Learn the Benefits of Integrating Salesforce with Microsoft Outlook

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Summarize how your reps rely on Microsoft® Outlook® and Salesforce to work their prospects and deals.
Recognize the redundancy your reps experience entering sales data in two applications.
Describe how integrating Salesforce and Outlook helps your reps become more productive.

Increase Your Sales Reps’ Productivity

Your sales reps use Outlook. And they use Salesforce. Isn't it time your reps use Outlook and Salesforce together? According to McKinsey & Company, sales reps spend up to 28% of their day in email and calendars. That’s the case with sales reps Erin Donaghue and Lance Park, who work at an emerging solar company, Ursa Major Solar. It’s important for them to bring Salesforce data to the place where they spend so much of their time.

When you integrate Outlook and Salesforce, you help your reps spend less time entering data and switching between the two applications. You also help sales teams track important email conversations relevant to Salesforce records. These perks help your reps:

Eliminate the time they spend on redundant data entry into two applications.
Access important Outlook email messages and relevant Salesforce records in one place, making it easier to craft targeted, meaningful email communications to prospects and customers.
Focus more on what matters most: their sales!

Erin and Lance use both Outlook and Salesforce. Let’s review how they use the two applications.

Why Sales Reps Use Outlook

Your sales reps already spend time in Outlook. Here’s what they do with it.

The Thing Reps Do	Why?
Send email messages	Email is an easy and effective way to engage with prospects and get relationships going.
Maintain contacts	The contacts in Outlook serve as your reps’ virtual Rolodex card file.
Schedule meetings and appointments	Your reps rely heavily on their calendars for planning their days and scheduling important events.

Why Reps Use Salesforce

Ursa Major purchased Salesforce because it’s a powerful sales tool. Kudos to them! Their reps use Salesforce to track information about their prospects and deals. But let’s take a closer look at what sales teams use Salesforce for.

The Thing Reps Do	Why?
Maintain leads and contacts	Your reps relate leads and contacts to other important Salesforce records, such as accounts and opportunities.
Schedule meetings and appointments	Sales reps and their managers rely on the Salesforce calendar to get sales-related meetings and appointments on the books. Your reps also relate these events to other important Salesforce records.
Track deals in the pipeline	Sales folks track their deals using Salesforce opportunities, which your sales teams relate to (you guessed it) other important Salesforce records.
Learn about outstanding cases	Not everything in sales goes smoothly. Your reps benefit from knowing of issues that their customers log with your company. Knowing about issues is especially important before your reps try selling whatever it is that your reps sell!

Why Redundancy Is a Problem

Why is knowing about redundancy important? Because your sales reps do some of the same things in Outlook as they do in Salesforce. Our Ursa Major sales reps Erin and Lance often use both applications to track contacts, schedule meetings and appointments, and track tasks.

Redundancy between Outlook and Salesforce Venn diagram

Let’s look at some ways that this duplication of work causes problems for you and your sales reps.

Time lost during context switching and maintaining data in two places. The context switching alone pulls your reps out of their selling mode and puts them into a tools management mode.
Greater chances for data entry errors. When your reps enter data in both Outlook and Salesforce, the possibility of getting something wrong increases. We can see that when Erin enters a contact in Outlook and then again in Salesforce, she inadvertently introduces an error. Not good.

Mistakes, such as Erin’s data entry errors, compromise data quality, and even your company’s reputation. What’s most important here is that Erin’s sales efforts don’t have to compete with keeping her sales data current between Outlook and Salesforce.

How Integrating with Outlook Helps Your Sales Reps

With the Outlook integration, reps can do more from Outlook. Plus, when you add Einstein Activity Capture, reps avoid busy work and stay focused on selling. Here’s a quick glimpse of what you can deliver to your sales reps.

Outlook Integration Feature

Why It’s Helpful

See and relate relevant Salesforce content in Outlook

From Outlook email, your reps get context into what’s happening with the people they sell to. And most important:

Reps add email that’s relevant to the sales cycle, so that colleagues in Salesforce know what’s going on.
You help boost Salesforce adoption among your sales team.

Access Salesforce features in Outlook

There’s no need to leave Outlook when your reps:

Create Salesforce records, such as leads, opportunities, accounts, contacts, and even records based on custom objects.
Relate email messages and nonrecurring calendar events to multiple Salesforce contacts and to any other Salesforce record that accepts tasks or email messages.
Search for Salesforce records, including those records based on custom objects.

Einstein Activity Capture Feature	Why It’s Helpful
Sync contacts and events	Sales reps have access to up-to-date contact and scheduling data where they need it most. And with data entry reduced, so are data entry errors. You can also sync all events in a series.
See emails and events on related Salesforce records	When reps send and receive emails, Einstein Activity Capture automatically adds them to the activity timeline of related account, contact, contract, lead, opportunity, and quote records. Sharing settings let you decide who else can view the related emails and events, so that teams work together better.
Get critical sales context alongside relevant emails	Einstein Email Insights give reps intelligent data that helps them send the right response at the right time. For example, reps see when an email from a customer mentions a competitor. The rep can then follow up immediately with the customer.

These features offer some serious productivity boosts to your sales teams. In the next unit, we tell you more about the ways the Integration with Outlook helps sales teams free up administrative time. That way, your sales team can focus on increasing their sales. When sales are good at your company, you all benefit, right?

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