WordPress and Salesforce are the crème de la crème of their industry, at the top of their game. Salesforce promises to drive your business forward, consistently and insightfuly with a suite of tools; and WordPress helps you take that business to the world in a few clicks.
Pick any tool in those categories, CRM and CMS, your business cannot exist without those in this age. This is why bringing these two tools together is the best bet for your business.
The many things that this integration can give you are form builders, web-to-lead forms, form builders, etc. As and when anyone interacts with your business, they interact on the WordPress side, and you get actionable information and insight on the Salesforce side of things.
WordPress and Salesforce are no less than a match made in heaven. When you go for a WordPress Salesforce Integration (WordPress website with Salesforce as your CRM) lead generation becomes easy. Now, the visitors that come to your WordPress website provide you with their information in two ways. One, by signing up to the newsletter and two, by registering for an event. The task of your CRM is to collect that information and store the data at one place enabling you to keep it organized.
However, if you wish to provide your customers with a more personalized browsing experience and boost engagement, you need to integrate WordPress and Salesforce in the best way possible. This can include anything right from plugins like Salesforce Portal for WordPress and apps to customized integrations. Let’s know about the aspects you need to consider in case you go for WordPress Salesforce Integration:
WordPress is used by every third website across the world as a Content Management System. And Salesforce is one of the leading customer relationship management (CRM) platforms. Combined, these two can drastically improve your operations.
With Salesforce’s tools, you can store and organize your company’s leads and customer data. However, this data could be even more valuable when integrated with your WordPress website. Below are the six useful ways to synchronize your Salesforce and WordPress data.
Easy User Management
To maintain a cohesive user data across your backend tools, it is necessary to sync them in real-time and the same goes for WordPress as well as Salesforce CRM. You can develop core WordPress functions, like site registration to create new leads in your Salesforce database. You can even sync fields between two applications so that your company departments can have access to the same data set.
With the help of Salesforce WordPress integration, you can keep your users’ account status sync. You can tag your leads as customers in Salesforce and then they automatically get updated with customer tags. In turn, you can provide “customer only” access to your website. Automated prospect to customer updates reduces your sales teams’ workload.
Form Submissions to Leads
Planning to convert your WordPress form submissions into leads any time soon? Then you will need to integrate your website with CRM which in this case is Salesforce. WordPress hooks and filters allow you to send form data to Salesforce and track your forms performance in CRM. Once you know the forms which convert better will help in your crafting a more effective inbound marketing funnel.
Track logged in user data:
Understanding and identifying the most valuable corners of your website becomes necessary if you want to provide better service than your competitors. To achieve that, you can track your logged in users and their actions and history by building a custom Salesforce Object. If you are hosting your WordPress site, then remember that tracking users at micro level requires a good deal of computing resources. Based on how and what your web hosting provider charges, it can turn into an expensive proposition. A better and cost-effective way would be to track customer activity through using different third party tools like opting for a Salesforce WordPress portal that offers this desirable integration.
Build a Product Catalog
There are multiple ways to import your product database in your Salesforce CRM. But, there are few ways to keep the data synced with an external eCommerce store. For this, there are some solutions that work with different Salesforce setups. These solutions will require you to make customizations to your eCommerce workflow.
A custom integration solution will include a product catalog. It can even include a full eCommerce solution which records all stock quantities, and other sales data in your Salesforce database. This will save the previously purchased data in Salesforce. This in turn will help you to target customers for new products, promotions, or marketing campaigns.
Track on Campaign IDs
Integrating WordPress with Salesforce lets you associate users who register on your WordPress site with a sales campaign. You can add anyone who submits a specific form to a given Salesforce campaign ID. You can even target particular website activities you want to track.
E.g.: using WordPress action, you can track the number of blog posts a user views in each product or service category. If they hit the specific metric, you can associate them with the campaign ID which corresponds to that category. With the number of custom actions, you can create and track various actions of your visitors. This will help you achieve specific marketing or sales goals and execute them properly.
Having a Salesforce self service portal or Salesforce partner portal and integrating it with WordPress brings the best out of both the worlds. It makes the task of your team easy and helps you streamline your business operations.
CRMJetty, Biztech’s child company, is very happy to announce that our Salesforce WordPress Customer Portal Solution is now available on Salesforce AppExchange, a leading marketplace for providing enterprise cloud solutions.
Our Salesforce WordPress portal is a popular portal solution for enterprise customers who are looking to enhance the ways they connect with and engage their customers.
“We wanted to go the extra mile for clients and have them know that we adhere to the standards of the Salesforce marketplace and that our product is built keeping in mind all the necessary Salesforce regulations.”, said Maulik Shah, our CEO.
The portal built on and for this platform has the capacity to serve your enterprise business requirements and comes with features like smart case deflection for quick help. Case management, personalized dashboard, extensive knowledge base, etc. which can business serve their customers better. Other commendable features of this portal are secure access to the CRM, real-time notifications, ticket management, and more.
Our portal can help you leverage the potential of Salesforce CRM by letting your customers self-serve them by accessing all the assets from one place. They can also ask questions, leave feedback, generate tickets for their issues, and many other tasks from the portal itself.
We at Biztech are very excited to see the innovative ways our customers use the portal to grow their businesses.
Find our Salesforce WordPress portal on AppExchange here.
About CRMJetty
CRMJetty is an ISO 27001-certified company and adheres to industry-standard strict security and privacy rules. CRMJetty also provides customization services for portal CRM per clients’ requirements.
Salesforce is among the robust CRMs available in the market. It offers many tools for storing and organizing your company’s data as well as your customers’. And as a company, your goal might be to utilize this data optimally in order to serve the best to your customers.
There are multiple integrations available in the market but one of the best and widely useful is WordPress Salesforce integration. This integration helps you to utilize your data properly making it more valuable and as a result, you are able to provide better service to your customers.
Let’s look at useful ways to sync your WordPress and Salesforce data:
Easy User Management:
If you are managing your website on WordPress and capturing leads from there, then integrating your WordPress with your Salesforce CRM becomes crucial. This way you will be creating a cohesive database of your users.
To integrate Salesforce and WordPress, you can configure WordPress functions like site registration, etc. to create new leads in the Salesforce database. You can also configure other fields between two applications so your teams can have access to proper data sets.
It doesn’t matter if you are running a membership-based company or host-specific data on your website which is only visible to your customer, with this integration, you can keep your users’ account status synced dynamically.
Going a step further, you can also tag your leads as customers in Salesforce, and this customer tag update, in turn, gives your customers access to the “customer only” section of your website.
This will directly decrease your sales teams’ workload. This feature will help your sales team to serve your customers effectively and efficiently.
Generate New Leads:
Let’s say you want to convert WordPress form submissions into leads, and if your website is integrated with Salesforce then it will help you smoothen the whole process. With the WordPress filters and hooks, you can send your form data into Salesforce and then you can also track the performance of these forms in your CRM. All this, in turn, will help your inbound marketing team to perform better and convert your leads.
Track User Activity:
If you want to identify the most trafficked area of your website then you can set up “logged-in” user page tracking to get user page history into a custom Salesforce object.
If you are using this feature in your WordPress site, then remember that this level of detailed tracking requires a good amount of computing resources. It also depends on your web hosting provider. Or you can also invest in a Salesforce customer portal that works with WordPress making it a cost-effective option to track the user activity and understand their needs.
Create a Product Catalog or eCommerce Store:
There may be multiple ways for you to include your product database in your Salesforce CRM but there are only a few ways to keep data synchronized with external eCommerce stores. Still, there are some unique solutions available which work with as many Salesforce setups as you want. But what the point of concern here is that it won’t support any of the customizations done in your eCommerce store workflow. This will at the end make the data useless.
Therefore, a custom integration solution can include a product catalog; it even includes a full eCommerce solution that records stock quantities, sales, inventory updates, and other data in your Salesforce database. Having previous purchase data in Salesforce is very helpful when you are targeting customers for new products, promotions, or any other marketing campaigns.
Custom Object Integration:
You can create custom Salesforce objects according to your website. For example, if you want to build a website that tracks your rental cars and properties and stores their data in Salesforce then custom integration is the right solution for you. You can use this data to track car status, tenant rent, due dates, amounts, and payments directly from your Salesforce database. This even allows your customers to pay their bills directly through your WordPress website.
Tag Campaign IDs to WordPress Actions:
Want to link any core tailor-made WordPress actions with your Salesforce campaigns? Then linking WordPress actions with your Salesforce will enable you to track users who register on your WordPress site with a particular sales campaign. You can also add anyone who submits a specific form to a specific campaign by giving it a Salesforce campaign ID.
Additionally, you can even tag particular website activities that you want to track. For example, you can even add a WordPress action that keeps track of the number of blog posts your users are reading in a particular product or the service category.
If you are using any specific metric, you can associate them using a campaign ID that corresponds to each category. There are a number of custom actions you can create and track. In such scenarios, make sure you have specific and clear marketing or sales goals and can align in these actions as well.
Conclusion:
Salesforce and WordPress are among the most widely used CRM and CMS respectively. There are various ways you can use these two in the best possible way. But, the best outcome will be when you have integrated these two.
If you are a content creator working as a freelancer, you truly know the struggle of growing your career. If you are even slightly good, your inbox does not sleep. Your phone is always going off and the notifications from multiple messaging apps are off the charts. At some point, you must’ve taken client calls at 10 in the night explaining exactly which email thread has the document they are looking for.
The more clients you have, the more challenging it is to manage this communication. Technology can save the day though. You can opt for a project management portal. If you are a savvy person, you are sure to have a website to show your work and one that helps potential clients reach out to you.
If you currently communicate via email, you might be using several other software for the actual work, from a document collaboration software to a file sharing one. On top of this, you also need a niche contract management software, to streamline the legalities with your clients.
With a client portal, you can have it all in one place making it much better for you and your clients. Let’s see how:
Your brand image:
In a creative field like content creation, a cohesive brand image is important. This means your client portal should reflect your website. If your website and the portal have the same design language, it helps the client navigate it. They know what to expect from each button or swipe and this can lead to a smoother experience. On top of that, when you provide a collaboration interface, it looks more professional. You gain a much needed edge in the competitive freelancing market.
Smoother communication:
A client portal can streamline all your communication with each client. This eliminates the risk of miscommunication. All the work related discussions with them are in one place for them and you to refer. Since this portal can have design mock-ups, content documents, contracts, etc. all in one place it adds convenience to collaboration.
Work-life balance:
A traditional concept of 9 to 5 does not exist for a freelancer. So work and life can very easily be caught up in each other. But since you are juggling more than one specific project at a time, you need a work life balance even more. You can set your calendar on the portal so that your clients know when they can get in touch with you for a call or a meeting. They can also know if there are certain days when you are not working so that there is no conflict regarding your unavailability.
Technological comfort:
No matter the work these days, technology comes into the picture one way or the other. But not all software is created equal and not everyone knows how to use it. But that shouldn’t hinder the workflow. A project management portal easily becomes a single place where your client gets everything they need from you, from managing a contract, signing up for additional services after the initial one, etc. Because the tool is easy to use and provides hassle-free experience, your client is likely to come back.
Future options:
If you begin working as a graphic designer but in the future, you want to expand by getting into content writing, a project management portal would give you a head start. Just like you can add modules to your website, you can add modules to your portal. And when your client base expands, this portal is ready for it.
Secure access:
Since a portal is a gateway, it needs to have login credentials. A secure portal protects the client’s sensitive data and it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. A client will always trust you more if you make sure to provide them with a secure, reliable collaboration environment, and that definitely includes the technology you use to do the work.
A client portal is about providing top-notch customer service. And being a freelancer does not mean you can compromise on it. Maintain your quality of work, but also elevate how you interact with your clients and the ease you provide with a client portal.
We make customer portals in various CRM-CMS combinations and we can customize a freelancing portal for your use case. To talk about the nuances of your needs, drop a comment here and we will get back to you. You can also get in touch with us here.
Before we start with the Salesforce customer portal, let’s explore all the types of Salesforce portals, their differences, and their use case.
Types of Salesforce Portals
Salesforce offers three types of portals that have different use cases:
– Partner Portal
– Self-service Portal
– Customer Portal
It is crucial that you pick one based on your requirement and which entities you want to manage. If it’s partners, then the partner portal should be your choice. Similarly, to manage customers you can either go with self-service portal or customer portal.
Let’s look at the difference between them.
Difference between Customer and Partner Portal
The key difference here is that a partner portal is useful for when you want to share business-level insights with your partners. Each partner can get only the required data without being able to access all of your organization’s private data.
Compared to this, a customer portal works as a platform for your customers to approach your business, and get support on their own from the portal.
In this blog, we are going to explore multiple aspects of the Salesforce customer portal.
What is Salesforce Customer Portal?
Customer Portal is a unified platform that provides self-service support, a user interface and online support channels for customers.
How to Enable Salesforce Customer Portal?
You can follow the steps given below to enable the Salesforce Customer Portal.
1) From Setup, enter Customer Portal Settings in the Quick Find box. Then selectCustomer Portal Settings or In Build, click customize, select customer portal, then click on Customer Portal Settings.
2) Click Edit.
3) Select Enable Customer Portal.
4) Click Save.
5) This is the view of Customer Portal after enabling the same. From there, you can create a new portal by clicking on ‘New’ or edit an existing portal.
6) You can change portal fonts, color with the option Change Portal Fonts and Colors button, and use the Edit button to change the header, footer, etc. Click on Edit and change it.
Note: This feature available only in Salesforce Classic.
How to Enable Customer Portal for Contacts
1) From a contact detail page, click Manage External User, and then select Enable Customer User.
2) Verify the general information and locale settings, and enter any missing information. The customer’s Username defaults to the customer’s email.
3) Select a portal user license. The user license that you choose determines the permission sets, user profile type, and role hierarchy options which you can select for the user. See Customer Portal User Licenses.
4) Click on save to save the settings it.
5) Go back to the Contact Detail page and click Manage External User and select login to Portal as User.
After performing all the steps, this is how the Salesforce Customer Portal will look like.
Salesforce Customer Portal Features
– User interface
– Salesforce CRM content
– Custom objects and Tabs
– Multiple User profile and Record types
– Account Role hierarchy and sharing
– Branding and style configuration
1) User interface
In the salesforce customer portal, there are user interface features like search, quick solution identification, creating cases, reports, etc.
2) Salesforce CRM content
Through this Salesforce CRM content feature, your customers can access any product document and you can share relevant content with customers as well. It also has features like sharing, subscription and commenting.
3) Custom objects and tabs
You can create custom objects and tabs in the customer portal and share the same with your customers. These objects and tabs help you implement your business logic throughout the portal.
4) Multiple user profiles & record types
A feature to create multiple user-profiles and record types to help you provide some customized experience to your customers.
5) Account role hierarchy and sharing
You can use three-level role hierarchy and sharing with your customers.
6) Branding and style configuration
Customizations in the home page, header, footer, colors, and fonts enables you to match the portal with your brand, therefore creating a synergy.
Limitations of Salesforce Customer Portal:
The Salesforce customer portal is expensive if you put it at $1 per user, per month. It increases your customer retention cost.
Apart from cost, there is also a certain limitation when it comes to the number of accounts. You cannot have over a certain number of accounts, depending on the Salesforce edition you use.
But there are third-party solutions that you can use that to allow you to scale your customer base at a much more reasonable price point.
About CRMJetty:
CRMJetty is a hub of innovative customer relationship solutions. You can connect, collaborate, and engage with your customers smartly using our ready to integrate portal solutions for SuiteCRM, Sugar CRM, Salesforce, and Dynamics CRM.
Gear up your business with our portals to drive new customer relationship intelligence!
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