Your April 2022 AppExchange Monthly Briefing

This month we took a closer look how AppExchange apps with GeoData can affect your selling potential, got the inside scoop on an employee’s massive plushie collection, and saw how working with diverse-owned partners can streamline processes and improve customer experiences.

There’s More to Speed to Lead Than Speed
Customer buying journeys are now decidedly digital-first. During the pandemic, studies showed that the majority of B2B buyers are deep into the consideration phase of their buying journeys before they reach out to interact with a sales representative. When potential customers finally decide to engage, time is of the essence. Speed is important; critically so. But, speed to lead is not just about speed. To win the deal, speed to lead needs to be complemented with both the right rep and the right message.
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Salesforce Labs Monthly Rewind: New Solutions You Need to Know About
Free. Employee-built. Open-source. These are a few words that come to mind when I think of Salesforce Labs. Since 2006, the program has helped countless Salesforce employees with a great idea to bring their creations to AppExchange. With so many ideas being added to the world’s #1 enterprise marketplace, it can be easy to get lost in the excitement. Luckily, we’ve explored all of AppExchange and compiled the newest solutions from Salesforce Labs that you need to know about. 
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ZINKT: Applause Customer Spotlight
When Applause needed to update their internal sales processes, they knew they’d find the solutions they needed to make their business more efficient on AppExchange. After installing the ZINKT app, they were able to wave goodbye to manual incentive calculation and now have 100% visibility into the sales department’s compensation. Don’t you just love feeling more rewarded in the office?
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One Epic Salesforce Plushie Collection: Here’s The Inside Story
As Director of Portfolio Services Leaders at Salesforce.org, Carla Silvado leads a team of solution consultants that support nonprofit, higher education, and public sector customers. She also owns 37 Salesforce plushies ranging from Rainbow Astro to Ruth the Architect. Here’s how she compiled her incredible plushie collection. 
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How Capital One Worked With Diverse-Owned AppExchange Partners to Drive Efficiency and Enable Their Teams
In addition to providing top-notch customer service, Capital One deeply values diversity, inclusion, and belonging, both in the workplace and the world. To streamline their operations and eliminate manual processes, Capital One engaged two diverse-owned Salesforce AppExchange suppliers to partner on two priority projects — woman-owned partner, West Coast Consulting, and AAPI-owned app, Groove. With these two diverse-owned partners, Capital One has not only streamlined its processes, they’ve also improved customer and associate experiences.
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CloudTalk: Valutico Customer Spotlight
When Valutico needed to update their call center and data entry processes, they knew they’d find the solutions they needed to make their business more efficient and on AppExchange. After installing the CloudTalk app, they were able to automate their outbound calls and increase the time sales teams spend on the phone selling. And who doesn’t love increasing the bottom line?
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How One AppExchange Partner’s Diverse-Owned Business is a Continuation of His Family’s Immigrant Story
When Austin Wang, co-founder and CTO of AppExchange partner Groove, speaks of his Taiwanese parents, he often discusses their perseverance after immigrating to the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. Wang said watching his parents rigorously provide for their family taught him the lifelong lesson of the necessity of hard work. It was his parents’ everlasting lessons of good work ethic, combined with his observant and diligent personality, that pushed him to co-found Groove in 2014.
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If Data Hygiene is Affecting the Bottom Line, Start Investing in Your CRM
The CRM is at the heart of most revenue organizations today. It’s probably one of the first serious tech investments a business makes, because of the direct impact it has on sales productivity and revenue generation capacity of these businesses. But much can be said about the importance of data hygiene and accuracy which is the oxygen in the blood of that CRM heart. Naturally, most conversations around data hygiene have centered on data pertaining to contacts, and not so much about account data.
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Your Guide to Native Apps on AppExchange
If you are a member of the Salesforce ecosystem, chances are you’ve browsed AppExchange at least a few times. During your app searching adventure, you’ve probably come across this “Native” badge more times than you can count. But what exactly does this badge signify and should you be interested? Get the answers in this recent guide, which showcase our newest collection page on AppExchange, featuring some of our favorite Native Apps.
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How to Improve Call Center Quality Assurance
Your inbound call center activity is often the first and most frequent touchpoint between you and your customers and the speed and effectiveness of clearing calls with customer-friendly results transfer to the bottom line. It’s therefore imperative that these customer interactions be effective, efficient, and positive. Call centers succeed when they provide a satisfactory customer experience. For this to happen, improving your quality assurance is key. In this blog, we look at what call center quality assurance is, how it’s measured, and ways to make it better. 
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How to Successfully Manage Your Field-Based Team
Field sales and service is a unique type of business focused on meeting the needs of customers that would be impossible to achieve in a traditional office setting. Because of this, managing field-based teams and remote teams comes with a set of challenges that require innovative solutions and a specific approach to management. To help, we’ve gathered expert strategies that will assist you in managing a successful field-based team.
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How Location Can Affect Your Selling Potential
Even in a time when more than 25% of workers in the United States work remotely, location is still key. Selling is all about understanding your customer and their needs, and so much learning can come from knowing where a prospect is located or where your current clients reside. Let’s take a closer look at how location affects your sales team and how apps with GeoData on AppExchange can help.
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