Learn About Common Scenarios for Using Trailhead

Learning Objectives

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

Describe training strategies for driving Salesforce adoption.
Identify techniques for using Trailhead to build a culture of learning.

Introduction

Companies that make Trailhead a big part of their digital transformation reap big rewards. They blaze trails to deliver seamless, connected digital experiences from anywhere. Companies use Trailhead to fill the skills gap and build a successful digital organization. They grow and transform. Let’s consider the following scenarios, each highlighting specific advantages of making Trailhead fundamental to a company’s transformation.

Grow Employees’ Skills and Retain Talent

As your employees are challenged to keep pace in this digital world, an investment in them, is an investment in your company. The more your employees learn, the more they want to do (and can do). Your analytics team is overwhelmed with requests for custom reports. You review the report requests and recognize that the kind of information users seek could just as well be provided by dashboards. You require that employees complete a reports and dashboards badge on Trailhead before submitting a request for a custom report. The analytics team receives fewer custom report requests. Users become self-sufficient, and learn to do things they never imagined they could do by themselves.

Trailhead not only helped free up the bandwidth of your analytics team, it has empowered your users to learn a new skill. Processes have become more efficient and users see the value of learning. Don’t forget, companies that invest in learning are more likely to keep their employees. Opportunities to learn = retained employees.

Drive Salesforce Adoption and Increase Productivity

Or suppose your company faces a challenge that’s familiar to all businesses entering the Salesforce ecosystem: driving adoption after implementation. You’re implementing Experience Cloud and Sales Cloud at the same time, affecting thousands of employees. You know you’re going to need some Trailhead champions and a solid game plan.

You start by working with Trailhead Enablement Services to create a change management game plan and learning program. You create a custom workshop to enable the people who lead the initiative for your company’s specific goals. With a solid core of Trailblazers enabled and inspired to share their experience, you set out to enable the rest of your employees.

You gather stakeholders from all departments and develop a customized learning plan for each team. You create team-specific trailmixes that deliver the right badges to the right individuals. Then you track their progress with Trail Tracker. To ensure that newly formed expertise is shared, you analyze Trail Tracker data to see who is earning extra badges, and you connect those people to other teams who need their skills.

Your Trailblazers love how Trailhead is tailored for them. They love that their learning is hands-on and delivered in digestible portions. They see how the power of Salesforce makes their jobs and their lives easier. With the addition of some friendly competition, and incentives for moving up Trailhead Ranks, Trailhead becomes a bridge to adopting Salesforce.

Enable Sales and Service Teams Within Salesforce

Or maybe the time has come for your company to simplify its technology ecosystem by eliminating legacy systems. You decide to begin using Salesforce for your sales and service teams. Very few of these employees have Salesforce expertise, so enablement is a real challenge.

You begin to explore Trailhead and identify appropriate curated trails for various teams. However, your company also has some very specific HR training you’d like delivered along with the Trailhead content you’ve identified. You implement myTrailhead to meet this need. Your company now has a one-stop shop for all of their training needs.

You not only use myTrailhead to skill up the current sales and services teams, but also the onboarding process for all new hires, regardless of the background or role. You encourage personal growth. You assign learning modules not just for Salesforce skills, but for business and soft skills, such as public speaking. You recommend helpful Trailhead Live sessions (more on this later).

You’re now able to quickly deliver custom learning to help your sales and service teams evolve, grow, and thrive. Your company is a model for using myTrailhead to foster a culture of learning.

Develop a Digital Strategy and Expertise

As your retail business adapts to go digital fast, your company wants to meet customers where they are. You use the Customer 360 Guide for Retail to gain a better understanding of how to meet the needs of your customers in a digital world. Through your research and analysis of the guide’s best practices and success stories, your company decides they need Salesforce Service Cloud to engage with customers across all digital touch points.

Image of Customer 360 Guide for Retail path to success.

Your company follows the guide’s path to success for implementing Service Cloud. Goals are created and met. Employees become experts. Solutions are delivered. Your company meets customers where they are with great success, all thanks to the free guidance found in the Customer 360 Guide for Retail.

Build Expertise Across Your Organization with Instructor-Led Learning

Or, your company has decided to pursue a more personalized experience for its customers. Through extensive research, you’ve found that Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement will best meet this need. However, you quickly realize that success hinges on user proficiency and understanding of Marketing Cloud Engagement, and you need a plan to help your users learn.

Trailhead Academy to the rescue. There so happen to be several Trailhead Academy courses led by Salesforce experts that specifically address Marketing Cloud Engagement. You sign up your marketing team leads for this course. These employees return knowledgeable and excited. Marketing Cloud Engagement is implemented and your company is able to deliver relevant, personalized journeys across multiple channels and devices—enabling your marketing team to deliver the right message at the right time throughout all phases of the customer relationship. Your employees stay up to date with features and enhancements by earning Marketing Cloud Engagement Trailhead badges.

These scenarios imply employee engagement. However, that can not always be assumed. Getting employees engaged in learning is extremely important in creating a culture of learning. In the next unit, discover some proven strategies that drive employee engagement and success with Trailhead.