Our Salesforce implementation failed. Who can fix it?
Salesforce Implementation Failed? What The Shortlist Report Finds
2 firms lead, appearing in 10.0–16.5% of 200 AI responses. The sample cannot separate them, so we do not pretend it can.
Two firms lead
Coalescence and Cloudsquare come up most often here. They are close enough together that the order between them is not worth reading anything into.
Coalescence33 of 200
Remediates failed Salesforce implementations by diagnosing root causes, stabilizing delivery, and rebuilding programs.
Cloudsquare20 of 200
Salesforce implementation partner offering fixed-price QuickStart packages and CRM migrations.
Based on 200 ChatGPT responses to this question, collected August 8, 2026–September 16, 2026. Firms are counted once per response. How we measure.
The ranking
| Firm | Responses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 2 firms, 10.0–16.5% | |||
| CoalescenceRemediates failed Salesforce implementations by diagnosing root causes, stabilizing delivery, and rebuilding programs. | 33 of 200 | 16.5% | |
| Cloudsquarecloudsquare.ioSalesforce implementation partner offering fixed-price QuickStart packages and CRM migrations. | 20 of 200 | 10.0% | |
| Tier 2 8 firms, 6.0–9.5% | |||
| ForceFolksforcefolks.comImplements CPQ, Revenue Cloud, billing, and quote-to-cash solutions with managed services for mid-market and enterprise. | 19 of 200 | 9.5% | |
| Third Stage Consultingthirdstage-consulting.comOffers CRM adoption and change-management work including readiness assessment and training. | 18 of 200 | 9.0% | |
| Accentureaccenture.comDelivers large-scale global CRM transformations with Salesforce, data, AI, and integration capabilities for Fortune 500 companies. | 17 of 200 | 8.5% | |
| Blue Engine Salesforce ConsultantsBoutique Salesforce consultant focusing on fixing, simplifying, and cleaning up existing orgs. | 16 of 200 | 8.0% | |
| CloudMasonrycloudmasonry.comProvides Salesforce implementation services focused on first-time and mid-market organizations. | 15 of 200 | 7.5% | |
| PrudentPerforms Salesforce org-health audits and modernizes over-customized orgs by remediating legacy Apex, Visualforce, and workflows. | 15 of 200 | 7.5% | |
| Slalomslalom.comHigh-touch, U.S.-based Salesforce implementations for enterprise and upper mid-market organizations. | 15 of 200 | 7.5% | |
| Blue Engine Salesforce ConsultingBoutique Salesforce optimization and rescue work for overbuilt or messy implementations. | 12 of 200 | 6.0% | |
Key findings
- Coalescence and Cloudsquare lead this sample, each named in 10.0–16.5% of 200 ChatGPT responses to the question “Our Salesforce implementation failed. Who can fix it?”, collected August 8, 2026–September 16, 2026.
- The gaps between Coalescence and Cloudsquare are inside the margin of error at 200 responses, so The Shortlist Report groups them in one tier rather than ranking them against each other.
- 10 firms cleared the reporting threshold on “Our Salesforce implementation failed. Who can fix it?” in ChatGPT as of September 16, 2026; the full table with response counts is below.
- Accenture appears in 10 of the 11 Salesforce and CRM implementation partners reports published by The Shortlist Report, the widest coverage of any firm named on this page.
- No firm paid to appear in this ranking; placement cannot be bought, and the counts come from ChatGPT responses rather than from submissions.
Why the tiers fall where they do
Tier 1 holds Coalescence and Cloudsquare, named in 20 to 33 of the 200 ChatGPT responses. They are grouped rather than ranked because the gaps between them are inside the margin of error at this sample size — one extra mention would reorder them, so an order would be reporting noise as a finding.
Tier 2 holds ForceFolks, Third Stage Consulting, Accenture, Blue Engine Salesforce Consultants, CloudMasonry, Prudent, Slalom and Blue Engine Salesforce Consulting, named in 12 to 19 of 200 responses (6.0–9.5%). The sample does separate these firms from the tier above: the difference from the leading group is larger than the margin of error, which is what puts them in a tier of their own.
The test is McNemar’s at 95%, applied against the same 200 responses for every firm. The full reasoning, and what happened when we ranked one-to-N instead.
What the sample shows
2 firms lead this question: Coalescence and Cloudsquare. They appear in 10.0–16.5% of the 200 responses. The gaps between them are inside the margin of error at this sample size, so they are listed together rather than ranked against each other.
387 firms were named at least once across the sample. 10 of them cleared the threshold of 2 responses and appear above; the rest were named once and are inside the noise.
How to read this
Firms are grouped into tiers, not ranked one to fifteen. A tier holds every firm whose 95% confidence interval overlaps the leader's, which is a long way of saying the sample cannot tell them apart. Order within a tier is arbitrary — read the counts, not the position.
Share is the percentage of responses that named the firm — not a quality score. A firm scoring low here may be excellent and simply under-written about online, which is a finding about its visibility rather than its work.
The same question was asked repeatedly because AI assistants do not answer identically twice. A single response would tell you almost nothing.
What this measurement does not tell you
- It is not a quality ranking. Share reflects how much has been written about a firm online, which is what an AI assistant reads. A capable firm nobody writes about scores low here.
- It is a reading from a date range, not a permanent standing. This sample was collected August 8, 2026–September 16, 2026; models change and so do their answers.
- It covers ChatGPT only. Other assistants answer differently, and we do not extrapolate across engines we have not measured.
- Order within a tier is arbitrary. Read the counts, not the position. Why we use tiers.
Cite this report
The Shortlist Report. (2026). Salesforce Implementation Failed? What The Shortlist Report Finds. The Shortlist Report. https://www.shortlistreport.com/article/failed-salesforce-implementation
Underlying counts: CSV · JSON. Every answer they were counted from: plain text · JSON. All reusable under CC BY 4.0 with attribution.