How optimizing Salesforce Financial Services Cloud can future-proof your financial institution

Why financial institutions adopt Salesforce's Financial Services Cloud

Many traditional and digital banks already use Salesforce Financial Services Cloud (FSC) as their CRM for many critical business and IT reasons:

• Industry-Specific Customization: Salesforce FSC is specifically tailored for the financial services industry, offering custom solutions and workflows designed for banking and financial institutions. For financial institutions that use Salesforce but have not invested in FSC, the industry-specific data model and offerings are worth the upgrade.
• Comprehensive 360-Degree Customer View: FSC provides a holistic view of each customer, integrating their personal, financial, and transactional information into a single platform. This comprehensive view is crucial for banks to offer personalized services and advice.
• Integration Capabilities: Salesforce's platform is known for its strong integration capabilities with a wide range of third-party applications and systems. This allows banks to seamlessly connect Salesforce FSC with their existing software infrastructure, such as core banking systems, accounting software, and other data sources.
• Advanced Analytics and AI: With built-in AI capabilities through Salesforce Einstein, banks can leverage predictive analytics and machine learning for better customer insights, personalized recommendations, and efficient decision-making.
• Regulatory Compliance: FSC includes critical features to help banks manage compliance with various financial regulations. This is crucial in an industry where compliance is a major operational aspect.
• Continuous Innovation: Salesforce is continually updating and improving its platform, ensuring that banks have access to the latest technological advancements and features.

Why you should consider optimizing your Salesforce FSC platform

The five megatrends identified by The Financial Brand indicate that customers want to be met at their transaction point of choice and they want highly personalized services that appear at the right moments. This means that traditional siloed business models must evolve into overarching, connected platforms. These platforms use data collected from user interactions - captured via a CRM and a banking core - to improve services and create personalized experiences.

Salesforce’s Financial Services Cloud is now entering its ninth year serving financial institutions. For organizations who have adopted and used it heavily, nine years' worth of best practices, data entry, customizations, and platform growth can have significant impacts on the performance of your org. Whether you’re using Salesforce core technology like Sales and Service Cloud, or FSC, platform optimization and adoption planning should be on your 2024 roadmap. Why?

• Enhanced Efficiency: An optimized system reduces manual tasks, streamlines processes, and saves time, leading to increased productivity.
• Better ROI: Maximizing the capabilities of FSC ensures a better return on investment by fully utilizing the platform's features for business benefit.
• Improved User Adoption: A system that aligns well with user needs and business processes is more likely to be embraced by the workforce.
• Competitive Advantage: A well-optimized CRM system can provide valuable insights, better customer engagement, and faster response times, giving the organization a competitive edge.

Zennify's guide to starting your Salesforce FSC optimization journey

Zennify is working with an increasing number of financial institutions in banking, wealth management, insurance, and more, who need support with optimizing their use of FSC to drive greater usage, adoption, and return on investment. To help deliver these services more effectively (and faster), we’ve developed a structured approach to optimization engagements.

1. Understand Business Requirements: The first step is to thoroughly understand the organization's unique business requirements, challenges, and goals. This includes understanding the specific needs of different departments like sales, customer service, compliance, etc.
2. Conduct a Gap Analysis and Provide Recommendations: Evaluate the current state of the FSC instance and identify gaps or areas with key stakeholders where it is not fully meeting business needs. This involves assessing how well current features are utilized and identifying any processes that are not adequately supported. Zennify will offer perspective on what we’re seeing in the marketplace.
3. Customization and Configuration: Based on the gap analysis, customize and configure FSC to better align with the organization’s specific processes. This can include customizing data models, workflows, dashboards, reports, and user interfaces.
4. Integrate with Other Systems and Banking Cores: Integrate FSC with other essential systems like banking cores, marketing automation tools, and other data sources to ensure seamless data flow and avoid information silos.
5. User Training and Adoption: Proper training and support are crucial for ensuring that users are comfortable and efficient. This can significantly impact the overall effectiveness of the CRM system.
6. Regular Review and Updates: Continuously monitor and review the system’s performance, gather feedback from users, and make necessary adjustments. Keeping up with Salesforce updates and new features is also important.
7. Data Quality Management: Regularly check and maintain the data quality within the system. High-quality, accurate data is essential for effective decision-making and customer relationship management.

When considering a partner to work with, we recommend assessing the partner on these aspects: 

• Look for Industry-Specific Expertise and Experience: A solution is only as good as the context it’s implemented within. A partner with specialized financial services knowledge and experience can ensure that your Salesforce FSC platform is set up and customized effectively to your business objectives and works well with your existing banking core.
• Best Practices: They can guide on best practices and industry standards, helping to avoid common pitfalls and ensuring a more successful implementation.
• Custom Development: If needed, they can develop custom features or integrations that are not available out-of-the-box in FSC.
• Training and Support: They provide training and support to ensure smooth adoption and ongoing efficiency of the system.
• Strategic Planning: Partners can assist in strategic planning for CRM initiatives, ensuring that the Salesforce implementation aligns with the organization’s long-term goals.

How Zennify approaches optimization engagements

Zennify excels in four broad categories of optimization engagements: