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You know what data is: facts and figures and info. Your data is the who, what, where, and when of your business. And you know what analytics is: analysis involves looking at facts and coming to conclusions. Analytics gives you the why of your business. If you have been collecting data for a while you might be wondering if it is now big data. Big data is the nearly uncountable things in that vast sea of info going around on computers and the Internet. Big data even includes information not directly related to your business but relevant to your business. You might think of it as the why not of your business. Big doesn’t even begin to describe the petabytes of information our society is creating! But when you’re looking for interesting conclusions and meaningful analyses, digging in to big data is where you’ll find what you need. Big data is “big” for many reasons. One is its sheer volume. The amount of information is increasing in leaps and bounds, far beyond what we thought possible just a few years ago. Getting your arms around that much data can be a challenge. Another reason big data is big is because it is changing so rapidly. Imagine that a bank is collecting data on its customer transactions. That’s a lot of data, but the information isn’t standing still. More data is being added all the time, at increasing velocity. Lastly, big data is complicated because it gets collected in a variety of different formats. Data like a banking transaction is relatively easy to analyze, but what if it’s combined with the emails the bank receives, the likes the daily bank blog gets, and statistics about the companies the bank’s customers do business with? Trying to analyze all of this data together is like trying to figure out the individual ingredients of a meal you just enjoyed. For all these reasons, big data is more challenging to analyze. But, the rewards are also much bigger. Analyzing large sets of information can reveal previously invisible insights that are hidden in the chaos of big data. In the past, data analytics was limited, literally, by the size of the data. A hard drive, thumb drive, or CD could only hold a limited amount of information. Even if that number increased, there was always more data available than the device could hold. You had to compromise your analysis to fit the storage limitations. Either you used a subset of your data, or only used the most recent data. No matter what, you had to choose. And trying to figure out why last quarter’s sales went down by hacking at a spreadsheet with year-old data would be like trying to drive while only looking at the rear-view mirror. With cloud computing, you no longer have to choose between having room to store more data, and getting insights. Because you pay for what you use, rather than having to maintain your hardware, and you can pay as you go, it’s easy to add more capacity when you work with data in the cloud rather than your own IT room. And more data from more sources means better analyses. It’s rare to only have one person analyzing data, especially big data. So how do you know whose analysis is the most recent? When everybody is working in their own spreadsheets, it can be nearly impossible to tell. But looking at data stored in a cloud means you can keep everyone’s work up to date and all your colleagues in sync. It’s fair to ask: between the sheer volume of the data and complexity of analyzing it, do you need a PhD in math to do data analytics? Luckily, the answer is no! With the right technology, you can look at the data yourself and create your own analysis－without an advanced degree. What are some typical tools for data analytics? Software in the cloud is one super useful tool for analyzing big data. Of course, different software packages have varying strengths and pitfalls. With Salesforce Einstein, you can: Never run out of space: Einstein scales for your data. Find an option to meet your needs, since there are a variety of Einstein products Automatically discover relevant patterns See patterns in your data visually with Einstein and Tableau You’ve probably heard the saying that you need to measure what’s important. The same thing is true about data analytics. What questions do you want to answer with your analysis? What are the whys and why nots you need to know? Two typical kinds of questions lead to descriptive and prescriptive analytics. What’s the difference? One analyzes the past, and the other looks to the future. Nonprofit and education leaders are often driven by the numbers used for descriptive analytics. How many donations did our latest giving campaign get? Did our postcards to people who completed the SAT drive more applications to our university? Are numbers of recurring donors going up? Descriptive analytics answers these questions. Typically, they involve a period of time－a month, a semester, or a year. Prescriptive analytics, on the other hand, asks about what should be done in the future. Based on past data, this kind of analysis suggests a course of action. For example, imagine that you have data on student graduation rates, along with other factors like if they paid their tuition on time, if they logged in to the student community hub, if they met with their advisor at least once per semester, and so on. Using this data, you can see what factors influenced graduation rates, and then take the next best action to improve the situation. If you then learn that if students are logging in to the student community and visiting their advisors more often, you can plan recommendations to push SMS text messages or send reminders to students to take actions to help them. Your analysis led to a next best action, or recommendation, for what to do in the future. There are as many types of answers as there are questions. And data analytics can get you there!

In the world of B2B marketing, the landscape is constantly evolving and expanding within communications, media, and technology companies. The sales cycles are becoming more complex and lengthy, causing buyers to seek a differentiated experience that caters to their individual needs. Despite being more informed than ever, B2B customers are also overwhelmed by the deluge of information, leading to uncertainty and stress. The solution? Account-based marketing (ABM)! The ABM approach involves driving account prioritization, creating efficient sales conversations, leveraging customer data for personalization, and tracking effectiveness. By unifying customer data from across the business, ABM can efficiently segment and deliver relevant content across every channel, while also maximizing ROI by identifying and acting on campaign performance. To stand out in the competitive space of communications, media, and technology marketing, it's important to go beyond personalized customer experiences and adopt an account-based go-to-market strategy. With an account-specific focus, marketers can better understand campaign effectiveness, optimize marketing performance, and increase overall account engagement. Summit Technologies LLC can help you set up an account based marketing strategy for your communications, media, and technology business.

By Shannan Hearne, Summit Technologies’ Marketing Specialist Creating a customer journey map is a critical aspect for businesses striving to enhance the customer experience and drive growth. This method provides a comprehensive overview of the full customer lifecycle, from initial awareness to post-purchase engagement. In this guide, we'll take you through the seven steps to crafting a comprehensive and effective customer journey map: Step 1: Establish Personas The foundation of creating a customer journey map is to establish personas. Personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers based on their demographic, psychographic, and behavioral information. By developing personas, you gain a deeper understanding of your target audience and can tailor your marketing and sales strategies to their unique needs. Step 2: Determine the Journey The next step is to determine the journey your personas take when interacting with your brand. This includes every touchpoint, such as initial discovery to post-purchase engagement. It's essential to note that the journey may differ for different personas, so create a separate map for each persona. Step 3: Outline the Stages The stages section of your journey map represents the customer's relationship with your company from start to finish. Common customer lifecycle stages include Discover, Explore, Buy, Use, Ask, and Engage. However, your persona's journey stages may be more specific to your business. Step 4: Set Persona Goals It's crucial to understand what your persona is trying to achieve throughout their journey. Start with a high-level goal for your journey map and break it down into stages. Identify your persona's goals through brainstorming, surveying, customer interviews, and analyzing customer support feedback. Validate your findings with additional research. Step 5: Map Out Touchpoints Each stage in your map will have various touchpoints, which you'll identify in step 4. Plot these touchpoints on your map and arrange them in a logical sequence. Step 6: Consider Other Key Elements Take into account other elements such as customer feedback, friction points, pain points, and issues that arise as they progress through the journey. Step 7: Identify Areas for Improvement When you identify areas of the customer journey that are not functioning optimally, brainstorm solutions to enhance the customer's experience. Have a dedicated section of your map to address these solutions. A customer journey map provides a clear and concise representation of opportunities to automate and improve your company's interaction with customers.

by Shannan Hearne, Summit Technologies Marketing Specialist Information is the engine that powers much of our modern economy. Superior data analysis confers a competitive advantage. You may have lots of customer data, but if it’s siloed and unorganized, it’s not working for you. Here is an example of a super-engaged customer that is sneaking around your company because you don’t have a 360 degree customer view. I visit your website. Pardot tracks me - and on website visit two I fill out a form or a form handler on your site. Now you know my address and you know I have interacted with you and you have my email address. You send me an email through Pardot. Alas, I don’t open or click the email. What you don’t know is that I’ve been receiving your emails through your legacy email system for years at a different email address. But wait, it gets worse. I also exist in your customer data because I ordered items for my mother with her email address and credit card number and had them shipped to her home. Now I exist in your legacy system. What if my mother called customer support and used still another email address? Now you have a super engaged customer who shops, shares your information with family and friends, and has had at least one negative experience. Yet you don’t know we are connected. Without a 360 degree customer view you have no way of connecting the dots from one siloed piece of data to another and no way to connect the data to fully understand how I relate to your company and how you can best relate AND MARKET to me. In the same scenario above with Salesforce’s Customer Data Platform you can pull all the siloed data together in one place. Make your customer interactions smarter, easier, and more efficient and turn customer data into your strategic advantage. Bringing all your customer data into a single source of truth with Salesforce’s CDP (customer data platform) lets you connect with your customers providing personalization and a more thorough understanding of who they are, what they want, and how you can meet their needs. CDPs are not a new technology. They are the latest evolution of CRMs designed to extend the power of Salesforce beyond sales and marketing, launching your business into a state of transformation where customer data becomes your leverage for industry advantage. Combine Salesforce CDP and your Pardot or Marketing Cloud Platforms with your customer data repositories and you have all your data in one place. Even if you market to your leads and customers with SMS texting, emails, direct mail, and an active call center the information about the real customer is all in one, single 360 degree view. Add Mulesoft Anypoint and Salesforce’s connectors for Tableau (Salesforce’s CRM Analytics) intelligent artificial intelligence via Einstein Analytics turns your once segmented data into actionable insights to give you a full view of who people are and what they are looking for. Summit Technologies can help you design and implement a custom Salesforce solution that removes data silos and solves your business challenges. Customer data platforms solve three challenges for your business: incomplete customer identities, scattered segmentation, and disconnected data. Identify and privacy management of customer data are a necessity to providing a quality customer experience and staying compliant in sending digital communications. When data sources have customer IDs that are not mapped to one another you do not have a complete customer view or profile. Data can be your strategic advantage but not if it is missing or incomplete or unavailable in one or more systems in your company. Customer profiles that are incomplete, inaccurate, or just delayed in updating completely skew your analytics and your predictive models. Without a customer data platform your single source of truth is still scattered and that makes segmentation for marketing impossible. Disconnected data prevents you from fully connecting with your customers, eliminating your strategic advantage. Salesforce’s most recent State of Marketing research discovered that the number of data sources used by marketers has grown by 50% since 2019. That is a lot of places to have to search to pull together the customer data that gives you a strategic advantage. More than ever, with a shrinking expendable income among consumers and highly competitive landscape in nearly every industry, unified customer data is the strategic advantage you need to stay ahead. I predict soon it won’t be enough just to connect your own data but companies will be looking across their partner or potential partner landscape and combining and leveraging customer data to provide even more personalized and unified messaging. Are you laying the groundwork to capture your customer data for a strategic advantage? Summit Technologies can help you look at the lay of the land and re-align your data silos for success. Before I go, here is one example of how aligned customer data gave a pizza chain a strategic advantage. Casey’s is famous in 16 states with 2200 locations for comfort food and friendly service. With that many locations it was a challenge for the chain to have a 360 degree view of their customers. Casey’s launched a loyalty program in January of 2020 offering active customers special benefits while pulling their siloed customer data into a CDP for more personalized engagement and awe inspiring emails. Customer experiences cannot be improved if the data about the customers resides in disconnected systems. By implementing a loyalty program and Salesforce’s CDP Casey’s had a 16% lift in conversion rates on pizza alone. Connecting disconnected data about customers and improving customer data management created a great lift in the middle of the pandemic! What can a customer data platform do for your business? It can be your strategic advantage.

Account-based marketing (ABM) has become a popular strategy among marketing and sales teams due to its effectiveness in a new world with tighter budgets, fewer resources, and high customer expectations. In order to efficiently engage with customers, optimize performance, and reduce costs, brands must make every moment count and offer personalized, real-time customer experiences. B2B marketers are increasingly seeking ways to drive revenue from high-value accounts and the most effective approach is to align marketing, sales, and service teams with an ABM strategy. ABM is a B2B marketing strategy that focuses on specific customers or accounts, using multiple highly personalized campaigns to engage with them on an individualized level. ABM involves close alignment across marketing, sales, and service, and can be implemented by any B2B company with the right technology and processes in place. Account based marketing can fit nicely into your omnichannel marketing plans. There are different types of ABM programs based on business goals, including 1-to-1, 1-to-few, and 1-to-many programs. 1-to-1 programs focus on accounts with high revenue potential and require significant investment, while 1-to-few campaigns are more targeted and focus on connecting with accounts that share similar pain points, buying groups, and business goals. 1-to-many programs identify potentially hundreds of accounts within a target market and rely on a scaled approach to reach them with a personalized message. ABM is an efficient and effective strategy that helps businesses build trust and increase the lifetime value of customer relationships. As the approach evolves, it is becoming more inclusive and expanding to include everyone involved in the strategy, with terms like "Account-Based Engagement" or "Account-Based Experience" being used to reflect this shift. Summit Technologies LLC can help you implement an ABM marketing strategy with your Salesforce CRM solution. Contact us today. Whether you are just implementing Salesforce or tuning Salesforce for high performance, Summit Technologies can help.

Salesforce, the industry leader in customer relationship management (CRM) systems, reports that 83% of sales professionals agree that their organization takes full advantage of their CRM system. However, despite the automation and intelligence features that are now commonly included in CRM systems, reps are still spending more than 70% of their time on manual tasks. This raises the question: Why are sales reps still spending so much time on non-selling tasks? The answer may lie in the fact that there is room for better CRM utilization. Only 37% of sales professionals strongly agree that their organization fully utilizes their CRM. Inside sales reps, in particular, have noticed an opportunity for improvement. To address this issue, reps suggest starting with the features that sellers would find most useful. Not surprisingly, automation and intelligence functions top the list. For example, Salesforce offers automation features like Salesforce Einstein, which uses artificial intelligence to automate tasks and provide intelligent insights. Additionally, Salesforce offers a wide range of tools and features that can help sales reps to focus on selling, such as Salesforce Lightning, which streamlines the sales process and improves productivity. Salesforce also has a vast library of resources and tutorials to help sales reps learn how to use the platform to its fullest potential. One could say, while CRM systems like Salesforce can be incredibly powerful tools for sales organizations, they are only effective when they are utilized to their fullest potential. By focusing on automation and intelligence features, sales reps can spend more time selling and less time on manual tasks. Salesforce has a variety of tools and resources available to help organizations make the most of their CRM system and improve sales productivity. Summit Technologies can optimize your team’s performance with Salesforce tuning and a health check. Contact us today.

In today's business landscape, companies are facing the challenge of maximizing efficiency while working with tighter budgets and higher operating margins. Sales teams have had to quickly adapt to new ways of selling in response to global challenges such as supply chain disruptions, inflation, and increased health precautions. To meet these challenges and continue to drive growth, organizations must focus on providing a personalized and seamless buying experience for their customers across multiple touchpoints. Sales enablement has been shown to increase overall sales success and performance, with 92% of sellers agreeing. By defining goals and target audiences, assessing current sales processes, and identifying areas for improvement, organizations can empower their revenue teams to meet the needs of prospects and customers more efficiently. This can be achieved through the provision of tailored resources, implementation of appropriate technology, and ongoing measurement of sales enablement efforts. Buyers now expect sales teams to meet them on multiple channels, including ecommerce platforms, social media networks, and handheld devices while recognizing them at every touch point. Organizations must be able to connect with buyers on an average of 10 channels and provide a sophisticated and trusted advisor experience. Email marketing has also become a more powerful B2B tool as in-person interactions have been limited. Sales reps need to be equipped with the necessary insights and resources (data) to act as trusted advisors and build strong relationships with customers. Collaboration across departments, such as marketing and customer service, is also crucial for building customer loyalty and fostering recurring sales. Customer satisfaction is at the forefront of companies' efforts, as they focus on steady, predictable growth and long-term relationship building. Sales reps can deepen customer relationships by utilizing techniques such as value-based communication, active listening, follow-through, and seeking feedback on the selling experience. Maintaining customer relationships after the close is also increasingly important, with 80% of sales reps agreeing. To build a loyal customer base and drive recurring sales, companies must be willing to go above and beyond to meet and exceed customer expectations in every interaction. This focus on customer satisfaction and relationship building is critical, especially in uncertain economic times. Summit Technologies LLC will help you evaluate your current market facing efforts and employ tools to better engage prospective customers across multiple channels with sales enablement tools.

In Slack, conversations happen in channels and direct messages (DMs). Channels are spaces where you can work with your co-workers on specific topics. DMs work well for one-off conversations that don't require an entire channel to weigh in. Is there more to this Salesforce owned collaboration tool than that? Slack has become a channel-centric tool that many companies use to replace email. Slack organizes conversations, files, meeting notes, and much more. With everything joined in a single place everyone saves time because they aren’t scrolling through their inbox looking for all the notes and conversations associated with a particular project. One great collaboration feature in Slack is file sharing - you can attach files from your computer or from Dropbox, Google Drive, and a variety of other file hosting services. Whether creating a direct message to an individual or posting in a channel you only need to click the plus sign and select the source and the attachment to share it. If you have another outside source you want to share from, click the Add apps button in the sidebar panel to see all the available resources from Salesforce to Google to Wrike and beyond. If you need to locate a file or message shared in Slack searching is easy. Type anything in the search bar to locate what you are looking for by name, content, author, channel, etc. Slack has plenty of tools and applications to make it even more useful. One favorite is Slackbot. Slackbot will send you nudges and reminders if there are channels you are missing or ignoring altogether. Slackbot also lets you set reminders for yourself like your mother’s birthday, to submit your weekly timesheet, or to pick up a bag of kitty litter on the way home. You get the idea. When you need to set up a channel for your teammates it is easy to create a channel giving it a purposeful name and description and inviting the relevant members to your Slack channel. If there is information everyone on the channel needs to see whether invited at its inception or joining later you can pin the message to the top of the channel so anyone who joins can easily reference it. Use the channel topic to share with teammates the project status or upcoming deadline. When you post in a channel you can do a simple post or use the @ sign to directly ping a team member or use @channel to notify everyone. Slack allows you to go way beyond just organizing your channels. You can star channels or direct messages that you want to locate easily and they will be listed under Starred in your sidebar panel. You can also star individual members of the channel and starring is a great method for keeping track of important, collaborative threads. What can you do if a team member sends you something you need to do but you can’t focus on it right away? Set a reminder for yourself in Slack so you will be notified or reminded about the message later. Click the three dots next to the message and select to remind me about this. If your company is using a paid plan for Slack you can also customize your sidebar so that your conversations and channels are arranged in the most useful order for you. YOu can even tell Slack which conversations are worthy of notifications. From your desktop, click your profile picture. Select preferences from the menu to open your notification preferences. Adjust any notification settings that you would like. While you are there you can also set your time zone, your work hours, and your status so all team members know whether you are available or not and when you will get notified of their messages. Another way to make your availability and status known to your teammates is to integrate your Google calendar. This makes your status based on your calendar available to other members of your Slack group as well as allowing you to accept meeting requests, get reminders of upcoming events, message attendees of meetings and even create Google events without ever leaving Slack. With just a few minutes of effort you can customize your Slack experience and turn Slack into the perfect collaboration tool for your team and your organization. Be sure to inquire with Summit Technologies if Slack is a useful addition to any Salesforce implementation. Summit Technologies is a Columbus, Ohio based Salesforce Consulting Partner consisting of a talented and creative team of Salesforce certified Consultants, Developers, Analysts and Project Managers. We specialize in building innovative solutions for our clients within the Salesforce family of products including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, CPQ, Experience Cloud, Nonprofit Cloud, Education Cloud, Pardot, Field Services and Salesforce Communities. Summit Technologies strategic services solutions bring custom Salesforce technology to work for your business.

CX, DX, UX and DUX all play a crucial role in determining a customer's overall perception of a brand. CX is the overarching experience that encompasses all interactions a customer has with a brand across all channels, while DX specifically refers to digital interactions. UX focuses on the design and functionality of a specific product or service, and DUX specifically pertains to digital touchpoints. In today's digital landscape, providing a seamless and positive DUX is more important than ever. With the rise of e-commerce and online interactions, customers expect a smooth and convenient experience when interacting with a brand digitally. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for digital transformation, making it crucial for companies to invest in their DUX. To achieve success in delivering a great DUX, brands should focus on four core elements: user-centered design, personalization, accessibility, and continuous improvement. By putting the user at the center of the design process, personalizing interactions, ensuring accessibility for all users, and constantly seeking feedback and making improvements, brands can create a positive and seamless DUX that will ultimately lead to satisfied customers and increased brand loyalty. Summit Technologies LLC wants to work with your business to empower you to deliver amazing customer experiences with Salesforce. Summit Technologies is your Salesforce implementation partner and our discovery process ensures we build a Salesforce solution for your business that incorporates everything you need, customized for your business model, and nothing that you don’t need. Summit Technologies is a Columbus, Ohio based Salesforce Consulting Partner consisting of a talented and creative team of Salesforce certified Consultants, Developers, Analysts and Project Managers. We specialize in building innovative solutions for our clients within the Salesforce family of products including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, CPQ, Experience Cloud, Nonprofit Cloud, Education Cloud, Pardot, Field Services and Salesforce Communities. Summit Technologies strategic services solutions bring custom Salesforce technology to work for your business.

To achieve exceptional customer experience (CX), organizations must prioritize cross-functional collaboration and focus on understanding the customer journey from all angles. A customer-centric approach, where the entire organization is aligned in the mission to understand and meet customer needs, is crucial for delivering outstanding CX. This can be achieved through utilizing key CX metrics, such as Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES), to gain a deeper understanding of customer needs and tailor interactions accordingly. By promoting a culture of continuous improvement, teams can work together to address pain points and improve the overall customer experience. Collaboration is essential for delivering seamless and consistent customer interactions across all touchpoints. By breaking down silos and fostering a culture of communication and teamwork, teams can work together to understand customer needs and tailor interactions accordingly. This includes not only the front-line customer-facing teams, but also the back-end teams responsible for product development, marketing, and operations. By aligning all teams in the mission to deliver outstanding CX, organizations can ensure that customers receive a consistent and seamless experience across all touchpoints. Technology also plays a vital role in facilitating collaboration, streamlining processes, and providing real-time customer insights to make informed decisions. By utilizing customer relationship management (CRM) systems, such as Salesforce, teams can gain a holistic view of the customer journey and make data-driven decisions. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can also be leveraged to provide real-time customer insights, predict customer needs, and automate repetitive tasks, allowing teams to focus on more high-value activities. In 2022, CX professionals must continue to prioritize collaboration and technology to stay ahead of the curve and deliver outstanding customer experiences. Organizations that fail to do so risk falling behind their competitors and losing market share. By aligning teams, utilizing key CX metrics, fostering a culture of continuous improvement, and leveraging technology, organizations can deliver exceptional customer experiences and drive business growth. Contact Summit Technologies today for a solution to your Customer Experience goals. Summit Technologies is a Columbus, Ohio based Salesforce Consulting Partner consisting of a talented and creative team of Salesforce certified Consultants, Developers, Analysts and Project Managers. We specialize in building innovative solutions for our clients within the Salesforce family of products including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, CPQ/Revenue Cloud, Experience Cloud, Nonprofit Cloud, Education Cloud, Marketing Cloud Account Management (formerly Pardot) and Field Service Lightning. Summit Technologies' strategic services solutions bring custom Salesforce technology to work for your business.

Business success depends on customer satisfaction and more and more businesses rely on Customer Relationship Management software to deliver great customer experiences. While Salesforce’s CRM solution certainly helps companies deliver great customer experiences, it also aims to deliver great experiences for its own customers. One of the handiest evolutions - which dates back to 2015 - is the Salesforce Lightning Experience. Salesforce Lightning Experience is an improved user interface for Salesforce. Salesforce Lightning is faster and it offers enhanced functionality to your Salesforce CRM. By integrating Lightning components, the Lightning Design System (LDS), and Lightning app builder providing you with an intelligent and intuitive user interface. If you are still working on the Classic version of Salesforce you are missing out on a whole new CRM experience built on the platform you know and love. However migrating to Salesforce Lightning isn’t as simple as flipping a switch or contacting your Salesforce AE. Summit Technologies has a proven process for successfully helping companies migrate to Salesforce Lightning. If your Salesforce instance is customized, and aren’t they all, then there are a lot of issues to consider when migrating to lightning. The timing has to be right. You want to begin a lightning migration when there will be the least impact on the business. Custom objects, custom homepage components, numerous customizations can lead to major complications during a lightning migration. A thorough analysis must be completed understanding all your customizations, Apex code, automations, workflows, hard coded URLs and record ID’s, custom fields with in-line styles and labels, Visualforce tools, poorly optimized code, and undocumented changes to your org. Summit Technologies takes into consideration all the technical debt weighing down your current solution and creates a plan to have your organization up and running on Salesforce Lightning in as little as ten weeks. More importantly, we will have your organization up and running on Salesforce Lightning without obstacles or unexpected downtime. A successful Salesforce Lightning migration requires a roll-out strategy to deal with possible challenges. Summit Technologies will help you roll out in stages and document all the Salesforce elements that will be affected by the Lightning transition with strategies to prepare. You might be wondering what exactly are the steps to a Salesforce Lightning Migration. Analyze and Discover. A thorough analysis of the Salesforce functionalities and features in your existing Salesforce org AND their compatibility with Lightning gives you a readiness assessment. There will be unique requirements for your Lightning migration and it is important that you recognize them early on. Review all the buttons, custom fields, objects and workflows that may create conflicts to be addressed early on. Audit. Determine what critical items and considerations lead to a successful Lightning migration. You might uncover some outdated and malfunctioning components of your existing Salesforce instance that can be addressed during the migration. Documentation. Prepare a detailed guide of the essential elements your Salesforce org requires to plan a smooth transition to the Salesforce Lightning Experience. This is the beginning of your roadmap for a successful migration and an invaluable tool when working with and involving your stakeholders. Stakeholder Involvement. Stakeholders are your C level executives, your system administrators, your team leads, and your end users. Understanding how they use the Salesforce instance, what their expectations are from the Lightning migration, and any valuable information about automations, triggers, and workflows currently in use OR DESIRED in your Salesforce org will help you improve the productivity of your Salesforce ecosystem. This might also uncover additional Salesforce tools or items from the Appexchange that would make your Salesforce tools even more useful to your organization. Estimation. Now you have a set of tools in place to estimate the time, resources, Salesforce partner assistance, and budget required to complete your Lightning Migration. The estimate not only allows you to plan the money and manpower required but also to budget the time invested in your migration. Roadmap. Where the rubber meets the road with your Lightning Migration is the Salesforce roadmap. Your roadmap lays the foundation for an effective adoption of the new features like App Builder, Design System, and Lightning Components. Additional improvements uncovered in your audit and stakeholder involvement may present themselves as opportunities along the roadmap. The roadmap also allows you to check whether or not any additional customized products, Salesforce tools, or integrations will improve the final product. Implement. Now you are ready for the fun! Migrate from Classic Salesforce to Salesforce Lightning Experience, customize your dashboards and analytics, and enable your company to take full advantage of the new reporting capabilities with your Lightning migration. Roll out user training to your end users showing them the new functionality and features in your Salesforce instance. A Salesforce Lightning migration better prepares your company to get the most out of connectivity to other Salesforce tools and apps. The benefits of using Salesforce CRM or multiplied with the Salesforce Lightning Experience. Summit Technologies can help you evaluate the differences and value of Salesforce Classic versus Salesforce Lightning Experience for your organization. Upon completion of your migration to Salesforce Lightning Salesforce provides admin and end user training so you have all the tools you need to get the most out of your new Salesforce Lightning experience.

The role of sales operations is becoming increasingly vital to sales organizations. In 2020, 65% of sales leaders recognized its importance in defining strategy and over 80% of sales professionals acknowledged its crucial role in driving business growth. Sales ops professionals, with their expertise in process and efficiency, can help sales reps focus on their core task of selling by removing non-selling tasks from their to-do lists. Currently, sales reps spend only 28% of their time selling, with the rest consumed by tasks such as deal management and data entry. The drive for efficiency and cost savings is also increasing the adoption of AI in sales. Currently, only 33% of sales organizations use AI, but 20% more plan to do so in the next two years. Top-performing organizations are more likely to have already adopted AI, with benefits such as improved lead prioritization and more accurate forecasting. 80% of leaders and sales ops professionals who have implemented AI report that it has improved the use of reps' time at least moderately. Summit Technologies wants to make sales operations a strategic partner in your business with Salesforce.

By Shannan Hearne, Summit Technologies Marketing Specialist Communication channels and data sources are critical components of any successful personalization strategy. By evaluating and selecting the right channels and data sources, businesses can deliver the most relevant and beneficial experiences to their customers. To start, businesses must consider all the various channels that customers use to interact with their brand, including websites, mobile apps, email campaigns, social media, on-property kiosks, and conversations with sales or service representatives. Each communication channel should be personalized in some manner, with a focus on prioritizing personalization in certain channels before expanding to others. But even if a business chooses to implement personalization in only a few channels, it is still essential to gather data from all touchpoints to present the most relevant and timely experiences for each customer, along with their next best actions. Accurate, real-time, in-depth, modeled/analyzed, centralized, accessible, and actionable data are the foundation of any personalization strategy. To identify the right data sources, businesses must consider zero and first-party data, including behavioral data, attribute data, zero-party and first-party data, and third-party data. Behavioral data should encompass an individual's current and previous digital behaviors to build a more comprehensive understanding of their interests and intent. Attribute data can be accessed directly from the web or pulled from connected databases, such as CRMs and email and marketing automation platforms. Zero-party and first-party data, such as responses to forms and survey questions, can supplement behavioral and attribute data. Third-party data, which is purchased from external sources, may include demographic and firmographic information. Transparency is key when it comes to data sourcing, as customers want to feel in control of their privacy. It is important for businesses to be honest and publish their policies on how they collect and use third-party data. Summit Technologies LLC can assist you in evaluating communication channels and data sources critical to the success of any personalization strategy. By selecting the right channels and data sources, businesses can deliver the most relevant and timely experiences to their customers, leading to increased engagement, loyalty, and revenue.

By Shannan Hearne, Summit Technologies Marketing Specialist Everyone’s talking about digital transformation. How do you do it? Start with a digital marketing road map. The first draft may be fairly simplistic. It was probably drafted by a couple of visionary folks in your organization who know what they need to accomplish and want to begin to outline a roadmap to get there. It might look like the following: Improve conversion rates. More conversions lead to more sales. Document the current customer experience lifecycle and identify areas of improvement. We can improve customer experience and reduce customer support tickets. Improve data hygiene: Remove bad data, organize existing data, and evaluate data collection. Clean, accurate data is key to successfully reaching our customers in the channels they prefer. Expand beyond single-channel sending to a multichannel or even omnichannel approach. Connecting with customers in the channel of their choice will increase engagement. Not a bad first run, now to get it ready to share with management and it’s not quite ready just yet. When you present it you want to show value to get management buy in. Let’s review a potential strategy to help your strategic roadmap be presentation-worthy. Make Your Metrics SMART Management theorist and consultant, Peter F. Drucker (of Drucker-School of Management fame) used the acronym SMART to define and structure success metrics. Specific—You can define the goal in a clear and precise manner. Measureable—You can assign a number or checkpoint to the goal. Achievable—You can actually attain the goal. Relevant—You can apply the goal to your work or your plan or your larger initiatives. Time-bound—You can set a certain time period to achieve the goal. Let’s reevaluate the success metrics to make sure they follow the SMART metrics. Here is a follow-up draft of the initial run. 6-month Strategic Plan Vision Statement: Provide a seamless omni-channel customer experience in order to become the number 1 seller of our product or service. Improve sales. Increase conversion rates by 2%. Measurable as a percentage. Evaluate and test content and call to action in emails. Goal date end of fiscal year. Improve the customer experience and reduce customer support tickets. Audit and document the full customer experience lifecycle. Measurable by completion. Conduct interviews and secret-shopping exercises. Whiteboard the entire customer lifecycle. Goal date end of quarter 2. Improve data hygiene to reduce the cost of bad data. Review and document data architecture. Measurable by completion. Identify all data sources and systems of record. Review all platform and application configuration architecture. Audit data for accuracy. Whiteboard and document data model. Goal date end of quarter 2. Reach customers in the channels they prefer. Create and release a new customer preference center to gain channel preferences from customers. Measurable by completion. Create a blueprint with technical requirements. Build and test preference center. Release new preference center. Goal date end of fiscal year. Gain new customers by adding a new channel. Research and determine a strategy for adding the mobile channel. Measurable by completion. Determine mobile solution. Identify an action plan for adding mobile. Goal date end of fiscal year. Sounds a lot better, and a lot more achievable because it is both measurable and time bound. Note: Looking for expert help with your assessment and strategic roadmap? Contact your account executive at Summit Technologies LLC to learn how our Strategic Services team can take your planning to the next level. Once you’ve completed your roadmap, it’s important to come back with fresh eyes to review and tweak it to ensure customer experience is at the heart of your plan and that your goals are SMART. Want to work smarter? I would propose that you rewrite your roadmap one more time with SMARTER goals instead of SMART goals. What do the last E and R stand for? Evaluator and reward. It is a good idea to have a team or individual who makes the judgment call that the goal is achieved rather than still a work in progress and for best possible buy-in don’t just show a percentage or number but show how it impacts the organization in the long run.

To maximize the benefits of customer journey mapping, it's essential to adopt a holistic approach that incorporates the following steps: Gather Customer Data: Collect data on customer demographics, needs, preferences, pain points, and goals, as they relate to your product or service. This information can be obtained through surveys, focus groups, customer service interactions, and analytics. Create a Customer Journey Map: Use the data collected to create a detailed map of the customer journey. This should include all touchpoints, from initial awareness to post-purchase support. Identify Pain Points and Areas for Improvement: Use the journey map to identify areas where the customer experience is subpar and opportunities for improvement. Foster Cross-Departmental Collaboration: Encourage all employees, regardless of their role or department, to understand the customer journey and to view the customer experience from their perspective. Assign ownership of key touchpoints to specific departments and encourage cross-departmental collaboration. Measure Success: Regularly measure the impact of your CX program on customer loyalty and retention. Use customer feedback and other metrics to determine if your program is making a positive impact on the customer experience. Involve Customers in the Process: Seek customer input throughout the journey mapping process to ensure that the map accurately reflects their experience. Avoid Common Pitfalls: Avoid the trap of process mapping, which prioritizes internal processes over the customer experience. Avoid skipping customer input and ensure that all teams are involved in the journey mapping process. By following these steps, businesses can create a customer-centric culture that prioritizes the customer experience and drives continuous improvement. Summit Technologies Salesforce team will help you implement your customer journey in the entire Salesforce ecosystem.

By Shannan Hearne, Summit Technologies’ Marketing Specialist The longer you have been in marketing, the more you know, right? Yes. And no. Some tried and true tactics are tried out. Despite understanding the value of account-based approaches in theory, it can be difficult to abandon the lead-based tactics that marketers have relied on for years. However, even with data showing that these tactics are ineffective, marketers still struggle to let them go. For instance, almost 68% of people abandon forms, meaning that the majority of leads are lost immediately, and even those who do complete the form often provide fake information. As a result, sales teams end up chasing after the wrong leads, wasting time and resources. Marketing has long believed that "content is king" and attempted to attract prospects by gating content that is deemed necessary for making informed decisions. However, B2B buyers are becoming increasingly unwilling to surrender their anonymity to access information that is readily available online. If content is gated, buyers are likely to seek out similar information from competitors who don't place barriers in front of their content. Despite our realization, we still hold onto the hope that gating some of our "high value" content will bring in enough quality leads to meet our pipeline goals. We assume that anyone who fills out a form must be a good prospect, ignoring the possibility that the lead may not be a good fit for our business to sell to, based on their account size or industry. Moreover, we overlook the fact that they may have shown no buying behavior other than conducting some research or scanning their badge at a tradeshow for a free charging dongle. This approach is flawed, and it's essential to understand that Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is not only about focusing on accounts instead of leads but also about targeting the right accounts that are actively in the market to buy and executing relevant outreach across their buying team. Account based marketing is a smart approach to building your pipeline but it takes some planning and some tools. Summit Technologies LLC can help you deploy and customize your Salesforce platform and marketing automation tools while working with you to develop a powerful ABM plan that works for your business. Contact us today.

When moving into a new house, making connections with neighbors beyond a casual greeting benefits everyone. Similarly, when engaging large companies, business marketers need to connect with individuals and teams to win business. However, this requires capturing the heart and mind of everyone on the buying committee. Account-Based Marketing (ABM) can help by joining data management with marketing automation to create personalized campaigns for the B2B customers you most want to reach. With the right technology, marketers can execute their ABM strategy effectively. Here are four ways digital marketing technology can help: Manage B2B content globally: Businesses managing multiple segments, brands, or geographies need to tailor legal disclaimers, copyright information, branding standards, and other business content wherever they have a presence. Pardot Business Units and Snippets allow marketers to customize content and maintain a global view of an account. Use artificial intelligence (AI) to predict campaign success: Advanced AI capabilities can help evaluate past performance and use predictive data to guide your next steps. These data connectors allow marketing, sales, and service teams to quickly integrate data from various external sources and understand their audience on a more granular level. Test before you launch: Pardot now offers developer sandboxes to help B2B marketers conduct tests before releasing new features to the world. Lean on a virtual support team: Bringing in a team of certified experts can provide guidance, support, and training long after implementation. This frees up teams to focus on more strategic projects and can be particularly helpful for teams spread out across geographies and brands. Summit Technologies LLC looks forward to helping your company implement an account based marketing strategy.

Taking a customer-centric approach to app development is about creating opportunities for customers to engage more deeply with your business, rather than just giving them more chances to spend their money. A customer centric approach to building a mobile app means creating an app according to your customers’ requirements, preferences, and needs. We aren’t talking about just adding some needed basic features. The customer-centric approach to app development means knowing your customer and taking that 360 degree customer view to the next level by building an app that delivers on all their expectations creating a great customer experience. You do this by leveraging customer data and integrating it into your app development process. The customer-centric concept is not only relevant to app development. The concept goes back to the time when every product or service developed placed customer truths at the core of new development. Embracing this approach meant every new feature and functionality released could be traced back to a real customer problem or need. Heroku, part of the Salesforce Customer 360 platform, allows developers to build, test, and optimize powerful new features that use Salesforce data to deliver highly personalized customer experiences. This integration is seamless and does not require developers to learn new skills. Working from the Salesforce Customer 360 platform developers and designers alike have full visibility into the things that customers desire and the things that have been working - or not working - well for them. Here are a few examples of how SMBs have used Heroku and Salesforce to improve customer experiences: Furnished Quarters syncs booking information with customer data in Salesforce, which is then used by marketing and customer service teams. B-Lab, a nonprofit, uses assessment tools running on Heroku that pull data from Salesforce Sales Cloud to help for-profit companies measure their social and environmental impact. PensionBee, an online pension management platform, displays up-to-date account information to users in apps on Heroku, sourced from Salesforce. Heroku is a platform as a service (PaaS) that enables developers to build, run, and operate applications entirely in the cloud. Developers, teams, and businesses of all sizes use Heroku to deploy, manage, and scale apps. But you don’t have to know how to use Heroku to benefit from it. Summit Technologies has a team of application developers that can bring the power of Heroku to your Salesforce ecosystem. Heroku Connect is an add-on service for Heroku Enterprise that makes it easy for developers to synchronize data between an app’s database (Heroku Postgres) and a Salesforce organization. This means that whenever a customer updates their data in a Salesforce Heroku app, it is immediately updated in Salesforce. This can be valuable for quickly diagnosing support issues, developing marketing campaigns, and upselling new products. Using Heroku Connect also enables you to build stronger relationships with your customers by gathering data on how they engage with the app, their experiences with the product, their preferences and interests, and their overall satisfaction with the product. Additionally, it eliminates the need to manage Salesforce APIs or worry about limits on data movement. There is even a version of Heroku Connect that helps apps comply with HIPAA regulations. Developers - or Summit Technologies - can easily install and configure Heroku Connect using a simple point-and-click interface. And when you are ready to scale, Heroku Enterprise offers advanced developer collaboration features that simplify company-wide administration of teams and apps. Enhanced security and reporting help you ensure trust, improve visibility, and increase organizational agility. Heroku and customer-centric app development is just one of the robust offerings from Summit Technologies LLC. Summit Technologies is a Columbus, Ohio based Salesforce Consulting Partner consisting of a talented and creative team of Salesforce certified Consultants, Developers, Analysts and Project Managers. We specialize in building innovative solutions for our clients within the Salesforce family of products including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, CPQ, Experience Cloud, Nonprofit Cloud, Education Cloud, Pardot, Field Services and Salesforce Communities. Summit Technologies strategic services solutions bring custom Salesforce technology to work for your business.

When Salesforce acquired Slack in 2021, the SVP for Slack at Salesforce, Rob Seaman, stated “we really want Slack to be the primary engagement surface for our users, their communications, their work, their workflows and the processes and the apps they support.” Since then, Salesforce has successfully integrated Slack into an almost invaluable tool, expanding its uses to sales, service, marketing, and analytics. With the Summer ’22 release, Salesforce has announced more ways the company intends to utilize Slack to help users get the most out of their Salesforce Platform. Salesforce Cloud Integrations for Slack Salesforce is introducing new integrations with Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Service Cloud to bring Salesforce data and tools right into Slack, increasing team performance, and making conversations more insightful, customer-centric, and action-oriented. New updates to Sales Cloud allow users to connect to Slack workspaces to surface important Sales Cloud data across their organization throughout the Digital HQ for Sales. Sales conversations are centralized and teams are automatically notified about important opportunity or account updates within Salesforce-linked channels. These real time notifications help sales focus on high priority opportunities and leverage resources wisely. The Notification Wizard allows individuals to tailor their alerts to their needs. Surface important deals—whether they're new or just closed—to managers in personalized Slack channels so nothing falls through the cracks. To accelerate decisions from anywhere with the Digital HQ for Financial Services, Salesforce is introducing Slack + Financial Services Cloud. Users can quickly get the insights they need from FSC in the right context to make decisions faster. In this first release, users can execute deals efficiently and collaborate more effectively with capabilities like creating and reviewing interaction summaries directly from Slack and creating deal channels for deals approved by compliance teams. CRM Analytics for Slack Users can bring data to every conversation and get data-driven insights from anywhere with CRM Analytics and Slack. Digital HQ for Analytics helps make analytics accessible throughout an organization so that data is more impactful. Login Enhancements for Slack and Microsoft Employees and customers can sign into Salesforce orgs, Experience Cloud sites, and third-party apps connected to Salesforce with ease using their Slack or Microsoft credentials. Care Coordination for Slack Care coordinators can improve outcomes and reduce readmissions by arranging the transitions of care for their patients and members. Care team members can now create an escalated event in Health Cloud, which creates an alert notification for the Care Coordinator. Student Success Alerts for Slack Enable faculty–or any member of a student’s support team–to raise alerts about at-risk students from an easy-to-use Slack app that feeds directly into Student Success Hub. Alerts made in Slack immediately notify the student’s advisor, who can then address the alert and make any necessary changes. Salesforce dedicated a lot of time crafting experiences and workflows to significantly change the way people work together. By making messaging a complementary tool to its products, Salesforce has transformed tedious tasks, such as creating Slack channels or sending account updates, into fully automated workflows. Astonishingly, these updates are only a sliver of what the Salesforce Summer ’22 release has to offer.

CRM higher education technology is a fully integratable IT solution that enables institutions to manage relationships with all of their customers (including students, alumni, faculty, staff, and corporate partners) and connect insights from those interactions in a unified 360 degree customer view. Summit Technologies helps schools adopt CRM technology to meet a variety of goals. A Salesforce higher education solution quickly supports new business models and personalized experiences without the pain of updating legacy systems: with CRM, faculty and staff can collaborate from anywhere and track critical metrics such as retention, enrollment, and engagement rates across a variety of channels. Salesforce tools like Slack and Chatter turn the Salesforce ecosystem into an easy to navigate platform meeting the entire institution’s needs. Connect insights across recruitment & admissions, student experience, advancement, and marketing for a complete view of every constituent across multiple touchpoints: Unlike individual point solutions, which only address a single-use case or challenge, an integrated CRM platform eliminates the pain of having disparate data spread across a variety of systems. More time for faculty and staff to do what they do best – ensuring students have the support and resources they need to thrive: With CRM for higher education, institutions can provide more tailored outreach to prospective students, automate self-service, and increase alumni engagement and fundraising efforts and spend less time spent searching for data across multiple point solutions means. Today, too many higher education institutions are managing the student journey with outdated and siloed systems. Increasingly, students are expecting seamless technology experiences, personalized communications, and an experience where no matter the size of the institution they are treated like a unique individual. Yet, the average university has 35 different applications or systems to manage recruiting, enrollment, engagement, job placement, and alumni and donor engagement. Nearly one-fifth of institutions have 70 or more! This lack of connectivity causes challenges in data-driven decision-making across the student lifecycle. When data exists in silos, the student experience can often feel disconnected and impersonal. Moreover, students expect to have everything they need to succeed right at their fingertips in this mobile technology world. Salesforce CRM, a true customer relationship management solution, is an integrated platform connecting insights across recruitment & admissions, student experience, advancement and marketing into a single source of truth. This enables institutions to collaborate more effectively and support more students at scale. With Salesforce Higher Education CRM, personalized student-centric experiences are built by enabling fully triaged case management to help every student overcome any obstacles with omni-channel support. Stronger student relationships are built on the foundation of connected student data. Stronger student relationships lead to higher rates of retention and graduation among your student body. The right technology can help institutions maximize every student’s potential—from the moment they express interest in an institution to the day they graduate and become alumni. By creating a 360-degree view of every student, a CRM platform empowers institutions to turn data into insights and insights into actions. These connected insights make it possible to shape proactive and personalized interactions with students, ultimately putting student relationships at the center of every decision an institution makes. Using an integrated platform instead of multiple point solutions not only simplifies data complexity for higher education institutions; it also saves money. In fact, CRM higher education technology averages $2.4 million in total legacy cost savings, according to a Forrester Total Impact Study. The study found that higher education institutions using Salesforce are driving 195% in ROI over three years, with a 7-month payback period. They’re also seeing significant increases in revenue and cost savings. This is because institutions eliminate the expenses associated with more training, the adoption of outdated processes, and the time spent updating legacy systems when using multiple point solutions to manage the student journey. CRM evolves as an institution does: It’s a flexible, integrated platform. A Salesforce higher education CRM solution can incorporate as many tools as you need to serve your student body best: email, SMS texting, community portals, and more. CRM enables higher education institutions to stay ahead of student needs with tools such as proactive alerts and conversational chat bots. According to Forrester, students are more likely to enroll in a college, and stay there, when a single platform is used to provide more effective communications, remove barriers to information, and streamline support services. Central New Mexico Community College was looking for a single, consolidated view of all of the customers they serve —from students, alumni, parents and donors to employers that hire students. CRM for higher education provided the ideal solution to create a 360-degree view of every engagement, in one place. With an integrated CRM, CNM staff had self-serve data at their fingertips. No more reaching out to IT or other departments to run reports which might take a couple of weeks to get back. With a strong CRM foundation, Central New Mexico Community College was well-positioned to focus on specific areas that they wanted to enhance, like advising. CNM’s Student Success Hub allowed students to schedule advising appointments, selecting the counselor of their choice and put the notes from previous sessions in the same easy to navigate platform. Forrester found that institutions using a CRM platform, like Central New Mexico Community College, have been able to increase student retention rates by 6.8%. By streamlining workflows for staff members and consolidating relevant student data, advisors can be more proactive in their student support efforts. When institutions switch to CRM, administrative and academic teams are able to work more effectively. Forrester found a 12% increase in productivity across teams working on everything from admissions and the student experience to alumni engagement and fundraising. Over the course of three years, this equates to $6.7 million for a college or university. Salesforce Education Cloud inspires collaboration and keeps students engaged and on track. With streamlined student services, your school can deliver unified advising experiences and unlock access to careers for students across a single platform that connects every student support need across your entire campus. The University of Massachusetts (UMass) had multiple departments handling administrative tasks, and employees were relying on paper and email to communicate with prospective students and alumni. Having seen success from using a CRM platform to improve the student experience, UMass decided to replicate it for employees system-wide. Making it easier to get work done on a collaborative platform kept divisions and departments connected. UMass wanted a flexible platform that could scale and encourage interdepartmental communication from anywhere. CRM for higher education is the digital foundation empowering tomorrow’s institutions today. A CRM platform connects insights campus-wide instead of creating data silos, making it easier for institutions to quickly support new business models as constituent needs evolve over time. Undoubtedly, transformation across education is here to stay. Whether it’s increasing hybrid course offerings or creating additional revenue streams with new programs, having an agile platform is critical in order to support the long term success of colleges and universities. This is the new technology mindset of the future-ready institution and it’s powered by CRM for higher education. It enables a shift from siloed data and disconnected experiences to a flexible platform that grows with your needs. CRM for higher education from Salesforce implemented by Summit Technologies LLC can help you understand your students with: Unified student records Easy alerts and mass actions Advising notes Pre-built analytics Institutions can benefit from CRM higher education technology in a variety of ways, from simplifying data complexity to creating more personalized experiences for every constituent.