Salesforce Maturity Model

As organizations enter a new year, it’s a natural moment to pause, reflect, and take a fresh look at the tools that support daily work - including Salesforce. As organizations grow and evolve, their Salesforce environments often mature at very different speeds across people, process, and technology. To help our clients understand their current Salesforce maturity and identify opportunities for improvement, we developed a model that examines the interwoven elements of an organization’s Salesforce ecosystem. Many opportunities surface when teams step back and assess how well their environment supports users, data, and decision-making today. The sections below unpack the elements of our Salesforce Maturity Model and outline key questions to help uncover high-impact opportunities hiding in plain sight.

User Experience

User adoption at Salesforce organizations can be a critical challenge, one of the most common issues we see is when organizations neglect to consider the user experience when completing an implementation or during the ongoing maintenance of an established environment.

Many Salesforce environments technically “work,” but create unnecessary friction for end users. Small adjustments can dramatically improve how users feel about the platform and how effectively they use it.

Ask yourself:

• Do page layouts reflect how users actually work, or how the system was originally designed?

• Where are users clicking more than they should to complete common tasks?

• Are there repetitive, manual actions that could be automated(such as record naming conventions or default field values)?

• Do users have easy access to the list views and reports they need to manage their day-to-day work?

• If you watched a user complete a core process, where would they get frustrated?

These questions often surface quick layout changes, automation opportunities, or reporting enhancements that immediately improve efficiency and sentiment.

Data Quality

As organizations look to harness their data to improve decision-making and empower automation, it is essential to ensure the completeness and accuracy of the underlying datasets.

There are many ways to help resolve and prevent data quality issues within your Salesforce environment. Implementing system controls like required fields and defined field types are a great first step. Monitoring of data quality issues helps organizations take a proactive approach and often looks like data quality reports or dashboards. Reporting helps identify where there are gaps or inaccuracies in your dataset and helps enforce accountability.

Quick wins often come from tightening controls and increasing visibility.

Consider asking:

• Are there key fields that users frequently leave blank or fill in inconsistently?

• Do field types and validation rules reinforce accurate data entry?

• Can we clearly see where data gaps or inaccuracies exist today?

• Do reports or dashboards exist that highlight data quality issues and ownership?

• Are users accountable for the quality of the data they create and maintain?

Introducing required fields, basic validation, or data quality reporting can quickly increase trust in Salesforce outputs without significant development effort.

Strategy & Governance

A successful Salesforce deployment requires setting clear expectations with users and a thoughtful approach to any custom development. Especially for organizations with a diverse set of use cases, governance of the platform is important to ensure development aligns with organization-wide goals and meets the needs of end users. As organizations expand their use of the platform, defining a strategy for ongoing change management and identifying a group of users responsible for governance helps mitigate the risk of technical debt.

Many Salesforce challenges stem from unclear direction rather than from technology. Even lightweight governance improvements can reduce rework and technical debt.

Ask questions like:

• Is there a shared understanding of what Salesforce is (and is not) meant to support?

• How are decisions made about new fields, objects, or automation?

• Are we solving isolated requests, or aligning enhancements to broader business goals?

• Do we have a defined group responsible for prioritizing and approving changes?

  
  

Support Model & Organizational Capabilities

The appropriate support model for any given organization depends on a range of factors including organization size, complexity of use cases, existing customization, and budget.

For small organizations, often we see “Accidental Admins” which are end users who become highly proficient in the management of Salesforce and take an interest in diving deeper into its capabilities.

For larger organizations we see either third-party support or a Certified Admin (or team) on staff to maintain and develop the environment.

Ask yourself:

• Who is responsible for maintaining and improving Salesforce today?

• Does this support model still match the size, complexity, and usage of the platform?

• Are “accidental admins” carrying responsibilities beyond their role or capacity?

• Is there a clear escalation path when issues or enhancement requests arise?

• Do support resources work in partnership with business users and governance structures?

The organization’s Salesforce support model should be evaluated periodically to make sure it aligns with the current and anticipated needs. Regardless of what model is the right fit, any support should be complemented by an org-wide governance structure and strategy defined by the business users of the platform.

User Attitudes & Adoption

When users have a bad experience with Salesforce, this often leads to low adoption and a negative sentiment that spreads throughout the organization. This may cause organizations to walk away from the platform even after investing in its implementation or extensive development. By monitoring user attitudes, the organization can ensure that end users feel comfortable with this highly powerful platform and that it is seen as a partner in their processes vs. something they have to work around.

Even a well-built Salesforce environment will fail if users don’t trust or embrace it. User sentiment is often an early indicator of deeper issues - and a powerful area for quick wins.

Ask questions like:

• Do users view Salesforce as a helpful tool or an obstacle?

• Where do users bypass Salesforce or maintain shadow systems?

• Have users received role-appropriate training?

• Do users feel their feedback is heard and acted upon?

• Are change management and communication part of ongoing enhancements?

Simple actions like targeted training, feedback sessions, or addressing visible pain points can quickly shift perceptions and rebuild confidence in the platform.

As your organization looks to assess what’s next and what’s missing within your Salesforce environment, ATX can assist with our Salesforce Assessment process. We have helped many organizations identify practical quick wins, long-term advancement initiatives, and strategies to simplify over-engineered environments. Reach out to Abby or Paige to learn more about how ATX can help!

Authors: Paige Stolen, Abby Morrow