Email syncing has been called the #1 pain point for Salesforce users. The lack of a simple and effective email integration tool undermines Salesforce adoption and usage. Users and managers get frustrated because emails are not logged into Salesforce records so it is difficult to figure what is going on with a Lead, Contact, Account or Opportunity in the Sales Cloud. The lack of a good email integration tool makes Salesforce less productive and decreases usage.
The simplest technical approach to email integration is email address matching. The tool matches the email addresses in an email with the email addresses in Salesforce records. Email addresses are unique markers or tags of ‘identity’ so email address matching works well.
Salesforce offers a tool called Salesforce for Outlook. This tool is a sidebar in Outlook on Windows (Note: it doesn’t work with Mac or other email systems). In the sidebar, records in Salesforce are shown that contain email addresses that match to the email addresses in the email. The user then clicks ADD TO SALESFORCE to log the email into Salesforce. On the surface, simple and easy.
The problem with this tool is that it is manual. The user has to click a button each time he or she wants to log an email into Salesforce. Unfortunately, users are human and they forget to or are too lazy to click the ADD button. From User surveys, it is clear that over time users tend to stop using the tool because it does not result in an immediate reward that would reinforce the behavior. This causes the email record in Salesforce to get thinner and thinner until it is not an accurate account of customer interaction.
A frequent comment on Salesforce for Outlook (and the major third-party manual tools like Cirrus Insight for Gmail and Linkpoint360 for Outlook) is that it is hard to get sales reps to use it (them) and, if they do, its (their) usage declines to near zero after a few months.
The solution to email integration for Salesforce is to automate email address matching. This simple and effective idea remedies the drawbacks of the manual approach. Users do not have to do anything, except setup up the app, and then all emails are automatically logged into Salesforce. Automatic email syncing apps create more timely information. Since the system is always on, working in the background in the cloud, the email information in Salesforce is up-to-date. With the passage of time, the email record in Salesforce increases in value because it contains the most accurate record of customer correspondence. Users begin to trust the information in Salesforce because it is easy to find and 100% complete. No more wasting time asking colleagues ‘want was said’ to a client and ‘when’. Since most Salesforce records are shared, the email information serves as collective memory of the sales team. Salesforce adopt and usage increases because Salesforce is the “go to” solution with the best information.
The leading automated email address matching app on the AppExchange is Match My Email. It costs $17.95 per user month. Considering the app saves the average user 3 hours of time per month and creates ‘perfect’ email information in Salesforce that is a bargain.
