What Does A Salesforce Admin Do And Why Do You Need One?
Salesforce is a leading provider of cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, based in San Francisco. The second largest SaaS by market capitalization (just behind Adobe Inc) was founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez, the company started as a customer relationship management (CRM) platform.
Over time, Salesforce has expanded its offerings to include multiple cloud platforms that serve a variety of specialized purposes. In 2022, the company reported revenue of $26.49 billion and a market cap of $180 billion.
The idea behind Salesforce is to provide affordable and easy-to-use CRM software as an online service.
In the past, companies had to host CRM software on their own servers or use local resources, which required a significant investment of time and money.
With cloud-based technology, there is no need for an on-premises server anymore. Data is stored in the cloud, making it easily accessible from any internet-connected device.
Salesforce offers a pay-as-you-go subscription model. Subscription (with a free trial) starts from as little as $25/month and a full-size CRM suite costs $150/month.
Before you hire a Salesforce administrator know more about their job title, role, and responsibilities.
What is a Salesforce Administrator?
A Salesforce administrator is a professional who helps organizations optimize their use of the Salesforce platform. Admins work closely with stakeholders to understand their requirements and set up the platform to meet the desired goals. In simple terms, they ensure that users are able to fully utilize the capabilities of Salesforce technology.
The role of a Salesforce administrator is crucial for any organization that uses the platform. They are experts in making the platform work for the specific needs of the company. Depending on the organization, there may be one or many people in this role. The responsibilities of a Salesforce administrator include maintaining the platform, making it user-friendly for everyone, and staying up-to-date with the latest features, capabilities, and updates of the platform.
They are the trusted advisor for the organization’s Salesforce needs and act as a liaison between business and technology.
What does a Salesforce Administrator do?
Salesforce administrators are the backbone of any organization that uses the Salesforce platform. It’s impossible to operate the CRM without one or more administrators. Basically, a Salesforce administrator is responsible for customizing the platform to meet the specific needs of the business and its employees. They work closely with users to understand their requirements and enable features to support their goals. Let’s look in detail at the role of a Salesforce administrator in an organization.
1. Managing the environment
The primary task of a Salesforce administrator is to make sure the platform is configured to best suit the needs of the organization. A Salesforce administrator is a vital link between the business and the software.
Salesforce can be adapted to the needs of any type of enterprise. It can extract data for a twenty-employee craft brewery and a multibillion-dollar airline using the same codebase. It is up to the user to fine-tune the application.
This responsibility falls squarely on the Salesforce administrator. When you’re supposed to manage tens of thousands of millions or even billions of records in your Salesforce organization, the optimization and integration of your data loads become crucial. It is important to have a strategy in place to manage bulk data load. One option is, you can hire a .net developer to integrate Salesforce with a .NET application to manage bulk data load.
2. Offer training & support
Any CRM software is mostly used by those who do not work for the IT team. These are salesmen, business developers, and engineers who look after sales at the ground level. A Salesforce administrator has to organize training sessions so that every employee can use the CRM system effectively. Computing systems are only as strong as the input. The Salesforce administrator offers insights into how the software can be used to generate greater revenue and better data.
3. User management
This aspect of the job includes creating and managing user accounts and offering support to them. Salesforce administrators work with users to understand their needs and ensure that they are able to effectively use the system to accomplish their tasks. They also provide troubleshooting for any issues that may arise. This can include resolving technical issues, answering questions, and providing guidance on best practices.
4. Providing analytics
CRM applications yield valuable data. Salesforce yields more than any other. Salesforce software can track marketing metrics such as lead generation, click-through rates, and conversion rates. This data can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and to make decisions about how to optimize marketing strategies.
Salesforce can track customer behavior, such as how often they visit your website, how they interact with your products or services, and what types of content they engage with. This data can be used to understand customer preferences. The task of collecting and collating this data rests with the Salesforce administrator.
5. Managing updates
Salesforce constantly updates its feature catalog and enhances functionality. For example, in 2022 Salesforce enabled inline editing of sales reports and Dynamic Forms. The Salesforce administrator has to be vigilant about the latest features and suggest how these can be used by an organization. The Salesforce ecosystem is expanding rapidly making it essential for the admin to ensure that feature creep doesn’t confuse Salesforce users.
How to Become a Salesforce Admin?
Becoming a Salesforce Administrator is a great career opportunity for anyone with an interest in technology who does not want to code for a living. The best part is that there is no need for a technical background or prior knowledge of Salesforce technology to start.
Training online through Trailhead, Salesforce’s free learning platform is the preferred way. Salesforce offers a certification program for administrators (among other roles, such as developers, analysts, consultants, etc.). On average, the course can be completed in little more than a hundred hours.
Opportunities for Salesforce Admins
Salesforce administrators are in huge demand. With 150,000 installs around the world, Salesforce requires trained personnel to manage the software. Salesforce administrators can move into a management role. CRM often needs a team, and an experienced administrator can head the unit. Besides working as a Salesforce administrator, there are opportunities as a Salesforce consultant or a Salesforce developer.
FAQs About Hiring a Salesforce Administrator
This will help you understand the candidate’s level of expertise and how they have applied their skills in the past.
The questions will give an idea of how the candidate approaches problem-solving. They need the ability to customize Salesforce to fit the unique needs of an organization and an example will go a long way in demonstrating it.
The candidate must have the ability to quickly and effectively resolve technical issues. They also have to explain the use and offer support in non-technical language. This question tests his ability.
Conclusion
Salesforce administrators play a critical role in an organization by managing and maintaining the Salesforce platform. They work closely with different teams to develop and implement processes and best practices for using Salesforce. You can set up custom dashboards and have access to rare insights with the help of a Salesforce administrator. To ensure that your Salesforce subscription is yielding maximum RoI, hire a Salesforce administrator.
