5 Reasons Why You Should Be Using Salesforce Chatter

We’re big users of Salesforce Chatter and now we take it for granted as a way of working. But a customer asked me this week, “Why should I use Chatter? What are the benefits?”

I gave him 5 reasons to use Salesforce Chatter. Here they are.

1. Chatter is a far more collaborative way of working

Like many organisations, if someone in The Gary Smith Partnership was trying to solve a problem or get feedback on a presentation they’d send out a global email. Some people replied to everyone, some just to the sender. Either way the email thread quickly became jumbled.

Now we use Chatter. The problem solving process becomes a conversation rather than a series of disjointed emails. People interact and spark new ideas. There’s no ambiguity over which is the current version of the document. Other employees can be brought into the conversation using the @ symbol.

The whole process is a smarter way of working.

2. Chatter will give you input from expected quarters

A prospect I was working with recently asked me how they could support a fairly complex requirement using Salesforce.com. I wasn’t sure of the right technical solution so I asked my colleagues for help.

Previously I’d have sent an email to the top 3 or 4 most technical people in the team. But this time I posted it on Chatter. And yes, the experienced guys all replied. But one of our graduate trainees also chipped in with some ideas. It wasn’t the final solution but her contribution then sparked some further Chatter discussion. Between us we came up with the answer.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen a significant contribution on Chatter that simply wouldn’t have happened in the old way of working.

3. You’ll find out things on Chatter you wouldn’t otherwise have known

At GSP we use Chatter to keep each other updated on customers we’re visiting, prospects we’re talking to and projects we’re working on.

I was on a train recently and posted on Chatter to say I was on route to visit a particular prospect. It turns out that one of our team used to work for their biggest competitor. He saw my post and immediately gave me industry insight that I simply didn’t have. And which I wouldn’t have received if I hadn’t made that Chatter post. We got the deal.

Other times I’ve found out about configuration tips and tricks I didn’t know about, opportunities I wasn’t aware of and ideas that wouldn’t otherwise have surfaced.

4. It’s a great way to keep up to date on deals and projects

We make good use of Salesforce.com reports and dashboards to track projects and deals we’re working on. But I also want the important insights and updates to be pushed to me, in real tie. That’s exactly what Chatter does for me.

I use Chatter to follow all projects. If a key field such as the RAG status is changed I get an immediate, automated Chatter post to tell me. It means I save a huge amount of time asking about the status of things. Which also means I don’t go around constantly interrupting other people!

5. And you’ll get a lot less email!

Who doesn’t want less email? I’m not someone that’s ever counted the number of emails I get per day – or how few I receive now. But one thing’s for sure, there’s a lot less internal emails flying around now! The dialogue and communication hasn’t reduced, it’s not being handled a let more effectively on Chatter.

And because Chatter posts are typed into a box rather than an email they tend to be shorter and more to the point. And that’s definitely a more productive way of working!

What to do next

If this blog post was useful you might also want to read:

• 10 tips for successful Chatter roll out
• 3 myths people believe for not using Chatter