Salesforce for Professional Services: A Comprehensive Guide

The heart of an excellent professional service, whether consulting, accounting, or legal advice, lies in building strong client relationships and consistently delivering exceptional value. However, with growing competition and evolving client expectations, more than traditional methods will be needed. Professionals must use modern technology incorporating AI, automation, and tools. 

Salesforce is synonymous with this statement. This is not a plain CRM platform; its scope is expansive. It streamlines workflows, personalizes communication, and empowers professionals to deliver delightful service at every stage of the client journey. 

So, how does Salesforce help professionals identify the key to happy clients, better operations, and growth?  Dive into this ultimate guide and discover how Salesforce can transform your professional services firm into a client-centric powerhouse. 

Four Key Benefits of Salesforce for Professional Services 

From strengthening client relationships to data-driven decision-making, Salesforce empowers professional services firms to streamline workflows and deliver exceptional service. Here are the top five benefits: 

1. Build stronger client relationships

Salesforce goes beyond basic CRM and provides professionals like accountants, recruiters, and consultants with a holistic view of each client. This helps professionals build strong client relationships through contextual data such as past client conversations and project details.   

2. Automate manual tasks

Whether consultants, HR, or accounting professionals, much of their time goes into manual tasks such as scheduling meetings or managing administrative tasks. Salesforce automates repetitive tasks so that professionals can focus on strategies.  

3. Drive decisions based on data

Professionals can make strategic business decisions based on data. Salesforce helps human resource professionals, accountants, and consultants make strategic business decisions backed by data such as historical projects, risk factors, team performance, trends, and insights. 

4. Improve collaboration

Secure portals in Salesforce help professionals collaborate with internal and client teams. Whether auditors or consultants, it is easier for them to collaborate with their clients, share documents in real time, and have conversations.   

Salesforce for Professional Services: Exploring Three Crucial Functions 

1. Salesforce for Accounting, Tax, and Audit Firms 

These professionals deal with clients who have unique needs, thought processes, goals, and aspirations. Here are a few ways in which professionals can serve their clients:   

• With a unified view of customer information on Salesforce, you can create personalized customer experiences. Salesforce enables accounting and auditing advisors to personalize their services. With instant access to clients’ investment data, asset information, and other financial records, you can automate workflows to trigger personalized communication and reminders.  
• With Salesforce, your team members—whether a part of your firm or external to your firm—can collaborate securely. This enables better communication, reduces errors, and keeps projects on track. Salesforce has the tools for role-based access controls and data encryption that meet regulatory compliance.   
• Salesforce eliminates manual data entry chores such as updating client information, generating reports, and writing emails through powerful automation. You can focus on in-depth consultation and strategies and let automation do all the heavy lifting.  

2. Salesforce for Consulting 

As a consultant, you are occupied with multiple projects, each demanding your time and attention. By automating tasks like report generation and sending email communication, consultants can save valuable time. Salesforce helps consultants with the following: 

• Staying on top of client information, with a comprehensive view of project history, communication threads, and client expectations, helps consultants proactively anticipate client needs and better serve them. Consultants can communicate with their clients through secure portals in Salesforce and share documents, project timelines, and other essential updates.  
• Salesforce helps reduce downtime between projects by helping you gain instant visibility into your team’s workload and skillset. This allows you to assign the right team for each project.   
• You can forecast your revenue growth with analytics on historical data, project timelines, and resource allocation. You can also manage opportunities by tracking your potential projects and identifying any roadblocks to adjust your strategy.   

3. Salesforce for Staffing and Recruiting 

Staffing and recruiting are critical functions in an organization. They define the quality of the workforce and, in turn, influence the quality of work. Salesforce helps HR professionals streamline staffing and recruitment processes and engage their candidates.   

• Salesforce CRM helps HR professionals leverage AI and automation to filter out and identify high-potential candidates based on the ideal candidate profile. You can also personalize emails sent to candidates – scheduling interviews, sending welcome emails, or following up.  
• With a CRM that unifies all information, recruiters can access and act on candidate profiles, past communication, job descriptions, and placements. This handy data helps them engage with clients and candidates proactively. 

Final Thoughts

Salesforce is critical in helping professional services streamline workflows, personalize client experience, and deliver exceptional value at every touchpoint.  

LevelShift is a certified Salesforce Summit Partner that offers a wide range of services for Sales Cloud, Revenue Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, and more. Here’s a brief of our service offerings:  

• Our experts help you maximize Salesforce’s potential by tailoring it to your unique business objectives, needs, and challenges.  
• We help you with integrations and set up and implement Salesforce end-to-end.   
• With LevelShift, you can easily transition to Salesforce Lightning Experience with our migration services.  
• Our team helps you with constant support and training to maximize the potential of Salesforce. 

If you want to increase client retention, boost engagement efficiency, drive growth, and be a trusted advisor in your professional services, contact LevelShift today. 

FAQs

1. What are professional services in Salesforce? 

Salesforce professional services cater to critical functions like Accounts, Audit, Tax, Consultants, and Recruiting. 

2. What is the primary focus of Salesforce Professional Services when working with customers? 

Salesforce professional services aim to understand customers’ unique business needs and goals. The focus is on implementing a customized solution, providing ongoing support, and maximizing the Salesforce platform’s potential.