1. Chatter Time
Why 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 ALLIANCE
PARTNER
R i pt i d e C l o u d . co m
2. Table of Contents
2
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
3. 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 3
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
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ncreased 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 Team
Kristina Wood
Project Management Professional (PMP)
407-319-5654 | Kristina.Wood@RiptideCloud.com
Zenon Rawley
Managing Director, Commercial Division
407-542-7698 | Zenon.Rawley@RiptideCloud.com
200 East Palm Valley Drive, Suite 2000, Oviedo, FL 32765 | 800-RIPTIDE | Fax 407-358-5018 | RiptideCloud.com
4. The ENGAGE Model
Riptide's Chatter rollout plan
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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:
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xplore 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.
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avigate 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.
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et 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.
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ctivate 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.
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auge 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.
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volve – 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.
5. Chatter Best Practices
Understanding how to use Chatter successfully
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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 et managers and executives to start using it – Ask them to commit to posting; nothing drives
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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 reate a “Chattiquette” (Chatter Etiquette) guide – Establish some helpful tips or guidelines
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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 raft a communication plan – Let users know about the changes that will be taking place—
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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 dentify Evangelists – Select influential employees on different teams and recruit them to be
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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.
6. 5 etermine when and where to enable Chatter – We understand your business needs and only
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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 hoose Chatter settings – Some may get overwhelmed with the amount of email notifications
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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 reate several Chatter groups for users to join – Determine if groups are going to be private
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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 ducate users about communication preferences – Ensure users are aware of how to modify
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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 ncourage participation in Chatter through gamification – Riptide recently customized a
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“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 ake advantage of Chatter mobile apps – While you're out of the office or away from your
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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:
7. 1 ow to setup your profile – As a best practice, encourage users to fill out their profiles
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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 xamples of what to post – Content examples should include what you would like to see and
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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 7
collaborating on records in Salesforce.
3 xamples of what not to post – Identify the kind of behavior that your company does not want
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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 osting best practices – employees who are accustomed to posting on Facebook, Twitter, or
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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.
8. Common Questions
FAQs about Chatter
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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
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hen 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 W
hen 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.
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s 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.
9. User Adoption
Setting up your Chatter to succeed
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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.
10. 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.
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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?”
11. Chatter Features You May Not Know About
How Chatter is an innovative tool for business
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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
12. 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 12
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.
13. Customer Success Stories
How our customers are making Chatter work for them
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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 IBA’s business is comprised of many moving parts that need to be recorded
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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 F
IBA 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.
14. 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.
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Challenge ne of the challenges Marketplace Homes faced was lack of communication among
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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 M
arketplace 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 oint Blank’s sales team is located across the United States with their head
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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.
15. 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 A
fter Phase I of the rollout, mostly everyone is using Chatter. They are able to 15
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.
16. 20 Ways Chatter Can Work for You
Connect with your team like never before
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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
17. SILVER
CLOUD ALLIANCE
PARTNER
Chatter
with us
Contact riptide to Learn more
RiptideCloud.com | 800-749-8433
Expertise Methodology Information
Salesforce Silver Partner Riptide employs the Riptide can provide
with over 150 completed Salesforce ENGAGE model Chatter Use Cases,
projects and counting for Chatter implementations Implementation Best Practices,
and Customer Success Stories
Chatter Authorized Partner We use an agile methodology
in the making for speedy and successful Learn how Chatter
project turnarounds can help streamline your
Developed nearly a dozen business processes
custom AppExchange apps Our clients always receive a while encouraging
defined set of deliverables team collaboration and
Customer satisfaction rating
upwards of 94% transparency
Chatter works for our clients, now It's time to make it work for you!
18. 200 East Palm Valley Drive, Suite 2000, Oviedo, Florida 32765
Local: 321-296-7724 | Toll-Free: 800-749-7433
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