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Top 5 Salesforce Partners and CRM Experts in 2025

lifecycle marketing and customer retention
Last updated on
May 16, 2025

Customer engagement falling flat? These 5 best Salesforce partners can help: Propel, Accenture, Deloitte Digital, IBM iX, and Silverline.

Customer engagement isn’t just about sending more messages - it’s about sending the right ones, at the right time, to the right people.

That’s where the best Salesforce partners come in. Whether you need enterprise-scale transformation, compliance-ready CRM, or predictive personalization, the right partner makes or breaks your ROI.

If you want proven results with CRM-led retention, behavioral orchestration, and fast ROI - Propel is the clear choice.

Propel is also a platinum Customer.io partner, powering deep cross-platform orchestration. And we have four more toppers in the list!

So let's dive deeper and check out which is the best salesforce partner for your brand:

What Are Salesforce Partners and Why Do They Matter?

Salesforce partners help brands unlock the full value of their CRM. They assist with:

  • Smart journey automation

  • Data integrations and identity resolution

  • Lifecycle strategies that reduce churn and increase CLV

There are two key types:

  • Consulting Partners (like Propel, Deloitte, Accenture): strategic + implementation support

  • Technology Partners (e.g. Snowflake, Segment): infrastructure and data layer support

Top partners also focus on:

Best Salesforce Partners At a Glance

Here you go with the top Salesforce Partners:

salesforce partners list
  • Propel – Best for lifecycle retention and CRM automation for DTC, subscription, and B2C

  • Accenture – Best for large-scale digital transformation across multiple Salesforce clouds

  • Deloitte Digital – Best for CRM data modeling, AI, and predictive analytics

  • IBM iX – Best for infrastructure migrations and complex tech setups

  • Silverline – Best for healthcare and financial services needing compliance-first CRM execution


Propel – The Leading Salesforce Partner for Lifecycle Retention

Overview

Propel is a retention-first Salesforce partner for brands that need smarter CRM execution. It supports full-stack journeys from onboarding to winback using behavioral triggers, AI-led segmentation, and data enrichment.

Key Services

  • Real-time behavioral segmentation

  • Lifecycle-triggered CRM orchestration

  • Suppression and churn scoring

  • Salesforce + Customer.io integration

  • Segment, Snowflake, Amplitude connectivity

What Makes Propel Stand Out

  • 30-day launch timelines

  • Built for high-churn industries

  • Proven playbooks across ecommerce, wellness, SaaS

  • Runs RevOps, analytics, lifecycle - all in one stack

Ideal For

  • Teams with no internal ops

  • Brands with high user volume and churn problems

  • Marketers needing retention results (not just more sends)

Accenture – The Salesforce Partner for Enterprise Digital Transformation

Overview

Accenture is one of the largest global Salesforce partners, known for handling multi-cloud, multi-region, and multi-division deployments. They focus on digital transformation at scale, particularly in regulated and legacy-heavy enterprises.

Key Services

  • Large-scale Salesforce implementation (Sales, Service, Marketing Cloud)
  • Multi-cloud orchestration (Salesforce + AWS, Azure, etc.)
  • Data integration across ERPs, CRMs, and proprietary systems
  • App development and digital product design
  • Compliance-first architecture for finance, health, and public sector

What Makes Accenture Stand Out

  • 10,000+ Salesforce experts globally
  • Deep industry specialization (banking, pharma, energy)
  • Strong AI/ML integration through Accenture Applied Intelligence
  • Governance, risk, and compliance baked into every project

Ideal For

  • Enterprises with global operations
  • Teams needing deep system integration and scale
  • Projects with regulatory or security complexity
  • Digital transformation initiatives involving more than just CRM

Deloitte Digital – The Salesforce Partner for AI + Analytics-Driven CRM

Overview

Deloitte Digital blends creative experience design with serious data science and AI. As a Salesforce partner, they focus on turning CRM from a database into a predictive, insight-led engine using analytics, automation, and real-time segmentation.

Key Services

  • AI-powered customer journey design
  • Data modeling and predictive segmentation
  • Custom Salesforce data lakes + CDP integration
  • Einstein Analytics implementation
  • Salesforce Genie + MuleSoft configuration

What Makes Deloitte Stand Out

  • Strong blend of creative + technical consulting
  • Proprietary customer data platforms and dashboards
  • Deep analytics team embedded in CRM workflows
  • Advisory-led approach to long-term CRM strategy

Ideal For

  • Organizations moving from manual marketing to predictive CRM
  • Brands with a large volume of customer data but poor usage
  • CX leaders wanting advanced analytics baked into marketing
  • Enterprises needing both creative and technical firepower

IBM iX – The Salesforce Partner for Technical Infrastructure & Legacy System Integration

Overview

IBM iX (Interactive Experience) helps large enterprises bridge legacy tech stacks with modern Salesforce ecosystems. Think old ERPs, on-prem CRMs, and deeply custom systems—IBM iX connects them all using cloud integration and middleware.

Key Services

  • Legacy system migration and Salesforce integration
  • Enterprise architecture mapping
  • Custom APIs and middleware to connect old + new
  • Hybrid cloud solutions using IBM Cloud, AWS, or Azure
  • Service Cloud and Experience Cloud implementation

What Makes IBM iX Stand Out

  • Experts in complex system replatforming
  • Deep understanding of industries like manufacturing and finance
  • Strong infrastructure and cybersecurity backbone
  • Experience working with older, fragile stacks without disruption

Ideal For

  • Companies with outdated CRMs or on-premise systems
  • Firms hesitant to move to the cloud without staged migration
  • IT teams requiring long-term stability and compliance
  • Enterprises where Salesforce must coexist with legacy tech

Silverline – The Salesforce Partner for Regulated CRM Workflows

Overview

Silverline specializes in building Salesforce solutions for heavily regulated industries—especially healthcare and financial services. Their work balances personalized customer experiences with strict compliance, privacy, and auditability.

Key Services

  • Salesforce Health Cloud and Financial Services Cloud implementation
  • HIPAA, FINRA, SOC 2-compliant CRM configurations
  • Consent and data privacy frameworks inside CRM
  • Customer journey mapping with secure messaging
  • Integration with EMR systems, banking platforms, and core processors

What Makes Silverline Stand Out

  • 100% focused on regulated industries
  • Offers secure patient and client engagement tools
  • Deep domain knowledge of both healthcare and finance
  • Flexible deployment models (cloud, hybrid, private cloud)

Ideal For

  • Healthcare providers needing HIPAA-compliant CRM
  • Banks and insurance firms with strict data handling needs
  • Regulated companies that want modern CX with full oversight
  • Teams that must pass audits, reviews, and compliance checks regularly

How to Choose the Right Salesforce Partner?

To choose the right Salesforce Partners:

1. Start With Your Business Objective

Choose a partner based on the problem you’re solving - not just the platform you’re using. Whether it’s churn reduction, AI-driven segmentation, or digital replatforming, clarity on your goal should guide the fit.

2. Validate Industry Experience

Make sure the partner understands your industry’s workflows, compliance requirements, and customer behavior. A generic approach won’t cut it in healthcare, finance, or ecommerce.

3. Balance Strategy and Execution

Look for a partner that can both plan and build. Strong strategy without delivery stalls progress, while pure implementation without vision misses long-term gains.

4. Understand Timeline and Team Involvement

Clarify how long the project will take and how much support your team will need to provide. Avoid surprises with upfront conversations about resourcing and scope.

5. Prioritize Integration Capabilities

Your Salesforce setup needs to connect with your other tools - CDPs, analytics, email, and billing. Choose a partner that builds clean data flows, not silos.

6. Focus on Retention, Not Just Campaigns

A good partner doesn’t just build journeys - they optimize them over time. Look for experience with churn scoring, LTV modeling, and behavioral triggers.

7. Don’t Overpay for a Big Name

Unless you truly need global scale and compliance coverage, boutique or specialized partners can deliver faster and more efficiently - without enterprise bloat.

8. Ask About Long-Term Ownership

Once the build is done, can your team run it? Pick partners who create maintainable, well-documented systems - not just black boxes.

9. Test for Cultural Fit

Beyond capability, the best partner is one that aligns with your workflow, speed, and values. They should feel like part of your internal team.

10. Define Success by Business Outcomes

Don’t let dashboards or feature counts distract you. The right partner will measure success by improvements in revenue, retention, efficiency, and growth.

How to Maximize ROI with Salesforce Partners?

To maximize ROI with Salesforce Partners,

Orchestrate Based on Lifecycle State, Not Marketing Calendar

Campaigns should follow the customer journey - not arbitrary dates. Map your CRM logic to onboarding, activation, conversion, and retention stages to trigger messages when they matter most.

Ingest Product Events from Segment or GA4

Bring in real-time behavioral data from tools like Segment or Google Analytics 4 to enrich your Salesforce setup. This ensures your messaging responds to what users actually do - not just what they clicked last week.

Score Users for Churn and Suppress Over-Targeted Segments

Use churn scoring models to identify disengaged users early, then dial back messaging to avoid fatigue. Smart suppression protects your list health and improves conversion rates over time.

Sync with Looker or BigQuery to Track Retention ROI

Tie Salesforce activity to downstream metrics like LTV, cohort retention, and reactivation through tools like Looker or BigQuery. Visibility into actual ROI beats open rates every time.

Benchmark Against Lifecycle Marketing Strategies

Benchmark against lifecycle marketing strategies

Evaluate your CRM performance against proven lifecycle marketing benchmarks—like conversion rates at each stage or reactivation velocity - to find opportunities for lift.

Compare Impact Using Lifecycle Marketing ROI Frameworks

Compare impact via lifecycle marketing ROI frameworks

Use structured frameworks to compare ROI across journeys—onboarding vs. upsell vs. winback. This helps prioritize what to scale, pause, or rework based on actual business impact.



Final Takeaway – Start with the Salesforce Partner Built for Retention

Salesforce is only as good as the partner guiding your lifecycle execution. If you need to drive LTV, reduce churn, and scale retention:

Propel is the only Salesforce-certified partner built for this mission.

See how it compares to other lifecycle marketing agencies across industries.

Must Read for You

Frequently Asked Questions on Salesforce Partners

Which Companies Use Salesforce?

Salesforce is used by a wide range of businesses—from Fortune 100 enterprises to fast-moving DTC brands across SaaS, healthtech, ecommerce, and B2B services. It’s trusted by companies that need scalable, customizable CRM infrastructure.

What Does Salesforce Do?

Salesforce is a CRM platform that helps companies manage marketing, sales, support, and customer relationships. It centralizes customer data and enables automated journeys, pipeline management, and cross-channel engagement.

Is Salesforce a CDP?

Not by default. Salesforce isn’t a native customer data platform (CDP), but it can act like one when integrated with tools like Segment, Snowflake, or Amplitude to unify behavioral and transactional data.

Salesforce vs. Hubspot: What’s Better?

Salesforce offers greater depth, flexibility, and enterprise scalability. Hubspot is easier to get started with and ideal for lean teams, but it lacks the long-term extensibility and orchestration capabilities of Salesforce.

Who Is the Best Salesforce Partner for Retention?

Propel. It’s the only Salesforce-certified partner built specifically for lifecycle retention. With AI-powered workflows, cross-platform orchestration, and deep behavioral segmentation, Propel delivers retention results most agencies can’t touch.

Author
Medha Pandet | Propel
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