4 Ways Salesforce Integrations Boost Adoption

On this blog, we’ve discussed many ways of boosting adoption, such as listening to your users as you build and

3 min. read

On this blog, we’ve discussed many ways of boosting adoption, such as listening to your users as you build and fixing common adoption mistakes.

But it’s a little-known fact that Salesforce integrations can boost adoption as well. Integrating Salesforce with other platforms drives adoption through both “carrot” and “stick.” Though often time-consuming to implement, Salesforce integrations drive desired user behavior in ways many other adoption tricks can’t.

4 Ways Salesforce Integrations Boost Adoption

1. Integrations extend the functionality of the platform.

Think of Salesforce like it's a tech gadget. The more features it has, the more likely you are to use it, right? Well, if your team is using just one Salesforce product by itself, your users may see it as a static data system where they’re entering data just for the sake of entering data. That sounds like the kind of tech gadget you’d find gathering dust in your closet.

But integrations help here by adding features to your Salesforce toolkit. They can transform Salesforce from an isolated data silo into a connected information hub. Employees could use the platform to generate invoices directly from opportunities, send orders directly to your inventory management system, or notify colleagues of upcoming deadlines via Slack. The more functionality you add to Salesforce via integrations, the more it will excite users.

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2. Integrations ingrain Salesforce into users’ existing workflows.

An unintegrated platform forces users out of their way to use it, significantly decreasing their likelihood of adopting it. Because if Salesforce adds hours to your employees’ workday, they won’t use it.

But an integrated Salesforce platform facilitates work by conforming to users’ usual workflows, increasing adoption rates. To reuse an example from above, users will be more likely to enter opportunities in Salesforce if these opportunities fit into their existing flow of work by automatically feeding into the next step of the process (order management, invoicing, etc.).

With an integrated platform, Salesforce isn’t forcing more work on users. It’s moving that effort to Salesforce instead and automating tasks that users were previously completing in other platforms or by hand.

3. Integrations eliminate the need for double entry.

Similar to the point above, double entry is a surefire way to kill adoption because it shows that your disconnected technology is forcing more work on your people.

A well-designed integration, meanwhile, saves employees hours of time each week. In fact, it rewards them for correctly using your technology by automatically filling in data for them. If that’s not an adoption booster, I don’t know what is.

4. Integrations force users to work on Salesforce by controlling how data flows between platforms.

The other points we’ve noted about how Salesforce integrations boost adoption all focus on “carrots”: how integrations entice employees to use the platform through rewards. This last point, however, speaks to the “stick.” Integrations can force users to follow the desired process on the desired platform because they dictate how data flows.

For example, let’s say that your company uses Salesforce and Hubspot, with an integration between the two. If you have employees that aren’t using Salesforce because they prefer Hubspot, well, you can set your integration so that it only syncs updates from Salesforce to Hubspot (not vice versa). So now, employees must use Salesforce, unless they’re okay with the integration continually overwriting their changes. You can prevent users from editing fields in other systems, too, going even further to make users adopt Salesforce as their system of record.

Another example: If you integrate Salesforce with your invoicing system, you can then tell all of your sales reps that their deals will only be invoiced if they enter them in Salesforce. That will boost adoption fast.

Salesforce integrations require a great deal of effort to build and maintain, but their value to businesses is unquestioned. Outside of their potential to save employees hours of effort, Salesforce integrations boost adoption by dictating processes that your users must follow and rewarding them for adhering to those processes.

Adoption is a tricky problem to fix, but the best solutions involve getting your people and technology to work together. Integrations do just that, to the benefit of both.

Looking for tips on how to make this happen? Check out our webinar on how to handle any Salesforce integration like a pro.

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Danielle Sutton