CRM Optimization for Consulting Firm

A mid-sized consulting firm was struggling with poor CRM adoption, unreliable reporting, and fragmented client data. They had used Salesforce for years but without structured admin oversight, leading to operational inefficiencies. The firm had grown rapidly and their CRM configuration hadn’t kept pace, resulting in user frustration and workarounds that threatened data integrity.

Duplicate contacts, inconsistent deal stages, and unclear permission roles had eroded user confidence. Teams had built manual workarounds outside Salesforce, and leadership lacked visibility into sales activity. Reports were being built manually in Excel, and different departments were working off completely different pipelines and field definitions.

During the initial assessment, my priority was to understand the firm's sales processes, user roles, and reporting needs. I conducted a CRM audit to evaluate record quality, workflow dependencies, and historical inconsistencies. After interviewing key department stakeholders, I outlined a three-phase cleanup and optimization roadmap.

Data Cleansing & Deduplication: I used Salesforce Duplicate Management and tools like Insycle and Dedupely to remove redundant records. We established matching rules to prevent future duplicates and implemented required field enforcement. To streamline data entry and reduce user error, we also consolidated multiple open-text fields into dropdowns and checkboxes wherever possible, based on predefined business values and user input patterns.

Permission & Role Strategy: I designed a permission structure using a combination of permission sets, user profiles, and roles based on business units and hierarchy. Custom profiles and page layouts were created to streamline the user experience and reduce noise.

Sales Process Optimization: I rebuilt opportunity stages, added validation rules, and set up automated field updates based on sales rep inputs. SLA reminders and pipeline velocity indicators were added to drive accountability.

Report & Dashboard Configuration: I created department-specific dashboards with dynamic filters, pipeline snapshots, and team performance KPIs, replacing manual spreadsheets.

CRM adoption increased by over 60%. Managers now had accurate dashboards, sales teams relied on system-driven task flows, and reporting aligned with real-time activity across the pipeline.