<strong>Illustrative example.</strong> This engagement is fictional and exists to show format and tone. Replace it with a real case study, with written client permission, or relabel this section before publishing.
Headline: Adviser adoption from 38% to 92% in one quarter — without re-implementing At a glance: Wealth management firm · 180 advisers · Sales Cloud + FSC · 10 weeks
The problem
Two years after go-live, most advisers used Salesforce for one thing: recording that a meeting happened, because compliance required it. Everything else lived in Outlook, a portfolio system and personal notes. Leadership had a proposal on the table to re-implement on a different platform.
The org itself wasn’t broken. It was over-built. A requirements process that asked every team what they wanted had produced 610 custom fields, 14 profiles, 47 required fields on the client record and a page layout that ran to four screens on a laptop.
What we found
- 610 custom fields; 148 had data in more than 5% of records.
- 47 required fields at client creation. Advisers created records with placeholder values to escape the screen.
- 9 automations on the Account object with no documented execution order.
- 14 profiles for 6 genuine role types.
- 220 reports; 31 had been run in the previous 90 days.
- Median time to log a client meeting: 7 minutes 40 seconds.
Retire, don’t rebuild. 462 fields retired in three tranches after usage analysis and stakeholder review. Reduce required fields from 47 to 9, with the rest captured progressively when they become relevant. Consolidate automation into one flow per object with documented entry conditions and fault handling. Rebuild the adviser desktop as a task-shaped LWC: today’s clients, next actions, last interaction, portfolio summary, one-click meeting log. Simplify permissions to 6 profiles and permission sets. Rationalise reports to a standard pack of 22, agreed with leadership.
01 · Weeks 1 — Health Check. Five days, full findings report, ranked backlog. 02 · Weeks 2–3 — Field retirement tranche one. The 300 fields with zero data across all records. No stakeholder objections. 03 · Weeks 4–6 — Desktop rebuild. Adviser-shaped component, tested with six advisers weekly. 04 · Weeks 7–8 — Automation consolidation and permission simplification. 05 · Week 9 — Re-enablement. Short, role-specific sessions. Framed as “here’s what we removed”, which changed the reception considerably. 06 · Week 10 — Launch and measurement.
Results (90 days)
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly active advisers | 38% | 92% |
| Median time to log a client meeting | 7m 40s | 1m 05s |
| Custom fields | 610 | 148 |
| Required fields at creation | 47 | 9 |
| Automations on Account | 9 | 1 (+2 subflows) |
| Reports in active use | 31 of 220 | 22 of 22 |
The re-implementation proposal was withdrawn. Total cost was approximately 14% of the quoted re-platform.
What we’d do differently
We initially framed field retirement as a technical clean-up, which triggered defensive responses from teams who had requested those fields. Framing it as “what would you need back?” from the start would have saved a fortnight of negotiation.
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