Checklist for prospecting Salesforce system administrator for your organization

Many organizations report that they failed to see any payback on their Salesforce investment and going by several surveys documented online, as much as 70% of CRM implementations fail. Certainly, there is much more to CRM implementation than simple license purchase, data migration, and custom implementation. The missing piece of the CRM success puzzle is usually expert administration after the project has been deployed.

Salesforce System Administrator is the key resource that is responsible for optimal operation of the Salesforce system, streamlining the concerned business processes in sync with the stakeholders, and maintaining system upkeep through annual updates.

Since a Salesforce Database Administrator is critical to CRM success, it is important to invest time and effort in shortlisting the candidates for the role and choosing the one that has all the characteristics to fit best. In this blog, we have listed the fundamental checklist for prospecting the Salesforce system administrator for your organization. Read ahead to know what attributes are a must-have for the most significant resource of your Salesforce set up.

• Understands your business processes

Salesforce Administrator is the key cog of the whole Salesforce set up, whose job is to utilize the Salesforce potential to meet the organizational goals. It would add another layer of challenge if the candidate doesn’t understand your business processes and how they communicate with each other. Therefore, it is important that he/she must have a fair idea of what is the overarching objective of the products/services offered by the organization, what are the chief processes, and how Salesforce maps to the existing operational environment. When the candidate has a broad understanding of the business processes, his/her adaptation time is shortened and can immediately begin coordinating with stakeholders.

• Experienced in Project Management

Salesforce system administrator is responsible for developing and maintaining the complete customer funnel from the technical point of view. He/she should be deft in multitasking, handling deadlines, coordinating with cross-functional teams and people with limited technical know-how of the Salesforce system.

Unless the candidate has a proven record of project management in a similar or related sector, it would be difficult for him/her to juggle with myriad tasks while managing the core Salesforce responsibilities. Moreover, when working as Remote Salesforce Administrator, one needs to collaborate with global cross-functional teams and experience with project management comes handy.

• Familiar with Sales workflows

The principal application of Salesforce CRM is streamlining Sales workflows. Hence to ensure that the investment in the platform meets the intended objective, the Salesforce database administrator must be familiar with the existing sales pipeline. In case, the organization aims to streamline an ill-defined sales funnel then it is even more important to hire a resource who is well versed with the sales process. If the candidate is technically proficient but not well versed with real world sales funnel, then he/she would frequently need assistance of sales professionals.

• Interested in learning new features

Salesforce is an actively evolving platform and releases three major updates in a year. It is therefore essential characteristic of a Salesforce admin candidate to be a curious learner. There are great official learning resources provided by Salesforce and several other unofficial forums where users can learn, discuss and help each other. Experienced Salesforce professionals invest significant time in browsing these sources for keeping them updated with new functionalities.

• Supportive and Team Player

While these qualities are fundamental for any corporate team member, these become more relevant for the role of Salesforce System Administrator. As he/she is pivotal in driving the whole team to customer success, qualities like willingness to support and team player gain significance. Many organizations opt for a Remote salesforce administrator and when teams are globally distributed, it becomes critical for an admin to be encouraging and flexible.

Bonus Tip

When it becomes overwhelming to find the right candidate, organizations can either opt for Salesforce managed services or hire third-party Salesforce Administrator services. Both aim to circumvent the paucity of experienced Salesforce talent in diverse industries and save the hassles of recruiting and onboarding the right candidate.