One of the biggest challenges organizations face after investing in a customer relationship management system like Salesforce is adoption by users across the enterprise. Creating a plan to integrate Salesforce with the inbox can help. Let's dive in.
Citing everything from repetitive task management to updating multiple systems, 66% of sales team members surveyed in a 2020 Beagle Research Group report said that they'd rather stand in line at the DMV or clean a toilet than update their CRM system. Additionally, the same report revealed that only 47% of sellers regularly use their CRM system, and only 40% use it as intended.
This is why it's more important than ever to make it easy for users to access and update Salesforce data from where they are already working: their email inboxes. By bringing Salesforce data into a sales rep's inbox, companies can drive adoption and automation in a simple and straightforward way.
Email is home base
Consider this: 55% of sales representatives report that they rely on several applications—most of which aren't integrated—to do their jobs each day. (Some of these applications include Post-It notes.) Meanwhile, where reps spend the most time, at least 21% of their day, is in the email inbox.
When you ask sales reps to leave their inbox—that home base for operations—to change contact information or search for client data in Salesforce, you're asking them to leave the platform they rely on to make sales. Introducing multiple and disparate platforms to sales reps creates bloated workflows, which adds yet another hurdle to CRM adoption.
By making Salesforce accessible from a sales rep's email inbox, you're creating a value-add that builds on their preferred platform, spurring adoption rates. This scenario gives sales reps the ability to view, update, and create CRM records without abandoning their daily workflows.
This user-friendly approach provides reps with immediate payoffs, such as the ability to view relevant information while communicating with a client or prospect. Without leaving their inbox, reps can access vital details like:
- Job title
- Recent interactions
- Open opportunities
- Personal and firmographic information
- LinkedIn data
- Real-time account notes
Highlights of inbox integration
The key is to find a sales engagement platform that offers immediate benefits by connecting Salesforce data to your team's email inboxes. Unlocking these benefits will empower your sales reps with vital lead information for impactful client interactions.
This begins with harnessing the power of relevant information right from the email inbox. For example, sales engagement provider Groove offers an interactive sidebar within the email inbox. This sidebar offers direct access to live CRM data to provide reps with a snapshot of where the client sits in the sales funnel. Sales reps can also view who this client has interacted with in the organization and if there are any pending actions.
Building from this, sales reps can see the complete history of email communications between clients and anyone within the organization, including which emails were engaged with or left unread. This information adds more context for interactions and creates a 360-degree view of clients, which helps identify fresh opportunities and eliminate potential redundancies.
Finally, if an organization's CRM supports multiple roles for pre- and post-sales, you'll want to look for a sales engagement platform that offers the added benefit of customization. In these cases, anyone in the organization can customize what client data they see. So, a marketing rep, a sales rep, and an account manager will only see the information they need (or want to see) when viewing client information within their inbox.
Additional features add functionality
Organizations should be able to build off of out-of-the-box CRM functionality with additional features. Enterprise-grade sales engagement platforms offer a large suite of features that unlock even more benefits and increase adoption rates.
These benefits focus primarily on making workflows easier and information more accessible. For instance, using a sales engagement platform to integrate Salesforce within an inbox provides access to information like LinkedIn profiles of clients, notifications around email engagements, shared team notes per client, and email threads.
Inbox integration also unlocks the power to manage email workflows (including the addition and removal of contacts within workflows as necessary), the ability to insert online scheduling links into emails, and the power to search across all the logged Salesforce activities for any client. As for compatibility, most major sales engagement platforms work with major email platforms like Outlook and Gmail.
Inbox integration improves adoption
So, what's the payoff of connecting Salesforce with your teams' email inboxes? It's big. Making key information more easily accessible provides a critical foundation for building high-performing sales teams.
Salesforce data can provide reps with a way to get a 360-degree view of customers, but it's only valuable if reps access it and integrate it into every communication. CRM adoption is a struggle for most organizations. However, if you're able to make Salesforce data available to sales reps in a convenient and useful way, you will inevitably see adoption skyrocket. Sales reps love to close a deal, so if integrating Salesforce into the inbox improves their chances of making that happen, they're more likely to adopt.
Beyond the intrinsic value of helping sales reps close the deal, the ease of use made possible by inbox integration and automatic data capture of sales activities plays a major factor in Salesforce adoption. When everything a sales rep needs appears in their inbox, it eliminates the pain of switching between email, calendar, and Salesforce to view, update, and create valuable CRM data.
In other words, email inbox integration creates a system where sales reps engage with Salesforce data without ever having to leave their workflow to access it.
Integrate your email inbox with Salesforce using Groove
Groove's Salesforce-native sales engagement platform makes it easy for revenue teams to integrate relevant Salesforce data into Gmail, Google Calendar, and Microsoft Outlook 365. Groove's unique architecture sets it apart in terms of customizability, security, and ease of use.
With Groove, every revenue team—from BDRs and AEs to Customer Success and Account Management—can have a unique view of Salesforce data that is customized to their role. By making Salesforce data easy to create, view, and update from each rep's workflow, Groove has an immediate impact on CRM adoption and sales productivity.
Learn more about how Groove can integrate Salesforce with the inbox. Request a demo today!