Making a Switch: 5 Things to Consider When Switching Salesforce Partners

By Meri Sikora - September 2, 2021

Whether your current Salesforce partner has been acquired by a larger organization or it simply no longer meets your needs, sometimes the writing is on the wall: it’s time to switch partners! 

The grass may actually be greener on the other side, so if declining service levels or a lack of scalable support have you investigating other options, we’re here to help.  

Here are the top five things to consider when evaluating a Salesforce consultancy and support partner, whether you’re making a switch or shopping for the first time.  

The Top 5 List 

1) Industry Experience   

• Who are their clients?  
• Which Salesforce Clouds are they experienced with?  
• What products have they built for clients?  
• What products do they have on AppExchange?  

Take a close look at the clients they work with and the projects they’ve completed in your industry. While it’s great if your prospective new partner has worked with the five biggest financial services companies in the world, that doesn’t mean much if you’re in the pharma space. Look closely for relevant vertical expertise and the corresponding Salesforce recognition.   

2) Can Scale Up or Down on Demand 

Business needs change often, even without taking a global pandemic into consideration. Before you switch partners, make sure the company you’re considering has the resources to help you scale up on demand and the flexibility to support you if you need to scale back. 

Investing your resources in a company that offers this flexibility improves business effectiveness by keeping you agile so you can easily adjust to changes in the marketplace.  

3) Willing to Challenge the Status Quo 

If you approach a company with a list of requests, and they come back to you with a “Sounds great. Here’s our contract,” we highly suggest you keep looking.  

Your agreement should be a partnership, and as such, your partner should be willing to challenge your assumptions about what you need and the best way to get there. Of course, the partner should have solid proof from other use cases to support their recommendations, but they should be ready and able to draw on their industry expertise to help you find the right solutions for your unique business needs.  

4) Well-Versed in End-to-End Solutioning 

Salesforce is an incredibly powerful business tool, but it’s not the only platform you need. Your new partner’s expertise should extend beyond Salesforce to include other highly desirable platforms, like SAP, MuleSoft, and other ERP systems.  

The actionable data insights that come from those back office systems lead to improved business results, so even if you’re not using them (yet), a company that has the skills to integrate them with your CRM is a smart choice. 

5) Collaborates toward Self-Sufficiency 

A Salesforce partnership usually goes one of two ways: 

A) The partner does the work. The customer pays for the work. It goes on like that until one contract ends and a new one begins.  

B) The partner does the work and at the same time, empowers the customer to be self-sufficient so they can manage their own project once set-up is complete.  

Many consultancies use the first model. After all, it’s great job security for them.  

We’d encourage you to find a partner that uses the second one. Once your project is up and running, your Salesforce consultancy should train your staff to keep it running. Your team should learn how to make adjustments and improvements, monitor feedback, etc so you don’t have to keep paying someone else to manage your projects.