Salesforce is the top CRM for financial institutions. Its real strength shows when it is more than just a tool and becomes a strategic partner. This change can transform how your organization operates and connects with customers.
As a safeguard for productivity and efficiency, many financial companies, for example, still wonder how to boost Salesforce optimization, truly leveraging it in their day-to-day operations.
This leads us to ask you: Are you sure you are really taking advantage of every functionality that your CRM offers?
Some figures and concepts around the use of a CRM
At first glance, the investment numbers in CRM are compelling. In the United States, the finance and insurance sector spends more than $18 billion on software solutions. This information is sourced from the Statista website.
Other analyses indicate that, globally, the CRM market for banking reached USD$ 15.4 billion in 2024 and project that the figure will grow exponentially by the end of 2025.
However, although this overview details that sector leaders understand the need for this tool, the problem does not seem to be one of budget or intention, but of usability.
The ABA Banking Journal, from an Informa Financial Intelligence survey, found an interesting fact. Even though CRM is the most used marketing tool by banks at 48%, over half of the banks surveyed still do not use it. Only 8.6% of banks with a CRM thought that many people knew how to use it in the organization. This is an important point.
So, what are the best practices for using a CRM and achieving success in Salesforce?
Knowledge, integration, quality, management, and moderation. Five key pillars that summarize the best practices for leveraging Salesforce. At Pragma, we share the best strategies and rules. This helps Salesforce in your financial institution shine. It will improve your relationships and conversations with customers.
- Truly understand the advantages and power of the tool: Your teams must understand what the tool is for and how to use its applications correctly. This avoids bad practices and data disorganization, laying the groundwork for strategic use.
- Make sure it is a complement within your business ecosystem: CRM should not operate in isolation. It must be complemented by other tools in the company's ecosystem, such as Data Cloud, to enrich customer data and obtain a 360-degree view.
- Ensure quality data: Information is the most valuable asset. It is necessary to define clear rules for data storage, avoid duplication, and ensure standardization. Only high-quality data allows for taking full advantage of information for decision-making.
- Manage and enhance change: Implementing Salesforce requires a well-executed change management process with the people who will be using the tool. If teams don't understand how CRM streamlines their manual tasks and transforms their day-to-day lives, they won't adopt it correctly.
- Avoid hyper-personalizing: Although customization is tempting, it is not recommended to over-customize a tool that already offers pre-configured functionality. It is simpler to adjust company processes to match standard Salesforce features. It is harder to make the tool replicate old processes. Standard implementations facilitate evolution and scalability, while customized implementations are more costly and complex to maintain.
AI with Salesforce: How to apply it and be the best at user experience?
Salesforce AI is what positions a financial institution at the forefront. If best practices and automation are the drivers, AI is the intelligent navigation system redefining the future of banking.
Salesforce's AI in the Einstein 1 platform is great for customer management. It is the best choice for financial institutions that want to lead. It's no longer just about streamlining processes, but anticipating, predicting, and personalizing at an unprecedented scale.
Salesforce AI transforms massive data, often consolidated through Data Cloud, into actionable intelligence. This frees people from repetitive tasks and complex analysis. It lets them focus on what machines cannot do: building strong relationships and trust with customers.
In the financial sector, the application of Salesforce AI translates into concrete competitive advantages:
- Proactive hyper-personalization: AI analyzes a customer's behavior and transactional data to anticipate their needs. Instead of simply offering consumer credit, it can predict the ideal time to propose a mortgage, mutual fund, or insurance based on life events detected in the data.
- Intelligent Risk Assessment: Einstein's AI models can analyze thousands of variables in real time to assess an applicant's credit risk faster and more accurately, reducing default rates and expediting approvals.
- Optimizing Banker Productivity: With generative AI tools, bankers and advisors can automatically summarize and analyze the data to improve the banker's productivity.
It’s time to transform your customer relationships. Give the first step today.
Let’s start now with Pragma!
