Team CG Slack Chat: What Clients Can Expect from a Great Consultant
It’s probably one of the least shocking admissions on the internet, but at Cloud Giants, we’re big Salesforce nerds. There’s nothing we love more than geeking out with others over CRM technology and how it can help people work smarter rather than harder.
From use cases to favorite features and add-ons, it’s our go-to conversation topic at parties. And probably why we don’t get invited to more of them...
As you can imagine, we’ve set up our Slack workspace to encourage these conversations and our team’s knowledge sharing. When a Cloud Giant learns something game-changing, we want the rest of the team to know about it too, and not just because the reaction gifs are on point.
It also happens to be one of the superpowers that consultants bring to the table. We aren’t siloed the same way an internal Salesforce administrator typically can be. We’ve seen the same issue solved differently for different organizations, so we can identify the right solution over another given specific business needs.
Our team recently got chatting about some of the best practices all clients should be able to expect from an experienced consultant. Of course, it’s not meant to be an exhaustive discussion, just some insight into our team’s conversation and thought process.
Read the tidied up version of that chat below and share your own thoughts in the comments, we’d love to hear from you.
A Few Best Practices Customers Should Expect from Any Consultant
Team CG Slack Chat Round II
Alex: @here friendly reminder that field descriptions are your, and our past clients, best friend.
I overheard a client that was frustrated about some past work (completed by another consultant, not us) because none of the fields or automation had descriptions. Yikes!
Sometimes, you have to do a workaround that could cause people to scratch their heads later — but a short description in the field could help our clients thank us when we’re gone instead of curse our names.
Shelbi: Curious if we want to thread replies here with other friendly reminders about best practices clients should expect from any Salesforce consultants worth their salt (and not just the Cloud Giants team!) 😃
Other than field descriptions, what else should folks expect? 👇
Alex: I personally love having separate pieces of content for different audiences. For example, you can have short and sweet release notes for end users. These should be screenshot heavy so they know what to expect and how to use the new functionality. They don’t need to be overburdened by technical detail.
Heavy technical documentation is needed for complex projects, but this should be separate from end-user documentation and geared towards an IT team.
Holly: They should expect pushback, clarifying questions, and recommendations on best practices as we’ve seen elsewhere.
Jeff: Absolutely @holly. It’s not just executing the technical solutions well, it’s that greater ability to take what you’ve seen work, and also not work, with other organizations and use that experience to determine what’s best and why for the given situation. That requires a lot of clarifying questions to get to the point where you can make informed recommendations.
Sara: A lot of clients want to jump right in. I totally get it, when the system isn’t working the way you need it to, there’s pressure to move fast and address immediate needs. When we can, it’s absolutely proven valuable to lay that foundation through a discovery period or needs assessment. That way the work fits with other business processes and doesn’t add a layer of complexity to an existing issue.
Kim: System design and automations that are manageable based on their staff. Meaning, if they don’t have developers, don’t design automations that require lots of developer intervention. Setting them up for success based on their structure is key. Like @Jeff said, it’s about making it work for their situation and not thinking one size fits all based on the challenge at hand.
Kim: Also a system, agreed on with client, for reviewing and prioritizing change requests.
Lindsay: With what @alex said on documentation — Josh is using In-App Guidance as well which is looking really clean for quick call-outs to end users of new features!
Alex: Ooh! @lindsay / @josh — is In-App Guidance a candidate for a lunch and learn? I’d love to learn more about that use case. 😃
Josh: Definitely, let’s schedule it.
Steve Pysnik: Intentionality when building automation to reduce/help eliminate the need for labor-intensive consolidation down the road (also makes for easier troubleshooting). Similar to what @kim said about building for what they can support organizationally. No one wants to feel the burden of a system that was built without them in mind.
Deanna: This almost seems like it should be a given but some other consultants may not make this 💯% clear to their clients ➡️A clearly defined roadmap and realistic timelines for projects. Working together to set realistic expectations for deliverables. Open communication and regularly scheduled meetings/emails so that consultant and client are on the same page with the progress of a project.
Grant: They should also expect to test what’s built. We have our own process to ensure the solution is working as it should, but it’s necessary that the client is invested in this part of the process too. That way, they can provide their own feedback about it. It helps with user adoption if they’re invested in testing what’s built during the engagement.
Curious what else you can expect working with a Salesforce consultant? We’re here to take the surprise out of the equation and help your organization make the most of its investment in Salesforce.
Contact us today for complimentary guidance that can help you get started.