Like any complex digital transformation initiative, those associated with Salesforce implementation encompass many difficulties and hurdles. Maintaining data quality during migration, ensuring successful user adoption, and integrating Salesforce with other systems are some of the challenges commonly faced by companies. Solving them is critical to ensure the success of your Salesforce implementation initiative and increase the return on your technology investment.
In this article, Salesforce experts from Itransition, a company providing Salesforce services and solutions for 10+ years, highlight common challenges in implementing this powerful platform and offer helpful tips to overcome them.
Key Takeaways
- Salesforce implementation faces challenges like data quality during migration, user adoption, and system integration.
- Balancing default functionality with customizations is crucial, as excessive customizations can create technical debt and increase maintenance costs.
- To ensure high data quality, develop a phased migration plan, conduct test migrations, and validate data thoroughly post-migration.
- Integrating Salesforce with other systems can be complex; using API-led middleware and understanding Salesforce’s API limits can help.
- Engaging certified Salesforce implementation experts ensures that organizations address these challenges effectively and tailor their approach.
Table of contents
Balancing Default Functionality and Customizations
Many companies make at least moderate modifications to the out-of-the-box Salesforce functionality, UX, and UI to better align the platform with their existing business needs and established workflows. While some modifications can be done via the platform’s built-in configuration tools, implementing capabilities not supported out-of-the-box requires custom coding. Such code-based customizations enable teams to build entirely new objects, interfaces, and workflow rules, helping tailor the Salesforce platform to the company’s unique requirements and needs.
However, there are two sides to every coin. As each custom-made modification must be maintained, having too many of them can compromise overall Salesforce stability and maintainability, increase the total cost of ownership, and slow down future upgrades. Here’s how IBM’s experts describe this problem in their State of Salesforce 2024–2025 report: “When not implemented strategically, excessive customizations can create mountains of technical debt and/or high maintenance costs downstream. This leaves many Salesforce users caught in a tangled web of past customizations that limit the flexibility to innovate.”
Therefore, it is critical for companies to strike a balance between out-of-the-box functionalities and customizations, so that the latter do not become a burden. Although there is no one universal solution to this challenge, a company can take a set of measures to reduce the risk of Salesforce overcustomization:
- Use backlog prioritization techniques like MoSCoW or RICE to differentiate customizations that offer little business value relative to the effort required to build them, and consider discarding these non-essential customizations.
- Thoroughly document Salesforce customizations, whether planned or already implemented, to provide all team members with a clear record of customizations, aid them in understanding the solution’s architecture, and facilitate maintenance tasks.
- Establish a structured process for requesting and implementing changes to the solution to ensure that all future customizations are controlled.
Maintaining The High Quality of the Migrated Data
Salesforce implementation projects usually involve migrating customer data from legacy corporate systems to the new CRM solution and ensuring that only high-quality information enters the system is a challenging yet critical task. After all, using inaccurate or incomplete data can lead to misleading analytics insights and missed business opportunities, which can cause financial losses and compromise overall Salesforce implementation ROI. 37% of companies that participated in the State of CRM Data Management in 2025 survey stated they lose revenue as a direct result of poor data quality. To end up with high-quality data after the migration, consider following these recommendations:
- Develop a phased migration plan and integrate data validation checks into each stage
- After initial data mapping and cleansing tasks, back up your legacy data to be able to restore it if something goes wrong and prevent data loss and corruption
- Before large-scale data transfer, execute test migrations with dummy data reflecting the characteristics of your real data to identify hidden migration pitfalls and refine your backup plan
- During data transfer, use automated migration tools (Salesforce Data Loader, Dataloader.io, etc.) to minimize human error and ensure standardization across datasets
- After the migration, run thorough data validation tests to ensure that the transferred data adheres to your quality criteria
Integrating Salesforce with Other Systems
One of Salesforce’s primary purposes is to consolidate customer data that can be scattered across other systems, such as ERP, ecommerce, or marketing automation software, so the platform requires a seamless connection with multiple tools to function efficiently. Establishing integrations can be, however, a daunting task, especially if your IT ecosystem includes legacy systems, you require high-frequency or real-time data updates, or you must follow strict industry-specific requirements when handling corporate data. Here are a few pointers to help you successfully integrate the Salesforce platform:
- For integrating Salesforce with legacy tools, consider using API-led middleware from MuleSoft, as APIs can efficiently and securely expose data even from systems built with outdated technology.
- Salesforce has API limits, and exceeding them can hinder your ability to update large volumes of data quickly. To mitigate potential issues, consider purchasing Salesforce editions that offer higher API call allocations and using incremental processing to optimize your API usage.
- If your data integration processes must adhere to specific standards, such as HIPAA or PCI DSS, consider engaging certified Salesforce implementation partners experienced in your regulated industry to navigate its intricate requirements and design a tailored integration strategy.
Final Thoughts
Determining the correct customization scope, ensuring data quality during migration, and integrating Salesforce with other tools for seamless data exchange are just some of the common challenges faced by most Salesforce adopters. If not appropriately solved, these challenges can derail project success and compromise implementation ROI. The practices listed in this article can help organizations solve these challenges more efficiently.
As every company has unique business requirements and technical considerations, it’s important to address these challenges with a tailored approach. Certified Salesforce implementation experts can provide you with a bespoke implementation strategy to guide you throughout the entire project. They can also help you implement it, ensuring a successful Salesforce rollout.
