Nothing kills productivity like “swivel chair” moments, when employees have to pivot between multiple platforms and programs just to get their job done. But what if you could condense all of your daily tasks into the same platform you already use for daily communication, and work seamlessly in one place throughout the day– no pivoting required? Whether you’re brand-new to the solution or you’ve been messaging coworkers on Slack for years, there are likely still some game-changing features you mi...
Oct 09, 2024•15 min
Employees only have so many hours in the day. They can either spend that time fighting with manual processes and repetitive tasks, or they can focus on building relationships with customers and growing the business. This is especially true in automotive dealerships, where that personalized experience is more important than ever, and time-consuming, repetitive tasks cause major frustration for employees and customers alike. How can dealers free up that precious employee time, so they can focus on...
Aug 06, 2024•15 min
The sales process is the lifeblood of any manufacturing organization – and yet, despite its importance, it remains a source of frustration for many organizations. Blue sheets, log books, cumbersome spreadsheets; these hallmarks of a manual sales process bring with them headaches, siloed processes, and often missed opportunities. Faced with trying to overhaul their sales process, PTR Group turned to Salesforce. In this episode of Transformation @ Work, find out how Gerent was able to help PTR gro...
Jul 25, 2024•18 min
Delivering a personalized car buying experience is a “holy grail” for any automotive dealership. After all, by meeting the customer where they are and anticipating their needs, employees are truly empowered to turn incoming leads into high-value opportunities. But how do you unlock those experiences when customers might only visit your dealership once a year at most? In this episode of Transformation @ Work, we’re looking at how better data structuring and predictive AI capabilities can overhaul...
Jun 05, 2024•18 min
Travel agencies take pride in offering customers a relaxing, simplified alternative to the chaos of booking flights, hotels, and vacation destinations. But what is simple for the traveler is often anything but for the professionals responsible for coordinating vacation logistics. Too often, agents are overwhelmed by data and left to navigate unsupportive, user-unfriendly booking and CRM systems. This is precisely the problem Cruise & Vacation Desk was dealing with — and why the agency’s lead...
Apr 22, 2024•18 min
A new year means new trends and priorities for virtually every industry under the sun. And for healthcare payers, several of the most prominent developments of the past few years– such as prior authorization, concerns around member experience, compliance, and the ever-rising role of AI– are projected to become unavoidable in 2024. So how can payers leverage technology to get ahead of these rapidly developing trends? That’s where Salesforce Health Cloud comes in. In this episode of Transformation...
Feb 06, 2024•24 min
How does a community lift itself out of poverty? One increasingly popular method is through microfinance: small loans, provided by a mix of donors and financial institutions, are given to those without access to traditional capital to help kickstart business ventures. These loans have a tangible impact on members of struggling communities, often causing a ripple effect that lifts up more and more people over time. This life-changing impact sits at the heart of Care Australia’s mission: deliverin...
Jan 30, 2024•23 min
A Salesforce implementation is a major undertaking that constitutes thousands of dollars and weeks to months of training time. Ensuring that deployment is a success — and that your investment doesn’t go to waste — is imperative. So, how do you make sure that teams stay aligned, objectives are hit, and adoption happens long-term? To find the answer, you need to go back: before the first training is held, and before a developer ever sits down with a given project. In this episode of Transformation...
Dec 08, 2023•23 min
In the Nonprofit sector, investment in cutting-edge technology is often a luxury. After all, most nonprofits aim to funnel as much income as possible directly into the communities they serve – meaning there’s little left over to spend on nice-to-have tech. But as an ironic result of this impact focus, many organizations are left to manage tight budgets, razor-thin margins, and overworked employees and volunteers. But what if nonprofits could not only take advantage of the best-in-class tools dev...
Dec 07, 2023•24 min
Anyone with a background in the humanities has probably been told they’re pigeonholing themselves from a career perspective at least once. It’s a pervasive misconception — especially in a field as STEM-driven as the Salesforce ecosystem. But the reality is, having a background in building relationships and connecting with people sets you up for tremendous success in a range of Salesforce-related roles. You just need to find those opportunities and take advantage of them. In this episode of Trans...
Nov 30, 2023•21 min
No one wants to spend their precious time at work fighting with technology or inefficient processes. This is doubly true for the nonprofit sector, where people get into the field to help their communities and make a difference in the world. Unfortunately for team leaders, that often translates to understandable resistance to adopting new technology. That resistance presents a unique challenge for these leaders: how do you get employees excited about adoption, while recognizing that any training ...
Nov 16, 2023•24 min
There’s an iceberg effect to a good experience. Underneath every seamless interaction lies a multitude of carefully-architected experiential flows. A single poorly-designed touchpoint could potentially derail an entire user experience (UX), customer experience (CX), or employee experience (EX). You might not notice when an experience is seamlessly designed – but if decisions are arbitrary, repetitive, or frustrating, those are the moments that you’re unlikely to forget. How, exactly, can busines...
Oct 25, 2023•21 min
Ask any tenured professional and they’ll tell you the same truth: the skills listed in a job description are just scratching the surface of what goes into any given role. Being a Salesforce solution architect is no exception; the position requires much more than the skills and competencies laid out on paper. So, if you’re just starting in your career — or looking to make a switch — how do you know what skills to focus on, or if you’ll be a good fit? The answer is simple: ask the people currently...
Oct 12, 2023•24 min
You might not notice a particularly good user experience (UX) – in fact, that’s often the point – but when done right, UX can inform nearly every user decision and shape brand perception. However, just as it’s easy to experience good UX design without realizing it, it can be easy to fall into pitfalls while taking a DIY approach. So, how can a business leverage the often “invisible” art of experience design to create delightful customer experiences and encourage long-term employee tech adoption?...
Sep 26, 2023•17 min
There isn’t just one way to shop anymore – which presents a unique challenge for retailers. After all, how do you build a buying experience that offers the same level of personal care for a customer, regardless of whether they’re shopping in-store, online, or via an app? That’s where Salesforce comes in: by leveraging Salesforce’s data-driven capabilities, backed by the power of AI, retailers can overhaul every aspect of the order management experience, from buying to fulfillment to returns. The...
Sep 25, 2023•24 min
Retail shopping has changed dramatically in the past few years, and nowhere is that shift more apparent than during the holiday season. Trends and new buying models such as Buy Online, Pick Up in Store (BOPIS) — which rolled out largely as a pandemic response — are here to stay, and the retail organizations that can’t maintain them are unfortunately falling behind. But make no mistake: innovating the retail shopping experience means going beyond playing catch-up to the latest retail trend and pr...
Sep 21, 2023•25 min
It’s a fact — the average prospective student entering into higher education in 2023 is more engaged with technology than any generation in history. This raises the critical question: why are so many higher education institutions still relying on outdated, manual processes for enrollment, communications, and ongoing engagement? Practices that have worked reliably in the past now risk feeling antiquated and obtuse to a new generation of digital-first students. Supporting the needs of this incomin...
Sep 06, 2023•22 min
Any change within an organization– whether it’s new technology, processes, staffing changes, or other shifts in the business – can be intimidating for employees. Without careful execution, team leaders will inevitably face uncertainty, resistance, and ultimately, even rejection of promising new initiatives. Managing a successful transition requires steady communication, hands-on training and support, and — most importantly — a comprehensive change management plan. In this episode of Transformati...
Aug 10, 2023•16 min
The nonprofit industry is vast, encompassing over 1.5 million organizations in the United States alone, each with their own unique mission, organizational structure, and needs. No two nonprofits are going to serve their communities in the same way– which makes planning a Salesforce implementation a distinct challenge for change-minded leaders. After all, how do you take one solution, even one as comprehensive as Salesforce, and deploy it equally well across such a range of organizations and use-...
Aug 09, 2023•22 min
Deploying Salesforce within an organization is often a massive undertaking – which makes ensuring high levels of adoption absolutely essential. Attempt to overhaul too many processes at once, and you risk wasting valuable time and a considerable investment. But by aiming too small, or going for an “out-of-the-box” solution without the customizations necessary for your business, you run the risk of deploying a solution that doesn’t ultimately provide real value. For businesses in this position — ...
Jul 25, 2023•21 min
The prior authorization process, in theory, is designed to help payers get their members the care they need while keeping premiums down and preventing unnecessary procedures. However, due to long response times, complicated processes for filing, and a lack of transparency, providers, regulators, and members are looking for a change. These problems prompted the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to propose CMS-0057, new guidelines which task payers with overhauling their authorization process to m...
Jul 19, 2023•22 min
Cars are complicated, and technical conversations around vehicles can pose a challenge for dealerships and customers alike. It can be a real struggle to explain which of the thousands of integral, intricate pieces of a car needs to be serviced — and how it relates to the whole of the vehicle — to the average consumer. But what if, at a moment's notice, you had a diagram you could pull up of every car you serviced? What if you could view a 3D model of a car, highlight a specific part, and pull up...
Jul 17, 2023•25 min
Transitioning into Salesforce consulting is a natural career move for many professionals, particularly those who have worked with the platform within their previous organizations. But while it can be an exciting prospect, actually making the transition comes with no shortages of unique challenges. After all, when you’re on the customer’s side of the table, you don’t need to worry about addressing specific pain points or solving difficult questions. But what happens when the answers to those ques...
Jul 14, 2023•20 min
When considering a Salesforce implementation, identifying where to start can be a distinct challenge. For growing organizations, endless possibilities can lead to scope creep and unclear priorities. Conversely, older, more established businesses often have workflows in place that lead to information silos and added resistance towards new solutions. Either way, the challenge is the same: put effort into the wrong areas once, and you risk wasting time, money, and employee effort, and lowering adop...
Jun 09, 2023•23 min
You only get one chance at a first impression — and for higher ed institutions, that initial assessment often comes in the form of student communications. When institutions take the time to deliver personalized and welcoming communications, students feel comfortable; and from there, they’re positioned to excel in their new environment. However, all too often, inconsistent outreach standards between departments can lead to massive variations in the frequency, consistency, and tone of their messag...
May 18, 2023•22 min
Digital tools such as Salesforce provide the transformational functionality that healthcare payers need to deliver next-level member experiences. But the cost and time expenditure of deploying those digital tools can pose a real roadblock for implementation, leading payers to rely on their existing legacy tools — often at the expense of their members’ experiences. To overcome this implementation hurdle,, payers need specialized solutions that can help them get to market as quickly as possible, s...
May 02, 2023•16 min
Thanks to an abundance of patients, complicated cases, and ever-shifting compliance guidelines, most healthcare providers are stretched thin. Oftentimes they’re limited to just a few minutes per interaction – just enough time to address any pressing patient concerns and move on. That may be enough to handle immediate crises, but what gets lost in these cases is the personal touch: the daily interactions that reveal major factors in a patients’ health. Issues such as food security, ease of travel...
Mar 23, 2023•16 min
For decades, automotive dealers and OEMs have relied on the same toolkit for their needs: a whiteboard, individual file folders for sales reps, and sticky notes on computer screens and cubicle walls. Each of those tools serve a purpose; but the undeniable fact is, there’s a ceiling to their effectiveness – especially when dealing with larger customer households, multiple locations, and remote interactions. If organizations truly want to take the experience of buying and servicing a car to the ne...
Mar 21, 2023•26 min
Pricing should be a straightforward proposition: the seller sets a price, the customer pays that price, and everyone walks away happy. But in manufacturing, the process is anything but simple. Between discounts based on volume and customer loyalty, location-based pricing, and ongoing supply chain disruptions, pricing can become an ongoing struggle for manufacturers. Sales teams’ existing methods of capturing pricing information — such as post-it notes and spreadsheets — simply cannot keep up wit...
Mar 01, 2023•26 min
Education and nonprofit sectors are facing serious challenges when it comes to staffing and retention. Simply put: employees are exhausted, burnt out, and struggling to overcome the challenges posed by a global pandemic, sudden transition to online learning, and ever-increasing responsibilities. Many teachers have left the field entirely — and as absences and resignations pile up, the stress on current employees increases, creating a feedback loop that wreaks havoc on faculty well-being. Teacher...
Feb 17, 2023•26 min
