or knowledge base articles, and writes summary notes.
Managers can use the tool’s Supervisor Console to score calls.
Pro-tip:
- Connect Sales Cloud and Service Cloud to increase productivity across sales and customer success.
- Use Service Cloud reports to find process gaps and fix them.
3. Revenue Cloud
Revenue Cloud is another recent addition to the Salesforce ecosystem.
It allows sales reps and finance teams to raise and approve quotes rapidly.
It streamlines orders enabling revenue efficiency and ease of purchase for clients.
Revenue Cloud is perfect for subscription-based businesses.
It includes the following add-ons
- CPQ:
CPQ is short for Configure, Price, Quote.
This tool generates custom quotes based on specific product configurations and pricing models.
- Multi-Cloud Billing
It processes incoming orders based on CPQ data and manages billing and payments.
It generates transaction reports used for accounting and compliance.
It works across multiple Salesforce products.
- B2B Commerce:
This tool simplifies B2B buying tasks for clients.
You can build custom storefronts with digital carts and configure multiple checkout options.
Pro-tip:
- Leverage automation to push revenue data from multiple sales tools to Revenue Cloud
- Connect Service Cloud and Revenue Cloud to deliver accurate billing and eliminate customer complaints.
4. Marketing Cloud
Marketing Cloud automates multi-channel marketing campaigns and enhances segmentation and targeting.
It also comes with content management capabilities.
Add-ons:
- Journey Builder
With Journey Builder, you can:
- Define touch points and deliver personalized messages across email, in-app notifications, mobile ads, etc.
- Create a seamless customer experience in every interaction.
- Marketing Cloud Customer Data Platform
CDP works with multiple Salesforce products.
Applied to Marketing Cloud, it connects and unifies customer data to source, match and merge data sources to create a single customer view. And recommend personalized content based on the level of engagement.
- Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot)
It automates email campaigns, and lead generation assets and supports leading scoring and analytics.
It gives you the ability to optimize marketing performance and close deals faster.
Pro-tip:
- Connect Marketing and Service Cloud to improve onboarding and identify upsell opportunities.
5. Slack
Slack needs no introduction.
It integrates with multiple Salesforce products to show notifications, support deal reviews, and share updates.
Pro-tip:
- Slack can complement Service Cloud in tracking open tickets and reducing resolution time.
Salesforce Optimization Is Incomplete Without Data Assurance
In 2023, revenue growth depends on quality digital relationships.
This is a challenge as cookies go out of use.
For all its strengths, Salesforce can only do so much without accurate and current data.
As any revenue operations professional will tell you, data is key for people and process alignment as well.
The key is to integrate best-in-class solutions with Salesforce to create a custom workflow.
A specialist data enrichment tool like Nektar can:
- Sync emails and meetings with the respective accounts
- Scan for historical records and plug them into active opportunities – without manual input
- Provide exceptional visibility and strategic insights for RevOps teams.
You’ll notice an impact on multiple levels:
- Streamlined revenue processes from lead to cash
- Automation of routine tasks and your team’s talent used in the best possible way.
- Optimized customer experience across channels and campaigns.
Request a demo today to see how Nektar optimizes Salesforce for revenue growth.
