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There is an influx of Salesforce projects and Salesforce consultant, so sometimes it becomes very difficult for the Salesforce users to find the best consultants for your implementation projects. Whether you are trying to implement Salesforce for the first time or if you are trying to optimize the existing Salesforce projects, it is essential to find a trusted partner who knows your goals and what kind of implementation process is the best for your organization.
Based on the advice from the Salesforce consulting experts, here we have listed some questions for the users to evaluate the credibility and sustainability of Salesforce consultancies. Most of these are not simply right or wrong answers. There could also be some changes in the structure of these questions based on various Salesforce implementation use cases. However, you may use these questions at baseline to see how well the consultant fits your requirements.
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Questions to Salesforce consultants
Are you certified?
Salesforce certification is an ideal way to testify the competency of a consultant and their knowledge in Salesforce implementations. Nowadays, it is essential to have Salesforce certification to head the implementation projects. Certification acts as proof of the consultants’ expertise on the latest releases o Salesforce. As the provider tends to make three subsequent released every year, the certified professionals are also required to maintain and update the certification by attending a maintenance exam on each release cycle.
What is your level of experience?
To implement Salesforce, you want to work with consultants who had been doing similar projects before. So, make sure to ask them some key questions like:
- What was the nature of their previous projects?
- How many similar projects have they handled and accomplished successfully?
- What was the size of their average clients?
Having similar experience will surely help expedite your project and foresee the challenges that may come up down the road during implementation, and they can resolve the same. In addition, provider like Flosum has exposure to various verticals to possess cross-sectional expertise in Salesforce implementation projects.
Do you provide any references?
Professional consultants will give you some reliable and authentic references when you ask for the reviews of their previous clients. Through these, you can check out how responsive the consultant was? How knowledgeable is the consultant at the Salesforce projects at your vertical? and whether the reference customer would prefer to work with this consultant again?
Are you focusing on Salesforce?
Salesforce is an ever-evolving platform, so you want to work with a consultant who knows the in and out of it by focusing on Salesforce. We may ask the below questions to ensure that they know the essentials about all the fundamental Salesforce practices. Some questions to ask here are:
- What percentage of their projects are specific Salesforce projects?
- How long had they been into Salesforce Consulting?
- How long they had Salesforce practices which are focused on your specific vertical?
Are you on Salesforce trailhead?
Trailhead is an interactive learning tool provided by Salesforce for free. This is meant to take the users through various user aspects of the Salesforce platform. Each and every skill for Salesforce is covered in the Trailhead modules. Whether you are a system administrator, developer, or user, trailhead has tools to test your knowledge on the Salesforce platform. Completing a specific trailhead module may not make you an expert in that specific area, but it can surely help you start with the specific Salesforce tool or module by going to the corresponding trail. Trailhead will also help to assess the success and competition of the individuals on Salesforce.
Are you an independent consultant or part of a consulting firm?
It is important to know whether the consultant is a standalone provider or functions as a part of a consulting firm. You should consider how they handle the tasks which you are not experienced in. For example, if the consultant is not a developer, then if they are working independently, how will they be able to handle the need for custom coding? Also, ask whether they have any major events during your implementation timeline which may prevent them from focusing solely on your project.
If it is a consulting firm, you need to check out whether they are authorized Salesforce consulting partners and check out if they are on AppExchange and how many certifications they hold on AppExchange. In addition, identify what the customer satisfaction score of the consultant on App Exchange is. Also, ask how many developers they have and how many project managers they have? You can also verify the answers to these questions at the App Exchange Consulting section.
What is your implementation methodology?
The project’s scope of work must include the implementation methodology of your consultant. Project methodologies usually involve Waterfall or Agile frameworks, with which you need to ensure that this approach can work the best for your project timeline and internal team’s expertise also.
Where are you based out of?
It is true that we need not be bothered about where the location of a provider is. However, it is recommended that you work with someone who is closer to you to make the coordination much easier. Also, while looking for a remote consultant, it is advisable to consider someone who is less than three time zones away from yours.
What is the pricing?
This question is very important and obvious when there are multiple options of the same quality and one among those is less expensive. However, it is not always true that expensive consultants always deliver the best quality work. You need to take caution against the scope of a bargain by seeing a higher price tag and also make sure that you cover all these questions before making the decision. Never put your decision simply based on the price. Even though Salesforce has specific pricing for different packages, the consultants can offer you good bargains based on the size and specifications of your project.
When you come across the need for Salesforce implementation or updating, you will come across many consultants who will be giving you custom quotes for your project. You need to scrutinize all these to identify who provides you the best return on investment over time. Choosing an independent consultant may be ideal as it comes at a lower cost if you project requirement is limited to one or two specific areas. However, for large-scale implementations of Salesforce, you need to better consider a professional consulting firm to ensure the availability of various experts with minimal implementation time and dedicated ongoing support.
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