...

• All Contacts must belong to an Organisation - never allow private Contacts. 
• Never sync Contacts from Outlook or Google Contacts - have rules on how Contacts are created. Use Lightning Sync to sync TO Google or Outlook if you need to. 
• If you "must" have info@ email addresses for organisations, create a contact for each org named Generic Contact so you can a) spot them, and try to eradicate them and b) add them to campaigns. Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor will NOT send emails to generic email addresses. 
• Have a good Dupeblocker app or set up standard Salesforce Duplicate Management as the bare minimum.

New Salesforce Org

First things!

...

Setup

• Display Middle Name and Suffix fields in User Interface if you are going to need those fields - don't create your own. 

...

• Rename Title to Position or Job Title to not confuse it with Mr, Mrs etc.
• Rename all State/Province names to State
• Rename all Zip/Postal names to Post Code
• Rename Billing Other Address to Mailing Address and Shipping Address to Physical Address because who uses shipping except for orgs who sell widgetsPhysical Address to keep it similar to Accounts.
• Rename City to Suburb

Permissions

• Set permissions on the following fields that are not read or edit by default:
  • Do Not Call
  • Email Opt Out
  • Fax (if used)
  • Birthdate (only if needed)
  • Description
  • Informal Name (nope, you can't. Vote for this Idea).

Buttons Links Actions

• Remove Mail Merge buttons
• Remove Request Update
• Make Email the first button in Ligtning buttonsLightning buttons
• Don't add Note unless your company has made an executive decision to use and support notes. 
• Remove Printable View unless your staff have a definite need to print things. Do NOT encourage people to print data. Also, it's very ugly. 
• OR Upgrade to Dynamic Actions instead of managing on the page layouts. (Same buttons though). 

Layout

• Hide Birthdate or add it only to particular Record Types (Add fields for birth day and month is really needed. There should not be a reason to collect Birthdate - or maybe add it to the new Individual Object for GDPR Compliance). 
• Hide Assistant and Assistant Phone because if they are that important they should be separate contacts, and who really has assistants these days?Remove Last Stay In Touch... fields 
• Add Do Not Call
  
• Add Email Opt Out
• Only include one address field - or lay out the address fields above one another rather than side by side becuase because with State and Country Picklists as they are not editable in Lightning Edit page.

...

• impossible to edit if you use the Edit button. (I haven't used State and Country Picklists in a while as I find them to be more of an issue than they are worth, but useful if you are still doing mailings). 

Views

See Views

Apps

• Have a look at the new Mobile Apps coming out that allow dialling and auto popup from your mobile phone. 
• Use a Salesforce Side Panel app in Gmail or Outlook - eg Cirrus Insight or SalesforceIQ for Sales Cloud or even Lightning for or Lightning for Outlook and Lightning for Gmail are not bad now. 

Lightning Page

See also Record Page for details on setting up Lightning Record Pages.

...

• 2 buttons only shown - show all the New Record buttons then Edit - the rest of the buttons including Delete and Clone are under the dropdown. Upgrade to Dynamic Actions. 
• Compact layout shows RecordType (if applicable) and Owner

Left Column

• Details Tab only
• Related List Quick Links at the top (you may delete this if there are not many related lists or far too many related lists, it becomes overwhelming if you can't find things easily). 
  • Set the order of Related Lists on the Page Layout
  • Remove Notes and Attachments, add Files (See Files, Content, Attachments, Documents etc. You may still want Notes and Attachments if you have an old org that is not feasible to move to Notes). 
• Related Tab only with Dynamic Related List - Single or Related List - Single components, and only show the lists that you need. 
• Conditional Related Record Components or Related Lists only for key details for key staff. Eg if Marketing Staff ALWAYS need to see Campaigns details related to Contacts then put that at the top of Details and make it visible only to them. 
• Details Component below
  • Include Addresses stacked rather than side by side if using State and Country picklists as they are impossible to edit if you use the Edit button
  Then key Related Record Components such as Parent, since our hover details are so compromised now with only being able to see 4 fields as definied in the compact Laouts. 
• Then conditional Related Record Components - these are only available to System Admins. See Actions! Global and Quick Actions for details
• Other tabs for key details, charts or other Actions as required. 

...

• Indicators can be displayed first. See Actions Examples for more ideas. 
• Duplicates displayed front and centre and always in the same place as Accounts. 
• Then key Related Record Components such as Parent, since our hover details are so compromised now with only being able to see 4 fields as defined in the compact Layouts. 
• Chatter tab first. Actions Tab second. See Action Views, Tasks and Report Alerts for why!
  • Only a very few really important components should be displayed before Chatter. 
• Files (and / or Notes) below Chatter if you are going to use them exensively extensively for Contacts.  .  (Use Chatter Scrollbar AppExchange Component if your Chatter gets too long). 

Person Accounts

I don't HATE Person Accounts with a passion like others do, but I do much prefer the NPSP's way of handling individuals in Salesforce, than Person Accounts.

Story about Person Accounts and Workflows (old now, and I haven't seen if it is the same for Flows, it probably is.

See Articles

...