We’ve had the privilege of working with some really pioneering Food Bank customers in our 7 year history. When we get the chance to partner early for implementing Salesforce, we can use all our experience to do it right. Sometimes, we come in after a Food Bank has already started their Salesforce journey. Here are the Top 3 Mistakes when Implementing a Food Bank CRM.
Forgetting your Why
Don’t make the mistake of deciding to transform because of exciting new technologies. Start with what you want to accomplish. You should be able to identify a clear goal, like moving a million more pounds of food next year, or doubling your incoming donations.
Once you’ve figured that out, keep those success metrics in mind to guide you through your implementation and to reflect on the investment after you go live.
Running before you can walk
Solid fundamentals make for scalable growth. Because Food Banks have so many moving parts, it’s easy to want to buy a solution that tries to be everything to everyone. This can sometimes be too much upheaval and introduces risk in deployment and in user adoption.
We recommend you begin with one or two business units and prove the value internally. With Salesforce you can always expand and add new functionality and users. Don’t stumble with the initial rollout.
Starting with bad data
A great opportunity to take a look at the data you’re sitting on and cleaning it up before we move it into the new system. That’s not just de-duplicating, it’s also doing a good long think about how much history you really need.
Quality inputs make for quality outputs. Make sure your fields and tables capture enough information to be useful, but not so much that users resent filling them out and take shortcuts, which undermines the quality of your data
If you find this interesting or want to learn more, please reach out to a consultant at Plative!
