RiptideCloud.com

Chatter TimeWhy Chatter is Good for Business

It's Time to Chatter!

Learn why you should be using Chatter every day in your business.

From Q&As and Best Practices to Customizations and Customer Success Stories—

this is your complete guide to all things Chatter.

SILVER

CLOUD ALLIANCEPARTNER

Welcome Letter & Overview 3

The ENGAGE Model 4

Chatter Best Practices 5

Common Questions 8

User Adoption 9

Chatter Features You May Not Know About 11

Customer Success Stories 13

20 Ways Chatter Can Work for You 16

Chatter with Us 17

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Table of Contents

Welcome to your Riptide-driven Chatter Rollout!

We are ramping up our forces to begin work on your project right away. But before we start, we'd like to take the opportunity to give you a little background information on our proven business processes that help guarantee a successful project outcome.

How did Riptide become such Chatter experts? Well, we practice what we preach. Internally, we use Chatter for collaboration, project management, customer updates, employee on-boarding, approval processes, HR functionality, contextual content, company announcements, replacing the dreaded email chains, and MUCH more. We are here to help your business make the most out of Chatter. After all, our customers experience some of the greatest Chatter user adoption rates in the nation.

During the course of your Chatter install, we will be employing the ENGAGE model, which is outlined in detail in the next section. From preliminary planning to post-project support, Riptide will be available every step along the way. Our experience has shown that keeping our clients "in the loop" is the most efficient way to run a project, which is why we have adopted an "agile" project management methodology. What that means for you is:

Complete awareness of your project's status at all times

Increased input and ability to make changes mid-stream

Faster overall delivery of your project

It is through this agile process that our ENGAGE model strategy has been so instrumental in determining such effective project outcomes for our clients. Each of the six steps are designed to help your project run as smoothly as possible right up to the finish line and beyond.

Sincerely,

The Riptide Cloud TeamKristina WoodProject Management Professional (PMP) 407-319-5654 | Kristina.Wood@RiptideCloud.com

Zenon RawleyManaging Director, Commercial Division 407-542-7698 | Zenon.Rawley@RiptideCloud.com

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200 East Palm Valley Drive, Suite 2000, Oviedo, FL 32765 | 800-RIPTIDE | Fax 407-358-5018 | RiptideCloud.com

The ENGAGE ModelRiptide's Chatter rollout plan

The ENGAGE model is a framework made up of six steps that are proven to make Chatter a success for your company. Once the Chatter rollout is concluded, the Riptide team will highlight the success factors you’ll need to keep working on in order to ensure continued user adoption of Chatter.

What to Expect During Your Chatter Rollout

Let’s start by defining exactly what “ENGAGE” means and how we apply that to Chatter:

E Explore Business Processes – Riptide will ask strategic questions about your business processes and help you figure out which ones can be better utilized by using Chatter.

N Navigate Rollout – We will help you learn how to create the greatest value for your business with Chatter. We’ll consider your company culture and make sure we hit the mark so your team understands the value of using Chatter as a collaboration tool for your organization.

G Get Sponsors – With our assistance, your organization will choose an executive and a community manager to work together as sponsors to help “rally the troops,” so to speak for quick wins and a true migration to Chatter.

A Activate Users – We will activate your users through training and education. The key to great adoption is user training that motivates the team to want to use the product.

G Gauge Success – Riptide isn’t a company that implements it and forgets it. We will help you create and use all the tools needed to continue monitoring and increasing the success of Chatter within your company.

E Evolve – Your Chatter ROI will be easy to see, because Riptide believes the proof is in the adoption pudding. Higher collaboration, faster responses, plus more contextual content are all the byproducts of a successful Chatter rollout. Continuing to maintain your satisfaction with Chatter is our focus, which is why we will initiate a 1–2 year action plan for complete adoption.

Today’s savvy company recognizes the need to maximize sales and amplify communication frequency in order to thrive in today’s competitive landscape. An ENGAGE Chatter rollout helps you do exactly that by giving you the ability to turn Chatter into unique customer portals and a community of quick and knowledgeable experts. Plus, your everyday team members will become some of the biggest fans. Bottom-line, the proper use of Chatter increases transactions, loyalty, referrals, and revenue to drive your overall business success.

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When companies implement Chatter into their organization, they all-too-often forget the most important piece of the puzzle: ensuring it's success. Getting it installed and working is one thing, but getting your entire team to use it in their day-to-day operations and using it properly are completely separate matters. That's where Riptide comes in. We've been using Chatter in our very own company since Chatter's infancy, and we've been helping countless other agencies do the same.

The Top 10 Chatter Best Practices

Riptide has developed a Chatter implementation strategy that we have built into each and every install we do. These are the steps we've found helpful during our experiences in helping others setup their Chatter network. Below are our Top 10 Tips:

1 Get managers and executives to start using it – Ask them to commit to posting; nothing drives adoption like top-down behavior. If your C-level execs are posting industry trends, interesting articles, commenting on records, etc., people are going to pay attention.

2 Create a “Chattiquette” (Chatter Etiquette) guide – Establish some helpful tips or guidelines about how Chatter should be used at your company. Define your own best practices. For example, you may want to set guidelines for Chatter profile photos and make clear what type of topics can and cannot be posted. There's more on this topic later.

3 Draft a communication plan – Let users know about the changes that will be taking place—before you launch. Set expectations around the transition and provide materials such as your ”Chattiquette” guide. Be sure to include specific use cases by job role. For example, the way your services and support team may use Chatter could be very different from the way finance may use it. After you go live, send out an FAQ. Recognize super users for their early adoption, and ask for feedback.

4 Identify Evangelists – Select influential employees on different teams and recruit them to be your Chatter evangelists. Their role will be to encourage adoption through leading by example and providing support to their peers. Make sure your evangelists feel invested by getting them involved early. Ask them to help define use cases and provide them with training before your Chatter rollout.

Chatter Best PracticesUnderstanding how to use Chatter successfully

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5 Determine when and where to enable Chatter – We understand your business needs and only enable Chatter for Objects that are necessary. In addition, we work with your management to understand which fields need to be tracked through Chatter.

6 Choose Chatter settings – Some may get overwhelmed with the amount of email notifications you get through Chatter. We make sure to walk users through their Chatter Notification Settings so only the most important Chatter collaboration is emailed to you.

7 Create several Chatter groups for users to join – Determine if groups are going to be private or public. You might create a public group for your Chatter launch where users can provide feedback. They may help you identify useful enhancements or expose areas where further training is needed.

8 Educate users about communication preferences – Ensure users are aware of how to modify their Chatter email settings to best fit their needs. Some may like the daily digest, while others may prefer to have the Chatter Desktop app installed to get their Chatter feed in real time and avoid receiving an email digest.

9 Encourage participation in Chatter through gamification – Riptide recently customized a “gamification” app for a Chatter rollout. Users earn points when they post to Chatter, comment on someone else’s post, or like someone’s post. A dashboard recognizes top users at the company and our client is seeing excellent adoption as a result.

10 Take advantage of Chatter mobile apps – While you're out of the office or away from your computer, check out links to articles people have posted to Chatter and catch up on industry news.

Creating Your Chattiquette Guide

Some of our clients have expressed concerns in implementing Chatter—not with the technology per se, but rather the processes and communication change it creates. Some concerns are legitimate, some are just a result of change. Clients were concerned that implementing Chatter would create noise, unprofessional comments, and more.

When Twitter appeared and companies started allowing employees to Tweet on their behalf, there was a major outcry of concern. How were those fears assuaged and issues dealt with? By education and by setting policies.

All companies should have a Chatter etiquette (aka Chattiquette) guide. It is of key importance to set guidelines for employees when implementing Chatter so everyone understands what kind of content the company would like to see, and so they feel encouraged to provide that content. You want your employees to be excited about using this as a collaboration tool and to share pertinent industry news, tips and tricks, and any other information that would benefit your employees. Your Chattiquette guide should include:

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1 How to setup your profile – As a best practice, encourage users to fill out their profiles completely and to upload a photo of themselves to Chatter. Define what an appropriate photo is at your company: Do you want a professional head shot of your employee or can someone post a cartoon representation of themself, or a photo of themself with their family?

2 Examples of what to post – Content examples should include what you would like to see and what you would like not to see based upon the role of the user. Examples for your sales team and your support team will be very different. Include examples that demonstrate the areas that Chatter really excels at such as crowd-sourcing knowledge, sharing files/industry news, and collaborating on records in Salesforce.

3 Examples of what not to post – Identify the kind of behavior that your company does not want to see. This will vary from company to company based upon your corporate culture, industry, and other factors. Remind your employees that everything they post will be visible to everyone else in the company, including their boss and company management. In other words, don’t post anything in Chatter that you wouldn't write in an email that could be forwarded to others or that could cast you in an unfavorable light.

4 Posting best practices – employees who are accustomed to posting on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn realize that shorter is better. The same applies to Chatter. Stay short, sweet, and to the point. On another note, if you want to get a specific individual’s attention, remember to use the @Name to get their attention. This helps ensure they are notified.

Finally, post your Chatter etiquette guide to Chatter so people can reference it in the future if they ever have a question about what is and is not acceptable to post.

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Chatter is a few years old now, and as more and more companies embrace it more and more great questions are being asked. Below are some of the questions Riptide has been seeing:

The 3 Most Common Questions About Chatter

1 When do I use Chatter Feed Tracking and when do I use Field History Tracking?

Use Chatter to post updates about fields on which you need to take action but keep the number to a few critical fields to ensure only important data is flowing into your users' feeds. Field history tracking is important for change management. If you have fields that don’t drive actions, but whose value is important to track and potentially report on over time, then you’ll want to use field history tracking instead of Chatter feed tracking.

2 When an Opportunity closes, do I automatically unfollow that Opportunity?

Not out-of-the-box, but yes! There is an app for that on the AppExchange called Chatter Unfollow Rules that will automatically unsubscribe you once it closes. You can even delay it a few days after it closes (in case people are still Chattering about it). This can be done for Cases as well. Since you can only follow 500 users/records at a time, it’s a must-have for any organization processing a large number of cases in a day. You don’t want your agents to reach the limit and then have to take the time to find all cases they’re following that are closed just so they can manually un-follow them.

3 Is there a way to auto-subscribe new users to certain individuals, such as their manager?

There are apps for that, such as Cloud Swarm 3 – Chatter Auto Follow and Chatter SmartFollow. However, before you go that route, consider that Chatter will recommend who you may want to follow based upon the following criteria:

The same people as you.

People who are in your management hierarchy, such as your manager, people who report to your manager, and people who report to you. Salesforce uses the Manager field on the personal information page to determine these recommendations.

People who are popular, which means they have many followers.

People who are new to Chatter.

People who are interested in the same records as you—for example, someone who has looked at or edited an account that you’ve recently viewed.

Common QuestionsFAQs about Chatter

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User adoption is key to a successful Chatter implementation. If user adoption is poor, the investment made in Chatter is wasted. We ensure that does not happen. Riptide will provide the necessary tools and training to guarantee high user adoption and that your team is equipped to take full advantage of Chatter in your business thus securing your ROI.

In Order to Encourage the Highest Possible User Adoption, Riptide Will:

Assess the business processes key to your Chatter implementation and create an action plan for your rollout.

We’ll consider your company culture and make sure we hit the mark so your team understands the value of using Chatter as a collaboration tool for your organization.

Develop custom training that addresses your training needs and that is designed for your unique Chatter implementation.

Did You Chatter It?

One of our clients shared an experience of how his team had helped him via Chatter. Evidently he was struggling to get a summary report to work the way he needed, and after about 30 minutes, was about to give up. Instead, he presented the problem to his team on Chatter. By the end of the day, the problem was solved, but getting a solution was just part of the benefit. As he told the story, we realized the benefits went far beyond getting a quick answer.

Team learning…forever – The team presented different ideas and their pros and cons. Each successive proposed solution built on the last. And the best part is that the knowledge shared by everyone is now available for all employees to find.

Fast iterations with a quick solution – The problem was posted around 1:30 p.m. The first reply came toward the end of the day around 5:30, and within the two hours it took to get the best answer, there were three people posting a total of seven entries. Not bad for a Friday evening.

People had fun – His team was very competitive and smart, and they were great teachers—the right combination for great Chatter contributors. When there is a sense of fun and competition to get the best answer, everyone wins. It’s almost an innate benefit of using the tool.

User AdoptionSetting up your Chatter to succeed

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Chatter Vs. Email

Using the previous scenario, compare this outcome with how it might have played out on email:

Countless emails going back and forth.

Some important contributors may have been left off the initial string by mistake.

No ability for people to opt out, or quietly watch from the sidelines.

Knowledge capture: No ability to capture the learning to solve future problems like this.

Drudgery: Most people don’t view email as fun.

Here are some tips if you're thinking about using Chatter this way:

Provide a screenshot, or better yet a link to the report/record/page with which you are having issues. Visualization works.

Consider offering a prize or reward for solving the problem. It can be as small as a Starbucks gift card. Competition and games work.

Make it easy for people to help you. Keep the post short and get the key problem out in the first two sentences.

Post the final solution and, if there were multiple suggestions provided, the reasons it was chosen.

As the Chatter benefit keeps paying off, will responses of “Did you Google it?” be replaced with “Did you Chatter it?”

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Your organization may have some great ideas for using Chatter in a way that goes far beyond the ordinary. Riptide’s experienced team of developers can develop custom solutions using Salesforce’s development tools to make Chatter work for your unique needs. Below are some examples of how companies have turned Chatter into their own innovative business tool:

Chatter Approval Process

Chatter Approval Process is a way for management to approve a process submission through a Chatter post. Traditionally, approvals have been approved or rejected through the actual record or via email response. Now, with everyone going Chatter crazy, Salesforce.com has introduced the approver through Chatter to make it easier for everyone not only to approve but to also make it easier to access. For many, the Chatter feed has become the reliable source for activity on a record. Individuals that need to quickly learn about an account can scroll through the Chatter feed and get a very good understanding of the account history. Going along with the theme, everyone can now view which approvals have been associated with a record.

Here's an example of a customer use case: A sales rep wants to give a discount to a customer. This is a very large order but the customer wants a 10% discount. The sales rep initiates the process to get an approval for 10% from his manager by submitting the approval process. A Chatter post gets posted on the Opportunity record which the manager was already following because this was a large order. He gets notified through chatter that an approval is needed. He logs into his Mobile Chatter app and approves the discount of 10%. The sales rep receives an approved email and the order is complete. Now, everyone in the company notices that the manager approved the request and everyone starts to like the post.

Approval process through Chatter is seamless and promotes collaboration. In the use case above, if the manager needed to ask a question to Finance, he could have @mentioned finance and gotten them involved in the decision making. All activity on the post would have been documented and everyone following the deal would have been involved. Chatter Approval Process is a great tool and easy to administrate. This feature is a great addition to the social and collaborative enterprise.

Quick Links for Chatter Groups

Many companies have numerous Chatter groups to collaborate. Groups are created to privately communicate and also to funnel information. However, sometimes new hires get confused on which groups they should be contributing to. For that reason, creating Quick Links to Chatter Groups helps

Chatter Features You May Not Know AboutHow Chatter is an innovative tool for business

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users to narrow down the most important groups for them. In addition, it helps them locate these groups so they don’t have to search.

Creating Chatter Free Users

Companies may only choose to utilize Salesforce for their Sales and Marketing departments. However, 100% of the time, Sales and Marketing need to communicate with other departments within the company. Chatter Free user licenses allow you to add free users to your Salesforce and create a way for everyone to collaborate. These users will only have access to Chatter Groups and can communicate with anyone that is subscribed to the Chatter group.

Auto Posting in Chatter Feeds

Typically, during the sales cycle, sales users need to communicate with other departments but these departments may not have a full Salesforce license. In this case, they are given a Chatter Free user license and can only communication through Chatter Groups. So, during the Sales cycle if an action takes place, we could write a trigger to post relevant information from the Opportunity into the Chatter group. For example, once an Opportunity is closed won, take particular information from the opportunity record and post it in the Finance Chatter Group. This way, finance can start the process of creating the customer in the finance system.

Creating a Contest Around Chatter Posting to Increase Adoption

You can leverage apps to create an Adoption Contest. Set parameters for the Contest and choose the price. For example, every post equals 2 points and every like equals 1 point. This contest can go on for a month and the results can auto post to the Chatter feed for everyone to see. This will increase competition and as a result will drive user adoption.

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Riptide provides customer stories as a way for us to review what we have done and learn from the various challenges we come across with our clients. Existing clients and potential clients alike can rest assured that Riptide has a wide range of experience implementing Chatter across many different industries and obstacles.

FIBA Technologies

Salesforce User Since 5/29/2009 | 50+ Employees | Manufacturing | Millbury, Massachusetts

FIBA Technologies is a leading global provider of gas containment equipment and services for the industrial gas, chemicals, specialty gas, offshore oil and gas exploration, and alternative fuel industries around the globe. FIBA Technologies contacted Riptide to assist in “re-implementing” Salesforce for their Sales Team.

Challenge FIBA’s business is comprised of many moving parts that need to be recorded and tracked; to include, active clients, production, products, quotes, contracts, opportunities, and potential clients. Vice President of Sales and Marketing did not want everyone using Emails anymore because communication was getting lost. In addition, he did not want to have a long train of emails going back and forth.

Solution Riptide leveraged Chatter to overcome these issues. Not everyone in the company had Salesforce licenses so we implemented Chatter Free users. We created groups so everyone had a place to collaborate. We also created custom links to the Chatter Groups on the opportunity layout so it would save time for the sales reps when they needed to get to the groups.

Value FIBA has just finished the first phase of the implementation and everyone is utilizing chatter to work on deals. Sales Reps and management are working together to close deals. Sales reps are also assisting each other with product specific questions. Chatter groups are a hit and everyone is now on one platform to collaborate. There is no need to forward communication and all communication is saved in the groups.

Customer Success StoriesHow our customers are making Chatter work for them

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Marketplace Homes

Salesforce User Since 2/28/2012 | 100+ Employees | Real Estate | Plymouth, Michigan

Marketplace Homes new home builder and property manager of the previous home their clients move out of. Marketplace Homes contracted Riptide to help migrate them off of a legacy CRM system into Salesforce. They wanted increased visibility into their properties, easy transitions from team to team, and a scalable CRM solution.

Challenge One of the challenges Marketplace Homes faced was lack of communication among internal employees. For a successful business transaction, many people in many different departments are involved. In addition, many external companies need to be notified during the purchase of a home. The CEO is very much involved with the day-to-day activities and likes to get feedback from everyone, but there wasn’t a place where he could accomplish this.

Solution Riptide deployed Chatter across all objects. We created public and private groups. During the rollout, we promoted the public groups and asked everyone to post feedback so employee collaboration was easy. This is a highly motivated Sales company so we implemented a Sales Group where for the Sales team to get together and collaborate on sales techniques. Another group was created for Remote Sales Staff so they have a place where their concerns could be heard. We asked the CEO to use chatter and he was one of the biggest adopters.

Value Marketplace Homes now has a place where they can collaborate. The CEO lead the adoption and naturally everyone else followed. Everyone is Chatter crazy and there are no complaints on lack of communication. Team members are working together on deals and helping each other close those deals. Customer complaints are getting solved much faster and are being escalated to the correct people via Chatter.

Point Blank Body Armor

Salesforce User Since 1/27/2012 | 1,000+ Employees | Manufacturing | Pompano Beach, Florida

Point Blank is a leader in high performance, protective solutions, including state-of-the-art ballistic technologies for the U.S. Military and Department of Defense, Federal Agencies, state and local law enforcement, and corrections professionals through its core brands. Riptide helped implement a solution that created more effectiveness, increased efficiency and transparency, raised user adoption, and made their Salesforce application a scalable solution for the future.

Challenge Point Blank’s sales team is located across the United States with their head office located in Florida. The need for collaboration is highly important in their organization. Aside from being geographically dispersed, there are many moving parts to the company. Sales, Finance, Production, Marketing, and Shooters are some departments which need to collaborate on deals and production.

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Solution The users at Point Blank were not advocates of technology so we had a challenge of architecting an easy-to-use solution. We knew collaboration was one of the areas the company was lacking in, so during the rollout, Chatter was a big focus. We showed how Chatter can help them with their frustration and that they can communicate with everyone in the company. We created groups which allowed these users to provide feedback and have a voice. We helped most users download the Chatter App for mobile devices and encouraged the collaboration.

Value After Phase I of the rollout, mostly everyone is using Chatter. They are able to express their internal job frustrations, communicate new ideas with the Marketing team, and they are talking with upper management. Many of the users have never used a CRM system and they are asking for help through Chatter. Chatter has given individuals a voice to reach out to anyone in the company.

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Chatter is quickly becoming a resource for business collaboration and team networking. Its surprising how often Chatter is used on a daily—even by-the-minute—basis. Here's a sampling of how Chatter has been working for organizations everywhere per Salesforce’s website:

1 Get Instant Feedback from employees to test creative concepts

2 Quick responses to internal product knowledge

3 Privately collaborate on sensitive projects

4 Improve company culture with a “Suggestion Box”

5 Create an Employee Directory complete with photos

6 Valid information pushed to you

7 Unite global support teams

8 Collaborate for customer success

9 Educate employees on company news

10 Share new marketing materials

11 Share files with ease

12 Collaborate on sales presentations

13 Ask questions, get instant answers

14 Locate a competitive expert

15 Find customer references

16 Escalate cases for immediate help—people see it on Chatter and swarm to respond

17 Sales can follow cases to make sure they are taken care of

18 Catch time-sensitive information on-the-go with Chatter Mobile

19 Share photos

20 Collaborate in real time with instant messaging through Chat

20 Ways Chatter Can Work for YouConnect with your team like never before

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CONTACT RIPTIDE TO LEARN MORERiptideCloud.com | 800-749-8433

ChATTERWITh US

METhODOLOGY

Riptide employs the Salesforce ENGAGE model

for Chatter implementations

We use an agile methodology for speedy and successful

project turnarounds

Our clients always receive a defined set of deliverables

INFORMATION

Riptide can provide Chatter Use Cases,

Implementation Best Practices, and Customer Success Stories

Learn how Chatter can help streamline your

business processes while encouraging

team collaboration and transparency

ExPERTISE

Salesforce Silver Partner with over 150 completed

projects and counting

Chatter Authorized Partner in the making

Developed nearly a dozen custom AppExchange apps

Customer satisfaction rating upwards of 94%

ChATTER WORKS FOR OUR CLIENTS, NOW IT'S TIME TO MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU!

SILVER

CLOUD ALLIANCEPARTNER

RiptideCloud.com

200 East Palm Valley Drive, Suite 2000, Oviedo, Florida 32765

Local: 321-296-7724 | Toll-Free: 800-749-7433