The most cost-effective way to grow your Salesforce Communications Cloud capabilities

By David Leighton

To benefit from all that Salesforce Communications Cloud has to offer, you must first ensure that you have qualified Communications Cloud professionals in your team. But with less than 100 Communications Cloud Accredited Professionals in the world, paired with sky-high salaries, how can you grow your capabilities without breaking the bank?

Let’s take a look at the most cost-effective alternative: upskillling.

Short on time? Use the links below to navigate to the section that you’re most interested in:

The current state of the cloud skills gap
What makes Salesforce Communications Cloud so great?
4 top benefits of Salesforce Communications Cloud
The average salary of a Communications Cloud specialist
Why upskilling is the most cost-effective way to build your
Salesforce Communications Cloud capabilities?

The current state of the cloud skills gap

While the media continues to fixate on the potential of technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence, research shows that cloud computing products are still the most relevant and in-demand technologies on the market in 2023.

Pluralsight’s latest State of Cloud report outlines how 75% of tech leaders are building new products and features in the cloud, while also showing that just 8% of technologists have significant cloud-related skills and experience. Concurrently, research from Gartner shows that roughly half of enterprise cloud migration will be delayed by two years or more, due to a lack of cloud and IaaS skills.

And with powerful cloud solutions like Salesforce Communications Cloud allowing organizations to manage customer relationships far more effectively than before, it’s no surprise that the need for certified Communications Cloud professionals continues to grow.

What makes Salesforce Communications Cloud so great?

When implemented properly, Communications Cloud is an incredibly powerful industry-focused solution that can allow your organization to better manage customer relationships, improve customer experiences, revolutionize middle-office business processes, and increase your revenue.

The digital-first journeys that you can create through Communications Cloud save on both time and costs, while improving operational efficiency. Furthermore, with Communications Cloud, you can:

Create simple yet effective digital experiences
Streamline product and service launches
Save time by complying with industry standards and architectures
Reduce attrition through predictive analytics

Cyber-security company Cyphere has been using Salesforce Communications Cloud to great effect. According to their Director, Harmandeep Singh:

“Salesforce Communications Cloud has had a big impact on our business. It’s enabled us to communicate with our customers more efficiently and securely, as well as streamline our internal communications. The speed and reliability of the system has allowed us to focus on the bigger picture, rather than dealing with the day-to-day minutiae. But I would say that the biggest benefit to our business overall has been the time savings and improved customer service we’ve gained since implementing it.”

4 top benefits of Salesforce Communications Cloud

When implemented properly, Salesforce Communications Cloud can offer you a wide range of benefits. Companies using the solution have the option to switch to a multi-cloud strategy, better scalability, and improved workflows. Let’s take a look at the four top benefits of Salesforce Communications Cloud in more detail.

1. The option of multi-channel integration

With so many opportunities to connect with customers across a range of media, a cloud-based system better allows you to interact with your customers through social media channels, the internet, and smart home systems. This will also help you gain a better understanding of customer behavior and activities.

2. Scalability

With a cloud-based system, you are less equipment-dependent, meaning you’ll experience fewer hardware downtimes. And with the ability to scale your processes up during peak times (and down during troughs) you’ll be able to scale flexibility and run more efficiently.

3. Improved workflows

With a cloud-based system, you’ll be able to consolidate the vast majority of your activities into one dashboard, giving teams and managers greater visibility over day-to-day operations.

4. Team flexibility and employee satisfaction

A cloud-based communications system can be accessed through nearly any device (as long as there is an internet connection), empowering your team to flexibly access your system regardless of their location. And in a post-pandemic marketplace where many employees valuable the ability to work remotely over many other benefits, this can be incredibly useful for candidate attraction and retention.

If you have an existing Communications Cloud implementation, check out this recent webinar to help you unleash the full potential of this incredible product or read a summary here.

The average salary of a Communications Cloud specialist

With so few certified Salesforce Communications Cloud professionals on the job market, accessing talent is difficult—and traditional recruitment methods are likely to fall short. Not least because the competition for accredited Communications Cloud specialists is driving their salaries skyward.

The latest report by Mason Frank found that salaries for the most in-demand senior roles across the Salesforce ecosystem can range from $88,000 to a whopping $250,000 USD.

If that’s too much for your budget, you’re not alone. And upskilling your own employees to become Communications Cloud specialists can be a great way to plug the skills gap without breaking the bank..

Why upskilling is the most cost-effective way to build your Salesforce Communications Cloud capabilities?

Clearly, upskilling is much cheaper than outright hiring Salesforce Communications Cloud talent. What’s more, there’s far less competition compared to ‘fishing for talent’ in the same recruitment pools as your competitors.

But there are lots of other great reasons beyond this why we’d recommend upskilling existing employees to grow your Salesforce Communications Cloud capabilities.

These include:

Upskilling is an effective way to fill your Salesforce Communications Cloud capacity gaps at speed
Your team can start applying their new skills and knowledge to your ongoing projects much quicker than a new hire would
It empowers your organization to flexibly respond to changes in technology and market dynamics
Upskilling can significantly improve retention rates in your team as you’re actively demonstrating to your employees that you care about their professional growth
Implementing ongoing learning initiatives is the only way to stay at the cutting edge of technology, especially when it comes to fast-evolving cloud products like Salesforce Communications Cloud

To provide a working example of this, here are some of the benefits Harmandeep noticed after investing in training to grow his team’s Communications Cloud capabilities:

“Since getting our staff trained and certified, our productivity and efficiency has skyrocketed. Our staff are now more motivated because they understand the importance of the software and the opportunities it provides. Retention has also improved since we incentivise staff to stay with us long-term through certifications and further training.”

If you’d like to find out more about the benefits of upskilling, check out this recent article.

The first and only Communications Cloud Accredited Professional Training Program

With all that being said, upskilling existing employees does come with its own set of challenges.

Upskilling requires time, resources, and budget. It also requires existing professionals with domain expertise in Salesforce Communications Cloud, potential project delays in favor of training employees, and time allowed for trained professionals to reach productivity.

To counter all these factors and help you build advanced Communications Cloud capabilities in your team at speed, we’ve worked with Salesforce to create the world’s first and only Communications Cloud Accredited Professional Training Program—allowing businesses to upskill existing employees into Communications Cloud accredited professionals, with minimal disruption to business-as-usual activities.

The instructor-led training is delivered by Salesforce-certified instructors and includes intensive use-case-driven modules and crucial consultancy skills development. Furthermore, you can upskill your employees through just 48 hours of modular training time, minimizing disruption to your business.

With 60% of training time spent on practical application and an impressive 6x higher average accreditation first-time pass rate, compared to the Salesforce industry average, our Communications Cloud Training Program is an affordable way to quickly and flexibly generate the talent you need to stay ahead of your competition.

“Revolent’s training programs are playing an important role in helping organizations upskill their workforce on the Salesforce platform. Expanding their course offerings, so businesses can train their employees on Communications Cloud, will provide a new opportunity to skill up their talent.”