What makes a Salesforce Partner, Platinum?

If you’re looking for how to become a Platinum Salesforce partner this is not the right place, please click here. For those interested in what differentiates a Platinum Partner from “the rest”, please read on…

If you’re reading this, your company has likely experienced much growth with many new staff recruited in the process. You’re probably looking to upgrade your old CRM system (Customer Relationship Management System) and are now considering Salesforce - the most popular, and powerful, CRM system on the market today.

Salesforce allows you to not only manage, but improve, the relationships you have with your customers and prospective customers from a platform that unifies everything into one. They’re a cloud-based system, allowing you to simply log in wherever you are and start connecting to your customers in a way you potentially couldn’t before.

When implementing your new Salesforce CRM system you’ll likely be wanting a consultancy to make the process as smooth as possible. Certified Salesforce Partners are listed under different statuses: Registered, Silver, Gold and Platinum. It may seem a little daunting when it comes to choosing the best Salesforce Partner for you and your needs, but it certainly doesn’t need to be a scary process. We’re going to talk about the benefits of hiring a Platinum Certified Salesforce Partner: covering what makes a partner Platinum and the benefits of going Platinum for your business.

What makes a Salesforce Partner Platinum?

You’re likely wondering at this point: what even allows a Salesforce partner to be certified as Platinum? A number of factors are taken into account and this section will hopefully answer your question.

1. Certifications

To make the grade as a Platinum Salesforce Partner, it’s important that the partner has the expertise and certifications to do the job to the highest possible standard. The number of certifications held by the employees of a partner will be considered when Salesforce is deciding if they should be certified as platinum. A wide and varied base of certifications shows that the partner is in a better place to serve their clients - and 4C has over 700 Salesforce certifications and over 180 certified consultants across our group. We have specialised skills in Salesforce CPQ (Quote-to-Cash), Marketing Cloud, the core Salesforce Clouds (Sales, Service, Pardot and Community).

2. Sales

The basic premise of this category is that the more sales a partner has, the more successful and experienced they are. The number of sales a partner has made and the growth they demonstrate makes up 45% of the decision into whether they become certified platinum or not. Salesforce recognise those who have either worked on a wide variety of accounts and therefore understand how to best implement the software, or partners who have chosen to specialise such as only working with non-profit clients. With over 1500 Salesforce projects delivered, you can be more than confident that 4C has the experience and knowledge necessary to make the implementation of your new CRM system a true success for you and your business.

3. CSAT

This is the customer satisfaction score that a partner has, and this is determined independently by Salesforce. The partner team at Salesforce establishes the customer satisfaction score of a partner by surveying past and current clients, allowing them to determine who is providing the best levels of customer service and thus going into their decisions on who can be classified as Platinum Partners and who falls into the silver and gold categories. 4C has a CSAT score of 9.60 - demonstrating that we can provide you with a high quality service that can be tailored to meet your needs.

4. Customer Success Stories

These are examples that can be given by partners as to the success of their clients and are perhaps the most revealing factor when it comes to deciding who is the best Salesforce partner for your business. After all if a partner has few stories of actual customer success following their consultancy, it’s difficult to see how they’d be of huge benefit to your business. 4C has over 42 customer success stories, the highest number in the entire Salesforce eco system.

How Do I Decide Which Partner To Pick?

This is a great question and is one you’re probably thinking about now. The best partner to pick is one that has a high CSAT score, with many customer success stories and plenty of certified consultants that cover a wide base of knowledge. When implementing your Salesforce org you’re looking to find the best of the best when it comes to hiring a consultant to assist you in implementing your Salesforce org. As the name suggests, platinum is the highest ranked partner you can get.

When you’re hiring a Salesforce Partner to implement what will become a core system in your business, you don’t just want to trust anyone to do that and that’s why Salesforce have developed their certification system - to allow you to see who’s doing the best work and who may be the best choice for your business.

4C has had in excess of 10 years experience in providing partner support for Salesforce and we have delivered over 1500 Salesforce projects. We are a Salesforce Platinum Partner in all of our key regions and we are ready and waiting to help you with your Salesforce implementation.

Head on over to our Salesforce Services page to see more about how 4C can assist your business as a Salesforce Platinum Partner and to get in touch with us. We’re more than happy to speak with you and advise you on all the ways in which we can best help you to make your Salesforce implementation a success.