On this episode of the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we sit down with Ariel Ridley, a Customer Support Specialist and PepUp Tech alum. We learn how you—yes, you—can build an app and list it on the AppExchange.

Join us as we talk about why it’s so important to get on the phone when you’re troubleshooting, how Ariel built her app, and why you need to put what you’re working on in front of users to get that feedback loop going.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Ariel Ridley.

Why All Salesforce Admins Need Customer Service Skills

Ariel is a Customer Support specialist helping people when they encounter issues and creating knowledge articles to answer common questions. While most admins aren’t in a direct customer support role, they still need to work with users to make sure they know how to get the most out of Salesforce.

For Ariel, there are a few things that help: “I make sure to ask plenty of questions,” she says, “I’ve found, overall, that it’s helpful between me and the customer if we really discuss what’s going on—sometimes they’ll even resolve the issue on their own just by us hopping on a quick call and going over what’s happening.”

The Transition Helper for Salesforce app

Ariel created her own app, Transition Helper for Salesforce Lightning. “The main goal of it is to establish a plan for moving between Classic and Lightning,” she says. The app provides documentation and links to help orgs create a rollout plan and stick to it. As you move through the app, it asks you a series of questions to help you learn about the components of Lightning and what you need to know in order to transition smoothly. You can also deploy it to your team to help them, too.

For Ariel, there was so much information out there that it felt like many organizations still stuck in Classic simply didn’t know where to start. The Transition Helper for Salesforce helps guide you along a path so you can get started without sifting through pages of documentation and know you’re making the right choices for what you need.

How You Can Make a Salesforce App

Making the app was a bit of a process. They had to plan everything out on paper, first, writing out what documentation they wanted to include and how they were going to structure everything. Once Ariel started building, she made sure to put it in front of friends who were at orgs still stuck in Classic to get their feedback about how she could make it work better. This feedback loop was key to making something simple and effective.

Posting it on the AppExchange was fairly simple. You have to create an account on the Salesforce Partner Community, and then go through some steps to create a listing and complete a security review. “There’s always people available if you have any questions,” Ariel says. “I never would’ve thought that I could have created an app, and now I have one that’s out there that can help a lot of people,” she says, “it’s a great feeling.”

Links:

• Transition Helper for Salesforce Lightning

Social:

• Ariel: @Ariel_Ridley
• Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns 
• Gillian: @GillianKBruce
• Mike: @MikeGerholdt