First things first, the year 2020 is finally over.

As we move into 2021, there’s one collective thought that drives all businesses right now: looking for ways to catalyze missed targets and goals piled up from the pandemic-ridden yesteryear. CRM can be one of the catalysts to drive businesses in achieving this goal.

When it comes to sales, managing your customer relationships is key to your organization’s growth. With the unprecedented growth in cloud computing over the last few years, CRM software is now one of the biggest software markets in the world and the growth isn't slowing down.

In fact, as of January 2021, CRM is expected to reach more than $80 billion in revenues by 2025.

One of the key factors behind the growth of CRM is accessibility. Companies want access to customer data in real-time, with mobile and cloud solutions leading the way. As CRM software becomes accessible to both small and big businesses, the demands have also changed.

The audience for CRM solutions has become more tech-savvy and needs more niche products that are diverse and personalized.

CRM software like Salesforce have changed the way CRM solutions are practiced.

Salesforce, which started as a Software as a Service (SaaS) company, has grown to be counted among the largest software companies in the US.

Salesforce now provides various software solutions and a platform for users and developers to develop and distribute custom software. This helps organizations to focus on innovation rather than managing technology.

Salesforce.com is based on multi-tenant architecture. It provides many software solutions and also a platform for users and developers to develop and distribute custom software. This means multiple customers share common technology and all run on the latest release.

Why Salesforce?

Salesforce is one of the most popular CRMs around, and businesses across the world use it to improve their revenue and enhance their bottom lines. Salesforce boasts of over 150,000+ customers ranging from small businesses to FORTUNE 500 companies.

Moreover, The IDC study on Key Statistics for Salesforce CRM, involving more than 1,200 companies using cloud platforms in eight countries, provides new insights into Salesforce’s contribution to the IT and CRM industry. All in all, Salesforce has revolutionized the CRM market. How Salesforce can help you grow your business.

1. Finding the Right Customers
According to Pardot, without a CRM system, 79% of all marketing leads are never converted to sales.

Once you’ve spent time and resources attracting and generating new leads, keeping track of the hottest leads takes priority. Make the most of your marketing tools ( email, social, marketing automation) by connecting them to a CRM platform.

2. Building Sustainable Relationships
A State of Sales report, highlights that 46%of sales leaders say deeper customer relationships are a key objective for sustaining success.

With Salesforce, you can have a complete view of your customer’s history with your company, which can help you gain a perspective on the things that matter.

With an effective CRM solution, you can improve the efficiency of tasks like Exploring customer challenges, engaging relevantly, scaling your 1-on-1 relationships, etc.

3. Reducing Cost of Sales (CoS)
According to marketing metrics, the probability of selling to a new prospect is 5%–20%, while the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60%–70%.

Salesforce lets you offset new customer acquisition costs through sales to your existing customer base. It lets you prioritize leads and opportunities that are highly likely to convert and close based on customer interactions with your company. Moreover, you can stay in the loop about which customers are engaged, and the right time to reach out for an optimal response.

4. Increased Customer Retention
A Harvard business review article points out that a “5% reduction in your customer defection rate can increase profits by 25%–85%.”

With CRM-powered transparency into customer histories, active campaigns, or open cases, you can provide more satisfying purchases and service experiences that keep them coming back for more.

5. Better Customer Service
A study by Defaqto research says that 55% of consumers are ready to pay more for a better customer experience.

This means, being able to reach out to your prospects at the right time. With Salesforce, you can keep track of all your interactions so there are no overlaps.
When your entire team has immediate access to a customer’s complete history, team effort can work to give better solutions with the right resources. Smoother interactions build trust and encourage repeat business.

Best Salesforce Plugins for 2021

Salesforce offers such a varied choice of plugins that it gets difficult to identify the most appropriate ones for your business. To help you choose better, we have put together a list of the most useful plugins from Salesforce that your business could utilize to save time and grow revenue.

1. Clicktools

Clicktools helps create surveys quickly and easily. These surveys can be handy when generating relevant customer feedback. This can help you create strategies that work towards filling gaps in strategy and thus move towards a more profitable future. What makes it easier to do that are the scripts and web forms that are integrated directly into Salesforce for increased efficiency.

2. DocuSign

DocuSign is the most popular electronic signature app on the Salesforce AppExchange. It lets you create and send documents for signatures from within Salesforce. The interface is simple, and it also guides signers through the signing process.

Its simple layout adapts to whatever device you’re using. You can track status, trigger actions, and automatically store agreements to the original record with Lightning integration.

3. Pros Smart CPQ

Pros Smart is a great tool to streamline your CPQ (configure, price, quote) cycle. It automates the CPQ process, increasing the ability of sales teams to deliver fast, error-free quotes.

It further provides AI-powered insights that enable teams to personalize product and pricing recommendations, allowing them to deliver targeted offers that make a win.

Whether it’s a subscription service, or a product that requires configuration -- CPQs by Pros Smart can catalyze response time from days, or even weeks, to a few minutes. Moreover, its user-friendly product configurator and an emphasis on collaboration helps shorten the sales cycle, and hence, boost revenue.

4. Cloudingo

Managing data on Salesforce can sometimes get a little complicated. Duplicate records are a recurring problem with Salesforce data. Cloudingo allows you to easily find duplicates within your records while giving you flexibility and control to decide further actions.

It lets you build an unlimited number of filters with a number of matching styles. It allows you to merge duplicates manually, automatically or in bulk, validate mailing addresses and add geocodes, and much more.

5. Fireflies.ai

Time spent on CRM data entry can significantly reduce productivity. According to the State of Sales Report by Salesforce’s Research Team, 66% of a sales rep’s time is spent on administrative tasks and activities, not directly tied to selling during an average week.

With AI-powered transcription tools like Fireflies.ai, companies can reduce CRM data entry by 33% with transcribed meeting minutes. Imagine never having to take meeting notes in Salesforce ever again. Fireflies AI voice assistant helps transcribe, take notes and complete actions during meetings.

You can integrate Fireflies with Salesforce to have calls automatically logged under the appropriate contact in Salesforce. In addition, Fireflies will include notes, transcripts, and recordings inside Salesforce.

If you need to search or dive deeper into the calls, the Fireflies dashboard will index all your meetings. Using smart search capabilities, Fireflies lets you quickly filter to action items, next steps, dates, metrics, and other important topics with a click of a button.

You can also collaborate with your teammates and provide on-spot call coaching by leaving comments and flagging important moments from the calls. Turn short snippets of the meetings into soundbites that you can share with your colleagues to create a playlist of the best moments from each sales meeting.

Fireflies can capture live meetings across all the major video-conferencing platforms including Zoom, Webex, GMeet, Teams, and more. You can also upload pre-recorded sales calls into the Fireflies dashboard.

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6. Cloud Time and Expense

Cloud Time and Expense is a great option if you’re looking to manage your time monitoring and expense data more effectively.

It makes keeping track of important financial admin figures easy by allowing customizable expense and customer approval tools with a strong focus on recording.

7. Cirrus Insight

If you do a lot of work on your email, and switching back and forth between Gmail and Salesforce to coordinate work is tedious, Cirrus allows you to do all the work from within your inbox.

This app allows you to instantly view, create, and update leads, contacts, cases and more right in Gmail in both Google Apps Standard or Enterprise. It also lets you easily create leads and events, and sync contacts and calendars.

8. Conga Grid

Conga Grid is a data editing/management tool that allows for much faster processing. It helps you save a lot of time by making it easier to manage and navigate records.

It enables you to manage your Salesforce data faster by letting you edit your records and format them in an Excel-like grid or jumping from line to line, without clicking through Salesforce records over and over to access and update data.

9. Chatter

Chatter is a real-time collaboration app that lets your users talk to each other, and share information. It connects, engages, and motivates teammates to work effectively across the organization, regardless of location or role.

It allows users to collaborate on sales opportunities, campaigns, service cases, and projects with embedded apps and custom actions.

Chatter can be accessed on all devices and browsers. The Salesforce mobile app also offers a rich and powerful mobile interface for teams to collaborate.

10. ZoomInfo

Powered by DiscoverOrg, ZoomInfo for Salesforce is an Industry-leading market intelligence solution that provides you all the information you need to find, qualify, and close leads right within your Salesforce environment. Here are a few highlights:

• Decrease your call to connect time with access to direct phone numbers and email addresses.
• Increase the accuracy of your Salesforce data through quality checks and fill in missing information for existing Leads, Contacts and Accounts.
• Fill your sales pipeline with new leads and companies matching your total addressable market.

11. Lightning for Gmail

This Salesforce-Gmail integration lets you track customer interactions and work the Salesforce deals directly in Gmail.

It allows you to bring your Salesforce contacts, records, accounts, and opportunities into your inbox and also your calendar. It lets you update existing Salesforce records and create new ones without having to toggle between applications

12. Mailchimp

Mailchimp, probably the most popular Email Service Provider (ESP), has a Salesforce integration app that provides seamless integration between the two platforms,

After setting it up, the integration lets you manage your subscribers in Salesforce leads, contacts, and list views. By syncing your data across platforms, it helps simplify your workflow and get a better perspective for marketing engagement.

13. Quip

Even though this app isn’t technically in the AppExchange, it is one of the best (if not THE best) team collaboration solutions for Salesforce.

Quip Setup Starter is a managed package that helps set up some of the most common Quip for Customer 360 features. It lets you embed Account Plans, Opportunity Notes, and your own templates into Salesforce in just a few clicks.

Quip Setup Starter helps admins save time by setting up the required connections and allowing you to customize according to your organization's needs.

14. DemandTools

DemandTools removes the frustration of data management by improving efficiency and being flexible enough to support your unique data requirements. The best part about it is that businesses of all sizes can benefit from using this app.

DemandTools makes it simpler to identify and merge duplicates, load data and backup, verify email, provide flexible lead conversion and more.

15. Geopointe

This geolocation app gives you many options to tap into the geographical aspects of your data to improve efficiencies and streamline your processes.

Geopointe is integrated with Google Maps and it overlays with the Salesforce software. This allows you to add different layers to your maps.

Its key features include effective route planning and optimization, territory management, geographical analysis and assignment automation.

16. Salesforce for Outlook

Just like the Gmail counterpart, Salesforce for Outlook is a plugin that makes your life simpler if you use Outlook for your sales interactions.

Once installed, it will automatically sync emails, contacts, tasks among other data between Salesforce and Outlook. It also lets you view Salesforce leads and contacts that relate to your Outlook address book.

17. Handwrytten

It allows you to send real cards and notes with your message written in pen and ink, and even include a gift card, all from within Salesforce.

It has ‘quality cards’ that you can choose from and then type your message. You can also choose a gift card to send along with your message.

The process is quite interesting. Handwrytten’s robotic handwriting machines will "wryte" your message in realistic handwriting on the card, address the envelope, insert the optional gift card and place it in the mail with a real stamp!

18. Slack for Salesforce

This Slack-Salesforce integration can help you stay up-to-date on records within Slack. It lets teams respond faster to new conversations and collaborate between the two platforms effectively.

Slack for Salesforce allows teams to receive key updates on information in Salesforce through customized notifications in Slack, along with search and preview of Salesforce records like accounts, cases and opportunities using slash commands.

In fact, Slack recently updated its integration with Salesforce to make this combination even more powerful.

Related: Zapier Tips and Tricks to Automate Your Work

19.  Groove

Over 50,000 account executive, sales development, and customer success representatives use Groove at some of the world’s largest and fastest-growing companies, including Google, Uber, BBVA, and Capital One.

Groove is the leading sales engagement platform for enterprises using Salesforce, specializing in ease-of-use, ease-of-administration, and cross-team collaboration.

Built for the needs of full-cycle sellers, Groove automates non-sales activities so that pre and post-sales reps can spend more time building relationships and generating revenue.

20. Calendar Anything

Calendar Anything lets you create customizable calendars in Salesforce to schedule and manage marketing campaigns, forecast opportunities and plan projects.

It lets you view past, current and upcoming marketing campaigns, making tracking easier. You can also colour code different categories to demarcate your schedule and to assess visually.

Conclusion

Even though a lot of these plugins do the heavy lifting for you, remember that nothing replaces a good sales team that knows how to collaborate with each other.

But the best of plugins and apps for Salesforce can help you boost your productivity., if you have the right hold of things a CRM like Salesforce can do for you.

Combined with the skills of your sales team, Salesforce can help you hit sales targets more efficiently, and buid stronger customer relationships.