Connecting the Dots in Your Data

For a Complete Customer View With Salesforce® Apps

Do you have a junk drawer where you put things that you intend to sort through later? With the exception of professional organizers, most everyone has one. But what does this have to do with data?

When you clean out your “data junk drawer,” it can make a positive impact on sales and revenue. Check out these interesting stats from Salesforce. In the past year, they found that 83% of sales teams with AI saw revenue grow, compared to 66% of teams without AI. And there’s more good news. Salesforce’s State of Sales 2024 research uncovered that the AI is improving sales in terms of understanding customer needs, personalization, sales forecasting, as well as communication with prospects.

But Salesforce also discovered some surprising trends. While customer expectations are growing, productivity is lagging, and competition is growing, four in five sellers say sales are up. Say what? How are sales teams increasing sales in spite of all these challenges?

To begin, reps are leveraging technology in new ways and using it as their guide. “They're consolidating tools and improving data security to realize the benefits of AI. They’re also connecting the dots in their data to provide reps with a complete customer view. The renewed focus on simplifying selling might explain the optimistic mood as sales pros look ahead. Most say they feel confident despite the challenges they face,” explains the State of Sales report.

Having a systematic approach to implementing AI and preparing data beforehand pays off in the long run. The State of Sales report found that 53% of the sales teams who are using AI, consolidated their tools and technology stack before they implemented AI. However, the report also found 31% of sales teams using AI have encountered issues with data being outdated, not accurate or incomplete. 

The Salesforce guide Training Your Own AI Model Probably Won’t Help Win Customers, But Data Will adds, “Data maturity is the fastest route to AI success. But what exactly does data maturity look like? Organizations reach the pinnacle of data maturity when Data strategies complement business goals. Your stakeholders use data to guide every strategic move, enabling you to transform insights into actionable plans and measurable achievement.”

The first step toward achieving data maturity is to have clean and connected data. Following are use cases that can help with connecting your sales data, so that you can get started on the path to data maturity.

Adding Relevant Info to Records

Calculating the Number of Calls for a Contact in Salesforce

Number of Contacts without an Email Address

Display Products on an Account in Salesforce

Ensuring Salesforce Closed Won Opportunities List Products

Ensuring Reasons Lost Are on Closed Salesforce Opportunities

Correcting & Preventing Duplicates 

Finding and Fixing Duplicate Accounts in Salesforce

Finding and Fixing Duplicate Contacts in Salesforce

Organizing Sales Pipeline

Streamline Sales Pipeline

Calculate Total Value in Opportunities Pipeline by Account

Reporting

Monthly or YOY Reporting in Salesforce with Rollup Helper & Lookup Helper

Use Lookup Helper to Get Around Reporting Bucket Limits

Optimize Sales Rep Reporting and Leaderboards in Salesforce

Customer Onboarding 

Customer Onboarding with Reusable Project Templates