How Professional Services Firms Can Optimize Client Management with Salesforce

According to statista.com, projected revenue for the professional services sector encompasses fields such as legal services, accounting, consulting, engineering, and advertising. It is estimated to be US$63.0 billion in 2023, with an anticipated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.62% from 2023 to 2028, culminating in a market volume of US$82.7 billion by 2028.

Salesforce is a comprehensive platform offering a wide array of applications. For over two decades, it has enabled professional services firms to optimize their operations and effectively manage their client data.

With Salesforce for professional services, organizations can automate tasks, invoicing, expense capture, time tracking, analytics and reporting, and much more.

In our blog post you’ll learn the following:

• Key features of Salesforce for professional services
• How professional service firms can use the most popular Salesforce products to their benefit
• Real cases of how professional services companies use Salesforce
• Pros and cons of leveraging Salesforce and consulting partners for customizing CRM to address unique challenges in professional service firms.

Transforming Service Delivery: The Key Features of Salesforce for Professional Services Firms

Professional services firms use Salesforce Sales Cloud to handle many important tasks, helping them stay efficient and provide good service.

The core functionality of this CRM system helps improve:

 

Client Relationship Management

With this professional services CRM, organizations can get a comprehensive 360-degree client profile. It elevates client relationship management by including essential metrics like historical interactions, service preferences, and correspondence.

In a financial services context, this could include capturing data points like customer demographics, current investment portfolios, and engagement history with brand content.

Leveraging this dataset, financial managers can automate the creation of highly personalized investment recommendations. For instance, a new portfolio strategy may be suggested based on the customer’s financial goals or previous interaction history.

Workflow Automation

Salesforce helps efficiently manage both new customer and vendor onboarding, ensuring that all necessary paperwork is digitally captured, organized, and securely stored. The system sends timely reminders and notices based on pre-set triggers or conditions.

Similarly, if market conditions prompt a change in investment guidance, an automated email sequence can be triggered to update clients and offer a consultation. This data-driven approach allows you to proactively manage relationships, offering value and adapting to both customer behavior and market changes.

Lead and Opportunity Management

Salesforce Sales Cloud enables centralized tracking of new business opportunities and effective management of leads effectively. Automated workflows within the Salesforce platform can prioritize and assign leads to appropriate team members, thereby streamlining the sales pipeline.

Customizability and Integrability

The system can be easily customized and scaled as needed. It also works well with 4,500 other apps for marketing, project management, and accounting.

Data Protection and Regulatory Compliance

The platform complies with 40+ regulations worldwide. By setting up Salesforce CRM, professional services companies can ensure that important company and client information is kept safe.

Task Automation

Salesforce CRM helps automate routine tasks such as sending invoices, scheduling appointments, and following up on leads. This automation frees up professionals to focus on delivering high-quality services.

Data Analytics and Reporting

Salesforce has robust data analytics tools that enable firms to analyze business metrics and KPIs. With these insights, firms can make data-driven decisions for better performance and client satisfaction.

Collaboration Tools

Collaboration tools like Chatter allow team members to communicate easily, share documents, and collaborate on projects, all within the Salesforce ecosystem.

 

 

Furthermore, Salesforce offers over 20 different software products. Each one is made to fit the special needs of various types of businesses, including professional services.

Key modules such as Sales, Service, Marketing, Experience, Analytics Clouds, and Pardot are particularly beneficial for sectors like legal services, engineering, technology, and finance consulting.

 

Salesforce Service Cloud

Professional service firms, including law, consulting, and engineering companies, can utilize Service Cloud to optimize client relations, service delivery, and internal business processes.

This product suite allows for the seamless management of complex projects that necessitate multidisciplinary collaboration. It efficiently routes client inquiries across various communication channels—such as email, phone, chat, and social media—to the appropriate personnel, thereby minimizing response time. Integrated analytics tools enable the measurement of key performance metrics to evaluate service delivery efficacy.

 

 

Salesforce Experience Cloud

Salesforce Experience Cloud, previously known as Community Cloud, provides a robust platform for the professional service industry. It helps establish branded digital environments for distinct user segments, including customers, partners, and employees.

This customer relationship management module enables the creation of secure, customized client portals. There a professional services agency can have real-time project updates, document access, and direct communication with service providers.

A professional service business can maintain a comprehensive record of all interactions with prospects, customers, and contractors. It provides the essential context required for informed decision-making and maximizing the value of each relationship.

Salesforce Experience Cloud also supports the development of specialized partner portals. They can streamline communication, document exchange, and project oversight, a valuable feature for firms engaged in subcontracting or joint ventures. Integrated analytics offer real-time insights into portal engagement, user behavior, and other critical performance indicators.

 

 

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Salesforce Marketing Cloud delivers an integrated suite of marketing automation solutions designed to optimize engagement with both current and potential clients. The platform allows you to create personalized email messages for different groups of people, like new and current clients, as well as partners.

Leveraging artificial intelligence, Marketing Cloud enables lead scoring based on user interactions with your brand. It can also automatically send follow-up messages to guide these people toward making a purchase, focusing on the most promising ones.

This Salesforce professional services module supports the promotion of events like webinars and conferences through multi-channel campaigns, social media, SMS, push notifications, and in-app messaging to engage audiences effectively.

 

 

Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot)

Pardot is a part of Salesforce made for business-to-business marketing. It has special features to help professional service companies improve their marketing, get more potential customers, and keep clients interested.

The platform efficiently generates high-quality leads via forms, landing pages, and social connectors. Leveraging advanced scoring models, Pardot evaluates leads based on their engagement level and purchase readiness. It enables sales teams to prioritize high-potential prospects.

The tool empowers organizations to segment their contact lists using various criteria for more personalized and impactful email campaigns. Automated drip sequences further nurture leads through the sales funnel, streamlining the path to direct sales engagement.

 

 

Tableau (Salesforce Analytics Cloud)

Salesforce Analytics Cloud, also known as Tableau CRM, provides a robust analytics and business intelligence suite. It is designed for professional service organizations seeking comprehensive insights into their business, clients, and operational metrics.

The platform offers real-time tracking of key performance indicators (KPIs) such as client satisfaction, project profitability, and billable hours through customizable Salesforce professional services reports and dashboards.

Analytics Cloud helps predict potential project slowdowns, and how much money will be made. It also shows chances to make work smoother, train staff, and improve methods.

Furthermore, it allows organizations to precisely evaluate marketing ROI, customer acquisition costs, and customer lifetime value, facilitating more effective budget allocation.

Real Cases of How Professional Services Companies Use Salesforce

Moving your professional services company to Salesforce will help you stand out in a crowded market. It will also make your business more trustworthy to customers and partners.

Let’s explore how professional services firms benefited from Salesforce products.

 

How Wealth Management Companies Use Salesforce

Products Used: Sales Cloud, Financial Services Cloud, Mulesoft

RBC Wealth Management, a division of RBC Capital Markets, serves individuals, families, and institutions with tailored wealth management solutions.

Like many companies moving to digital, it had a complicated system. Advisors had to use 26 different programs to get ready for client meetings. The firm knew it had to simplify things and improve client service to stay competitive, especially against smaller tech-savvy companies.

To achieve this, they integrated their CRM systems into a unified, industry-specific platform. This move enabled a holistic view of each client and integrated legacy data, all while adhering to strict financial industry regulations. The transformation yielded four key insights for firms looking to:

• Achieve a 360-degree view of every client to build trust and accelerate value.
• Simplify and automate the client onboarding process and reduce the time taken for this from weeks to just 24 minutes.
• Utilize customer data analytics and AI to bolster team performance by providing actionable insights and facilitating regular internal collaboration.
• Create a data-driven culture to attract top-tier advisors and sustain business growth.

 

 

How Non-Profit Organizations Benefit from Using Salesforce

Products Used: Salesforce Platform, Tableau, Slack

Addressing challenges of staffing shortages and scalability, Year Up, a nonprofit  committed to bridging the Opportunity Divide, turned to technology for solutions. With the aim of increasing its reach tenfold by 2030, Year Up partnered with Salesforce, Tableau, and Slack to overhaul its professional services operations.

The organization developed RADIO, a Salesforce-based platform, to collect and secure real-time data on admissions, retention, and outcomes. Using Tableau’s dashboard, they spotted important patterns in student sign-ups. This helped make the admission process 31% better and cut down on admin work by 42%.

Furthermore, Year Up revolutionized its internship matching process. Leveraging a custom application developed on the Salesforce Platform, they optimized the matching of students with corporate internships.

The application utilizes a comprehensive set of 89 data points for students and internships, yielding a 45% increase in staff efficiency. It also helped save approximately 4,500 man-hours per year.

The strategic user adoption of technology has not only increased Year Up’s operational efficiency but also significantly magnified its social impact.

 

 

How Legal Firms Use Salesforce

Products Used: Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Pardot, Salesforce Experience Cloud

Globally adopted by over 61,000 legal professionals, LEAP offers comprehensive legal practice management software. It equips lawyers with intelligent tools for managing legal accounting, document assembly, and legal publishing.

LEAP revolutionized its marketing strategies using Pardot. This marketing tool allowed the creation and tracking of tailored customer journeys as opposed to generic email campaigns. Additionally, the firm established an online community for easy customer query resolution.

As a technology-focused company, LEAP holds rigorous standards for its tech solutions. It led them to choose Salesforce, the market leader in CRM software. For over a decade, LEAP has utilized Salesforce to develop award-winning legal service software. Specifically, LEAP:

• Deployed Pardot for distributing targeted newsletters and insightful whitepapers to prospective clients, resulting in doubled sales.
• Utilized Marketing Cloud to send onboarding emails based on prior interactions. It enabled granting new clients access to the online community for self-service and support.
• Efficiently distributes customer support tasks among larger teams, thereby expediting client call resolutions.
• Maintains full transparency and accountability across the customer pipeline through Salesforce’s robust analytics features.

Consequently, for enhancing operational efficiency in legal services, Salesforce remains LEAP’s preferred platform, exemplifying its success in optimizing legal business operations.

Choosing Your Path: Professional Services by Salesforce vs. Salesforce Consulting Partners

Salesforce.com offers a highly adaptable, feature-rich platform designed to meet the evolving demands of today’s fast-paced business environment. The system can work for both small startups and big companies. But to get the most out of it, it’s best to get professional help to set up technology successfully.

For Salesforce to deliver maximum value to professional service firms, customization is key. The platform, while powerful out-of-the-box, requires tailored adjustments to suit the unique operational needs of your organization.

When it comes to maximizing Salesforce’s potential for your business, you have two broad options to consider: Salesforce professional services and Salesforce consulting partners.

Selecting the right provider is crucial when adopting a new platform or augmenting existing capabilities. This alignment not only mitigates risks but also lays a robust foundation for future initiatives.

Let’s compare these two options for getting professional services automation:

 

Professional Services by Salesforce

Advantages of utilizing Salesforce Professional Services include in-depth expertise from Salesforce’s internal staff who are well-versed in the platform’s latest features and updates. The team provides custom-tailored solutions that align closely with Salesforce’s best practices, ensuring a seamless integration process.

Additionally, engaging with Salesforce directly means clients enjoy unified accountability, streamlining communication and support from initial sales inquiries to ongoing customer service.

However, there are some disadvantages to consider. Choosing Salesforce’s own services usually costs more than hiring an outside Salesforce Consulting Partner

Moreover, Salesforce Professional Services may not provide the same level of flexibility for unique solutions that an independent consultant might offer. Lastly, because of the high demand for these specialized services, clients may encounter scheduling difficulties and limited availability, complicating project timelines.

 

Professional Services by Salesforce Consulting Partners

Opting for Salesforce consulting partners brings its own advantages, particularly in the realm of cost-effectiveness. For small to mid-sized businesses, these partners often provide a more budget-friendly alternative to Salesforce’s in-house services.

Many consulting partners also offer industry-specific expertise, delivering solutions highly tailored to your unique business requirements.

Moreover, their local or regional presence can be beneficial for time zone alignment and potential on-site support. These partners also tend to offer greater flexibility in solution offerings, project timelines, and even pricing structures.

On the flip side, there are some challenges to be aware of when choosing a Salesforce consulting partner. The quality and expertise among these partners can vary significantly, making due diligence critical during the selection process. There’s also a risk of over-customization, as partners may propose exceedingly complex solutions. And It can become challenging to manage over the long term.

Additionally, working with a consulting partner may necessitate multiple points of contact for various project components. This can complicate project management and dilute accountability.

Why Salesforce Professional Services by Ascendix

If you are facing challenges in sales productivity, departmental alignment, and CRM platform performance, Salesforce professional services by Ascendix are designed to address these issues, aligning solutions with your specific objectives.

We offer a comprehensive suite of services, ranging from initial consulting to custom development and ongoing support. Our Salesforce professional services consultants guide you through tool and feature selection to optimize your Salesforce organization.

Our approach centers on customer-centric transformation—enhancing insight-driven services, building successful customer journeys, and creating holistic experiences. Whether migrating from legacy systems or addressing specific CRM issues, our professional services consulting partners help streamline your sales, marketing, and customer service operations.

Leveraging years of experience, we unlock the full potential of Salesforce through tailored workflow automation, performance management, and reporting.

To minimize disruptions, we’ll perform Salesforce integration with third-party applications, other CRM systems, and additional Salesforce products. As your business scales, we enhance platform functionality, incorporate custom add-ons, and adapt to technological advancements, ensuring you stay competitive.

Our custom Salesforce app development services extend Salesforce’s default capabilities to meet your unique business goals. If you would like to profit from your unique application, we’ll help you get listed on the AppExchange platform.

Ascendix helps create a culture that makes work more productive and helps different departments work together. All within Salesforce’s unified ecosystem.

Looking for true Salesforce experts? Book a free CRM consulting call and our experienced Salesforce professional services industry consultants will support your business needs with advanced professional service technology.