The Secret to Wowing Clients During and After Implementation - a Personalized, Just-in-time Training Solution

“It’s fair to say that without a tool like Spekit our agency’s ability to continue to carry out our mission would be hampered by confusion and obsolete guidance which Spekit helps us avoid.” – Dustin Bystrom, Minnesota Associate Council for Veterans

Documentation and hand-off at the end of any implementation can be more challenging than the project itself. Passing off all training and answering the many questions that pop up after can take massive amounts of time and potentially extend the project.

We know that the overall cost of implementation is one of the most important metrics clients want and need to control. For that reason, if there are any specific pieces that threaten or put pressure on the timeline and/or budget, you run the risk of an unhappy client, a freeze on resources or even a failed project.

With time, scope and budget being so finite, anything that can help mitigate unforeseen challenges can be the difference between a satisfied client and an unhappy one. This is particularly important when it comes to maintaining a client for life relationship.

So, what’s the solution? How can you eliminate these seemingly inevitable hurdles and problems that come with wrapping up a project? Let’s break down how Spekit can help you create the perfect Salesforce roll out and win over your clients again and again.

Why Spekit?

Spekit is an in-app learning and digital companion that helps employees learn their tools and navigate process changes by accessing answers and enablement resources in real-time, everywhere they work.

Built by sales ops professionals for growing and remote teams, Spekit blends the sophistication of a modern digital adoption platform with the simplicity of a contextual knowledge base for a lightweight yet powerful solution to continuous employee training.

So, how can it help you during and after implementation?

Documentation, documentation, documentation

Let’s start with the big one, documentation. What systems and tools are you currently using to execute your project documentation? Powerpoint? Word? Excel? Email? Maybe even your clients internal system(s)?

There’s nothing specifically wrong with any of these tools on their own, but what happens when there are changes to the scope of the project? What if your client makes frequent updates or consistently alters the scope of the project? How easy is it to edit and complete the new documentation? Losing project time to documentation has traditionally felt like par for the course, especially when it comes to communicating with your clients.

It also affects your clients post-implementation. Long term, what happens when changes are made in their Salesforce instance? Is your client prepared to manually update those changes in the provided documentation? Do they have a plan for documenting and communicating?

Spekit helps you overcome these seemingly unsolvable problems. Let’s take a look at an example…Let’s say you’re implementing a CPQ solution for a new client.With Spekit:

• You create the documentation once and add it in the Spekit wiki (for example, if you’re implementing NPSP, all your basic NPSP content is added into Spekit).
• That content can quickly be customized to meet your client’s needs (for example, add the Client’s name, any unique terms or definitions they need).
• Voila! You can hand off this project to your client as a customized documentation solution that they can access from directly within Salesforce or across any app via our Chrome Extension.
• Starting a new project with a new client? Easy! Just clone your existing documentation, customize to the new client’s needs and publish!

Getting started in Spekit is easy and doesn’t require heavy lifting to get up and running. In a few steps you’ll be ready to start your documentation and provide real-time updates for your client.

This once tedious task is now easy and efficient to replicate across clients. Now, let’s look at how you can hand this off after implementation.

Enabling a smooth handoff and future-proofing your project

Now, you’ve gone through the process of creating documentation and you’re ready for the handoff. The project is wrapping and you need to provide your client with the specifics about why you did what you did, how you did what you did, the nuances behind the solution you built for them and the details behind everything in their org from custom objects to individual fields.

Using Spekit to help roll out your implementation and complete detailed documentation throughout the project means you’re already one step ahead. This training isn’t new to the client. Likely, they’ve been involved to a degree in your process so far. They’ve had access to the shared training in Spekit and you’ve assigned “Experts” to manage content after you’ve left.

Through the dynamic content created during documentation, you’ve already provided training materials they can immediately get started with. With knowledge and videos embedded with the Spekit content, they can immediately use to get up to speed on the amazing solution you built for them.

This is crucial because now they’re able to turn around and customize any additional training for their team so they can get up and running right out of the gate. This means sooner recognition of ROI on a tool they’ve invested a lot of time and money into.

They’re also able to collect data from their employees in real-time to find out if everything is working the way it should be. This could be a potential source of User Acceptance Training (UAT) feedback as well. During the headaches that inevitably arise during UAT, they’ll be able to easily capture feedback from their team to notify you of any bugs or breaks before you wrap the project.

Now that we have established how Spekit helps with both documentation, UAT, and hand off, next up is how leaving a client with a project fully buttoned up like this ensures a client for life.

User adoption = Client for life

For your client, implementation is the beginning, not the end. Although your part of their Salesforce journey may be coming to an end for the moment, the goal can and should always be to gain a client for life.

Let’s look at a very interesting statistic that should really drive home why the client for life relationship is so important for you as a consultancy. “For every $1 Salesforce makes, the partner ecosystem will make $5.18,” according to the IDC. That means they’re likely to spend 5x more in the ecosystem! That’s a lot of reasons to maintain the relationship.

Clients who’ve had a positive implementation experience will likely come back to the same SI/consultancy in the future to help with their continued needs for Salesforce, integrations, data migration and new instances.

Looking at how Spekit has made a positive impact on future proofing their specific Salesforce instance, Dustin Bystrom of Minnesota Associate Council for Veterans said, “As a statewide nonprofit (MAC-V), Spekit has quickly become an essential tool to quickly and efficiently disseminate needed information to our staff located in various offices around the state. Given the current global health situation that requires our team to transition to a remote work, Spekit has enabled us to get information to our staff rapidly where they need it most, and with circumstances and information changing at a breakneck pace the application has allowed for easy editing and notifications as guidance has changed.”

“The application is user friendly and easy to use allowing for us to crowdsource content and utilize the unique knowledge and skills of our colleagues without having to spend precious time troubleshooting and reviewing content. It’s fair to say that without a tool like Spekit our agency’s ability to continue to carry out our mission would be hampered by confusion and obsolete guidance which Spekit helps us avoid.”

Dustin highlights the importance of training after go-live and why it is so important to consider the next steps your clients should take after implementation.

Bottom line, as your client grows, you grow with them.

Using Spekit makes wrapping your project easy

Did you ever think that rolling out a Salesforce implementation could be, dare we say it, a breeze? Using Spekit you can feel confident that you have everything at your disposal to be successful.

Spekit allows you to easily work on and update documentation in real time. You can collaborate with the necessary stakeholders on the client end of the project and adjust as needed if scope changes.

You also have an easy way to hand everything off and provide the training they need to be successful with the solution you built. Did you know Spekit also gives you the ability to print a PDF or Excel file from all of the documentation you just created? Yup, we thought of everything. Lastly, they’ll recognize ROI sooner with onboarding materials and just-in-time training directly within Salesforce to guide their team. This means happy successful clients. And, when your client is happy, you’re happy right? We thought so.

Have more questions about how Spekit can help you create the perfect Salesforce rollout? Click here to set up a demo, here to find out more about partnering with Spekit or signup for free !