Account
Overview
Accounts represent an individual or business with which a company has some form of relationship. Accounts can be customers, partners, suppliers, or any other type of business entity.
How Are Accounts Used?
Accounts are used to track and manage business relationships. They serve as the backbone for all types of relationships (customers, partners, vendors, etc) in a Salesforce instance. In the Salesforce data model they are central to both opportunity and relationship management.
From an opportunities perspective they allow sales teams to manage and track revenue. From a relationship perspective they allow the business to track and manage key communications and interactions.
What is the Benefit?
Accounts can be used to segment business and track campaign effectiveness. Using different types allows you to categorize and manage based on their role in your business. You can also create Hierarchies which generate Parent/Child Relationships. Using campaigns you can lean into analytics showing what marketing activities have the greatest impact for your customers.
From a service perspective, you can associate Cases and keep track of service issues, ensuring problems are resolved within SLA timelines. Additionally, there is a teams feature which allows you to define roles and responsibilities to split Account Management functions. You can also define Opportunity teams to split revenue calculations against won Opportunities.
Who is Impacted?
Sales Teams
Sales teams will utilize accounts to relate new and existing business to the correct customers. Utilizing feed tracking the teams can also relate emails, calls and meetings to customers as they occur or are planned for the future. Sales teams can also forecast revenue they own and see the pipeline by customer.
Sales Managers
Managers of sales teams forecast sales by team through grouping of Accounts they are responsible for. They can report on activities to ensure reps stay engaged and are actively managing books of business.
Developers/Admins
Developers and Admins together can work with Accounts to drive automation, increase efficiency of outreach and ensure customer retention stays high.