Salesforce is a CRM software solution that helps companies sell more products and services. It’s easy to use, reliable, and integrates with other tools in your business. We review Salesforce here at Review Signal to find the best option for your company. Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management and sales force automation software. It was founded in 1999 by the Parker brothers, and it has since grown to be one of the most widely used CRM platforms in the world. Salesforce is also considered as Gartner’s top competitor for CRM systems. Salesforce is one of those rare jack-of-all-trades companies that can do it all. A single platform can accomplish a lot for every aspect of customer relationship management (CRM), including sales, service, marketing, commerce, and IT. It’s not just versatile, but it’s also highly configurable and designed with industry-leading technologies.
On the other hand, Salesforce may be either intimidating or empowering, depending on the size and volume of your company’s sales. So which is the best option for you? There’s a lot I could say about this CRM since there’s so much you can do with it, but I’ll keep it simple and focus on what you need to know to determine whether it’s perfect for your company.
Pros and Cons of Salesforce
Pros
- Completely cloud-based
- Accessible from a mobile device
- Customization using a few lines of code
- Education is provided free of charge.
- Built-in safety features
- AI-powered
- Extremely adaptable
- Analyses in depth
Cons
- Expensive in comparison
- Implementation is difficult.
- Inconsistent assistance
How Does Salesforce Measure Up to Other CRM Software?
Salesforce has been awarded the #1 CRM supplier by IDC and acknowledged by Gartner as a leader in sales automation software. Over 150,000 enterprises use it. It’s one of the most widely used CRM programs on the market. It’s not a one-of-a-kind situation. Account administration, data organization and storage, basic operations like making quotations, order processing, and reporting are all things that Salesforce’s rivals can perform. The innovative technology intended for speed and company success sets Salesforce different from the competition. Salesforce is cloud-based, making it simpler to use on the move and with third-party products than its rivals, which bundle comparable sales, marketing, and service solutions under one roof. It’s also nearly absurdly expandable and customizable.
It also places a strong focus on automation and predictive analytics, relying on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to power a suite of tools dubbed Einstein, which analyzes all of your information to spot patterns, make predictions, and suggest following actions. Intelligent monitoring ensures that no contact falls between the cracks, that you realize which transactions need the most excellent attention, and that you follow up promptly.
Other CRMs offer AI features, but Salesforce is the most powerful by far. It’s tempting to become excessively raved about all the excellent stuff you never knew existed if you’re upgrading from spreadsheets and manual recordkeeping.
However, you don’t want to take the risk of purchasing more than you need or entering the market without a strategy for adequately utilizing what you are buying. According to research, most firms only use a quarter of their CRM’s capacity, and Salesforce is no exception. There are a few things to keep in mind:
- Salesforce can expand to fit any size organization, but it may be inconvenient and too feature-rich for small businesses. This solution is best suited for established sales firms that send hundreds of daily estimates.
- Many criticisms regarding the platform center on its implementation and acceptance. Salesforce may provide a lot of value if used correctly. However, when misused, the platform may be expensive to manage, much like deadly equipment in the wrong hands. For Salesforce to pay off, you’ll need knowledgeable administrators and the ability to get your users excited about it.
- The learning curve for newcomers may be considerable. Although Salesforce provides a wealth of free materials and certification chances, some customers claim that getting answers via Facebook groups or StackExchange is faster.
Salesforce might rapidly seem like more of an expense than an investment. If you’re looking for a no-frills CRM, you can get started fast and use it for just the fundamentals. In that situation, I’d suggest a lighter-weight CRM like HubSpot, which is the #1 CRM we recommend for the majority of individuals. Our Hubspot and seven other top CRM reviews can be found here. Salesforce is, without question, a fantastic option if you want to use Salesforce’s features fully and have the devoted resources to install them (more on that later when we discuss team size capabilities). Keep in mind that this isn’t simply a CRM. When you purchase Salesforce, you become part of a community of like-minded individuals dedicated to company success, digital transformation, and revolutionizing their industries. They believe in the vision Salesforce promotes. It’s similar to Peloton in that it’s not cheap, but you’re paying a premium to be a part of a community. If you believe in the Salesforce goal and are determined to make the most of its capabilities to assure a return on investment and company success, it’s worth the money. Be reasonable, and if in doubt, try the free trial. Meanwhile, here’s a rundown of the features you should consider when evaluating a CRM, as well as how Salesforce compares.
Capabilities of Salesforce Teams of Various Sizes
In general, the CRM you pick will be influenced by the size of your company and workforce. They tend to specialize in one field or another, even with tiered pricing for various-sized enterprises. Salesforce does provide scalable solutions for any size team. However, it makes tremendous sense for businesses, in my view. Salesforce focuses on capabilities most appropriate to corporate use cases, and I’d suggest HubSpot to small firms with fewer resources than I’d recommend. As I previously said, dedicated administrators are almost needed to deploy Salesforce. You’ll need someone on your team who understands how to use its sophisticated capabilities. And by sales expert, we mean someone who understands technology but not how to improve sales and marketing. Salesforce can be learned, but the learning curve might be harsh for specific organizations.
Capabilities of Salesforce CRM
Some CRMs are specialized in one or more categories. Others pool their resources onto a single platform. Salesforce elevates the latter to new heights. Whatever CRM area you’re looking for, Salesforce has it covered. In addition, Salesforce can customize the platform in any manner you can imagine.
On each kind of record, you may personalize anything from the phases of your sales to email layouts to automation rules (follow-up tasks, reminders, etc.). Edit your dashboard to clear the clutter, emphasize the most critical information, and direct your sales team to the best next steps. You can slice and dice your data in any manner you like. When it comes to reporting, Salesforce is the undisputed leader. It’s about as advanced as it gets when it comes to data visualization and sales forecasting. And it’s all contained inside a single structure. Salesforce was designed to be your one source of truth for all things CRM.
Integrations with Salesforce
It’s critical to seek CRM software that connects with the tools and systems you currently use, and here is where the rubber meets the road for many Salesforce customers. Thousands of pre-integrated applications are available in its integration marketplace, AppExchange, that you can add into your SF system to augment it with more sophisticated features or expedite operations. It includes everything from Outlook/Gmail plugins for automatically logging emails and meetings to QuickBooks for expenditure management and SAP for corporate resource planning.
Salesforce consulting partners are also available via AppExchange to assist with the setup of these connections. Because Salesforce is cloud-based, it connects easily with your applications and syncs your data in real-time, ensuring that all of your systems are up to date.
Pricing for Salesforce
Salesforce, like other CRMs, charges per user, with prices ranging from $25 per person per month for the Essentials plan to $150 or $300 per user per month for the Premium plan.
When compared to HubSpot, which has a free basic plan that goes above and beyond what you’d usually receive for free, consider that the $150 per user Enterprise version is most equivalent (in terms of features and capabilities) to the $95 per user per month Microsoft Dynamics Customer Engagement Enterprise edition. Nonetheless, Sales Cloud, the company’s CRM solution, has some of the most comprehensive plans on the market. Even the Essentials and Professional subscriptions are sufficient for most firms, and add-ons like CPQ, Einstein, and Pardot, Salesforce’s B2B marketing automation tool, may be added. I admire Salesforce for going to such an extent to create your custom solution. If you’re not sure, give the platform a try—the free trial gives you a taste of all the features and is open to anybody on your team.
360-degree customer service from Salesforce
Let’s dig into the specifics of Salesforce’s Customer 360 set of CRM tools. Because it’s meant to give a comprehensive 360-degree perspective of the consumer, it’s termed 360. Salesforce is a software platform that combines numerous products to serve all company parts. And it saves all customer data in one place—who they are, what they’ve bought, recent interactions, transactions in the works—across all CRM categories you can think of. There’s no need to go through various systems to find what you’re looking for. Instead, these categories create solutions depending on the kind of company, role, industry, or requirement. For the sake of this piece, I’ll compare Salesforce’s features to those of rival CRM systems for three fundamental CRM needs: sales, service, and marketing. After that, I’ll give you a summary of the other Customer 360 products.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is a sales platform from Salesforce.
In my view, Salesforce’s Sales Cloud is its most excellent offering. It manages and optimizes the whole sales process, from lead creation to follow-up, and provides reminders and suggestions along the way. Leads are converted into accounts, contacts, or opportunities in Sales Cloud. In Salesforce, “opportunities” maintain track of which references are engaged in a transaction, what role they play, what they’ve done, and what has to happen next for sales to close. Meanwhile, Salesforce’s Einstein AI will follow a lead’s origin, rate it, and utilize that information to determine the following actions and the ideal time to take them. When a salesperson is ready to follow up on a lead, they have all the information they need. It all culminates in powerful dashboards that let customers do anything from creating bespoke forecasting reports to monitoring team success. All of this is carried over to Salesforce’s mobile app, which makes logging, visualizing, and sharing sales data between meetings or on the move a breeze.
Salesforce Service Cloud is a cloud-based customer service platform.
Supporting consumers across numerous channels—email, phone, SMS, or the web—can be difficult for many businesses. Consider how many support causes you’re handling each day and across how many different systems you’re dealing with. This is a significant issue that Service Cloud excels at resolving. Its focus on multichannel communication makes it easier to engage clients via their chosen channels. You may also create self-service client portals and monitor and react to any internet mentions of your company. Direct touch with clients is immediately recorded. In addition, service Cloud assigns problems to the most appropriate person or team based on their importance. And regardless of source, you’ll be able to access all support cases and customer information in one spot. The objective is to reduce the time it takes to settle each issue, and Service Cloud is particularly valuable since it offers ideas and automatic solutions for various outcomes.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a tool for marketing.
Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud is a platform for creating, monitoring, and improving customer journeys. You can even generate content inside Salesforce using its numerous production studios, such as Social Studio, which allows you to write, schedule, and analyze social posts, and Email Studio, which will enable you to design and deliver email blasts. In addition, Salesforce Pardot, an application that integrates sales and marketing data in one platform to align sales and marketing for improved decision making, enables B2B marketing automation. Marketing, for example, may use helpful information about sales to analyze their influence on revenue and better manage the budget—which leads are most likely to purchase, what material was most beneficial, and what more was required to clinch the deal. All Salesforce products are designed to work together seamlessly for enhanced collaboration and decision-making.
Salesforce’s Other Products
You may customize your solution even further by combining any of the other Customer 360 services:
- Commerce Cloud: B2B and B2C cloud-based commerce solutions
- Analytics Cloud: Gain powerful insights from any data in your CRM process with the Analytics Cloud.
- MuleSoft is a major integration platform connecting applications and data to Salesforce without writing code.
- Salesforce’s PaaS (platform as a service) solution for developing and testing cloud apps.
- Work.com is a Covid response solution for promptly and safely restarting a business.
- Trailhead is a Salesforce-integrated gamified learning tool that helps users develop employable skills.
- Salesforce Anywhere provides sales and support teams with real-time notifications and collaboration features.
- Success Plans and Advisory Services: Plans from category specialists for various degrees of help.
Conclusion
Salesforce is a solid solution that we would recommend to most businesses, but it isn’t suitable for everyone. The price premium is well worth it if you’re a company with extensive sales, marketing, and operations demands. Otherwise, it can be too costly to put it in place, maintain it, and pay for it every year. Instead, look for something easy to operate out-of-the-box, like HubSpot, unless your sales organization can benefit from its sophisticated capabilities or community resources. Salesforce is a cloud-based CRM software that allows users to manage their sales funnel. It has been compared to other technologies such as HubSpot, Marketo, and Pipedrive.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes Salesforce stand out?
A: Salesforce is a CRM software that helps companies manage their customers, prospects, leads, and more. The platform offers various features to assist with marketing automation, lead scoring, and workforce management.
Why is Salesforce bad?
A: Salesforce is a website where you can log in and work with your data. It offers features like CRM, Customer Service Portal, Social Media Marketing Integration, Email Automation, etc. The downside to it being free at the moment is that they are likely tracking every action on their site, which could be potentially harmful to users’ privacy.
Why has Salesforce been so successful?
A: Salesforce has been successful due to its automation levels and business intelligence features. They have a large community that helps them achieve this and be easy for customers to use.
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