Cloud-based CRM & Sales Automation
4.3/5 (12216 reviews)Salesforce CRM (Sales Cloud) puts everything you need at your fingertips — from anywhere. From Social accounts and contacts to Mobile, Chatter, and Analytics, collaboration across your global organization and getting deals done faster is not only possible, it's easy.
Pros
The reporting capabilities of SalesForce, especially now that they have switched over to the new Lightning experience, are a great asset for companies looking to track business development activities. Sales funnel reporting, gain-loss reports, call/meeting/email recaps, project lists, budgeting and customer contacts - SalesForce is your "one stop shop" for all of these reporting functions! My team has also loved having the ability to sign up for monthly emails that are based off of reports they have set up within SalesForce. This allows them to track any progress, trends or issues that need to be addressed upfront. My team has also enjoyed the email campaign tracking, which works in conjunction with the Pardot platform.
Cons
SalesForce is not an intuitive software to use and is not easily learned by all members of my team. This is what I like least about the software. Beyond that, customer support has been less than helpful. My team and I have often had to do our own research on Google and YouTube for solutions to problems the SalesForce Customer Service could not help us with. This platform takes a considerable amount of training to really be able to grasp its reporting and data entry capabilities. Beyond that, this product is not cheap! It is worth the investment for larger organizations, but I am not sure it is worth the cost for smaller companies.
It monitors our hopefuls and customers discourses over some stretch of time which causes us return from where the last discussion had finished. A decent record data also with 360-perspective on data. Devices work quite a bit of some acclaimed person to person communication destinations and could be considered as a simple exploring stage.
Pros
A stage that offers deals the board, client administration, showcasing robotization and accomplice relationship the executives. It is a c cloud-based CRM arrangement, Salesforce gives you anyplace, whenever, access to your business information, even from cell phones. This stage helped us streamline our procedure and logged our discussion with every one of our customers/applicants monitoring the discourse history and knowing where we left at. It has a decent contact the board framework that enables the clients to store significantly more data like record/customer subtleties, addresses, other accessible data which permits a decent record information review. The Dashboard is adaptable and can fit to what their customer needs and requires for the particular procedure. It's a simple to explore programming particularly for the individuals who had been into cloud-based stage previously.
Cons
The multifaceted nature of its highlights here and there are not being depleted/augmented by little scale organizations and could get overpowering now and again. Evaluating might be somewhat high for a little organization particularly on the off chance that they need something that is progressively adaptable. For our group, it took us some time to explore the stage completely and consider was on the most proficient method to tweak the stage dependent on our necessities. Recognizing what is as of now accessible for us and what can be considered for what's to come is something that we get to profound plunge through the span of months and a great deal of cooperation and discussion with the group. Announcing issues may be somewhat hard as far as realizing who is responsible for certain specialized glitch if its Salesforce people themselves or some application that connects to it.
We used Salesforce to be our CRM and Professional Services Automation (PSA) system. We custom-built the PSA, but the CRM piece was mostly Salesforce out-of-the-box.
Ultimately, if you can figure how to keep your licensing and other add-in costs in check, then Salesforce can be the right tool for you. Otherwise, you may find what we found, which is that Salesforce's continual cost increases eventually cause the platform to lose its ROI. We ultimately switched from Salesforce to Microsoft Dynamics 365 after Salesforce continually and forcibly raised their costs beyond our ROI threshold. The system was functionally fine, but the annual costs had simply become too much.
Pros
As a CRM platform, it's everything you could ask for. Also, its AppStore is top notch. From a functionality perspective, you cannot go wrong with Salesforce. Also, as one of the biggest and most widespread platforms, there are plenty of Salesforce resources out there, so there is no shortage of help available should you need it. If you are a small non-profit particularly, Salesforce can be an incredible resource as your first 10 licenses are free (as long as you qualify as a non-profit with Salesforce)
Cons
If you are a for-profit firm, be aware that Salesforce builds in an annual 7% licensing cost increase into it's contracts. As a result, you will be continually negotiating and re-negotiating with them to keep licensing costs reasonable. Even then, Salesforce will continually look to increase your spend with them. Their sales teams/account managers can be very aggressive and a lot of things you may want or need will cost you extra. They're also continually rotating their account managers. This can be very frustrating as a customer because just when you feel that you've built a good relationship with your account manager, Salesforce will switch people on you and then you have to work to rebuild a new relationship.
My current company had been using Constant Contact before I arrived, and it was poorly managed... a huge mess, even... partially due to the staff being unable to coordinate, and partially because the software was a bit clunky. I was brought on during the SalesForce onboarding process, and 36 months later, with very little management efforts from our marketing/BD staff, our data is standardized, uniform, and easily accessible. Emails are scheduled to go out once a week, months in advance, based on templates first developed by our onboarding process, and we have been able to shift our marketing staff to more analytical projects that have given us the edge we needed to be on track to make our profit-sharing bonus numbers for the first time in years.
Pros
The ability to customize really makes SalesForce its own beast. I've worked for two companies that have used the software, and both looked very different, yet still intuitively the same. I like that if there isn't currently a solution for you, there are add-ons and plug-ins that can be fitted into your experience to make it an extremely tailored solution for a wide range of companies. Not only that, the customer support staff have some great tools at their disposal that give you an even deeper dimension of control, should you be unable to quite round the edges for your perfect fit. I like the seamless integration with Pardot. In addition, with Pardot's automation platform, you can literally save hours' worth of work as contact/prospect data can sync in nearly realtime, depending on the rules you've set up. If all this sounds perplexing, don't worry too much, as Salesforce has an amazing onboarding team that will work with your designated admin staff to utilize most of the software package from nearly any education/experience level.
Cons
There are some frustrating limitations with reporting in Pardot, and sometimes SalesForce integration with plug-ins can be a bit of a hassle if they weren't set up during the initial onboarding, but overall these are speedbumps at worst and don't detract from the overall experience enough to really worry about.
Salesforce has been the single most valuable tool for us in tracking prospective students through a funnel, communicating with them across channels and tying together the rest of our marketing stack.
We use the Higher Education Data Architecture platform on an Enterprise level instance of Salesforce through Salesforce's philanthropic Power of Us program. As a small, private religious institution of higher education, we need a CRM that allows us to customize contact profiles to an unusual degree, as well as automating basic tasks and integrating with our various other communication and tracking platforms.
Salesforce offers us unparalleled customization and allows us to combine analytics on mass emails, texts and website visits from our automation platform with individual emails, SMS, notes and phone call logs. We can analyze data not just about locations and high schools, but also about churches and youth conferences. It's also a useful tool for communication, and has a terrific integration with Twilio for 1-to-1 SMS conversations.
We've found that the learning curve on Salesforce is steep. We took care of onboarding, set-up and training ourselves in order to save money on the fees, and have regretted it. I would strongly recommend getting professional help to tailor the platform to your needs from the outset.
Based on my experience, I would recommend Salesforce to anyone looking for a powerful CRM product.
Pros
It can be customized to fit almost any use-case
Support is helpful and enthusiastic
It has a vast range of features
The extensive training available in Trailhead
Reporting capabilities are deep
Importing records is fairly simple
It has a massive range of integrations with other software and services
No automatic email reply capture
Cons
The learning curve is steep
It's incredibly complex, and it can be difficult to fully take advantage of it
It's hard to take advantage of some functionality without spending money on other solutions
Some simple functions are tedious to perform
The interface isn't always intuitive
Switching between Lightning Mode and Classic Mode to perform tasks is annoying
Basic sales and marketing for up to 5 users
$25
/user/month*
(billed annually)
Complete CRM for any size team
$65
/user/month*
(billed annually)
Deeply customizable CRM for your business
$125
/user/month*
(billed annually)
Unlimited CRM power and support
$250
/user/month*
(billed annually)
- Super-charge your sales
- Deliver amazing service
- Join all the important conversations
- Build custom apps and sites
- Collaboration across your global organization
- Mobile: Anywhere access to the live data you need
- Get insights you need to make smarter decisions.
As one of the largest and most well known CRM solutions on the marketplace, Salesforce is highly regarded thanks to its suite of tools designed to help businesses sell more and grow faster. Salesforce has introduced hundreds of features that give professional users ways to connect with leads, accounts, contacts, and important business information all from within a unified web-based system.
Designed for sales, service, and marketing professionals, Salesforce runs on the Salesforce1 Platform. Regardless of the device they are using, professionals are able to log calls, respond to sales leads, track ongoing opportunities, and check dashboard statistics. Salesforce also providers its users with strategic ways to collaborate with teammates in real-time.
At the heart of Salesforce is a CRM solution that provides ways for professionals to successfully manage their relationships with customers. Salesforce provides tools for learning about customer behaviors, which in turn help businesses develop healthier, stronger, longer-lasting relationships with their most important customers.
Over the years, Salesforce has branched out. It now provides users with advanced features that go outside those of a traditional CRM solution. For example, Salesforce now offers social media and social enterprise elements within its cloud-based business application. Mobile, Chatter, and Analytics features are just a few of the benefits that Salesforce provides.
Using lead scores, sales teams can follow up with their highest impact leads, while their marketing teams take the time to learn which campaigns are leading to the best results for their companies.
Through the Leads tab, you can get a complete view of all of your most recent sales leads. Click on any lead for more detailed information, and collaborate with colleagues to reel in leads and close more sales. Salesforce allows you to work as a team, and it gives your bosses (such as VPs and CMOs) a better feel for how the sales pipeline is actually flowing.
Using Salesforce’s forecasting tools, businesses are able to plan and predict sales cycles. Collaborative Forecasts are also useful for managing sales expectations.
As an account administrator, you are able to create up to four different types of forecasts for your organization. Switch between forecast types by clicking on the titles. You can also view forecasts and related opportunities by forecast category. For example, if your company uses product families, then you can see forecast summaries for each product family that you use.
Sales and marketing professionals who use Salesforce are able to connect with their teams through the solution’s enterprise social network, Chatter. Using Chatter, teams can communicate and work more efficiently by utilizing social feeds.
Feeds sit at the heart of Chatter, providing you with a straightforward way to keep up with projects, topics, and teams from within a collaborative environment. In addition to providing you with a method for easily communicating with colleagues, Chatter also finds the information and experts you need. The enterprise social network recommends relevant contacts and files based on the deal or case you’re working on right now.
With Sales Cloud, users are able to find their best sales leads and get complete and accurate contact information for thousands of companies. Companies can align their sales and marketing managers around the same leads and opportunity pipelines, and they can connect with new accounts to close more deals in minutes rather than hours.
Find useful contacts based on keyword searches for any company or website, and get up-to-date company profiles courtesy of Dun & Bradstreet. Leads are automatically routed to Salesforce users, and scheduling time to qualify leads is a straightforward process through the integrated calendar system.
Salesforce provides professionals with the ability to close deals from anywhere. Download Salesforce’s apps to a mobile device, and you can stay on top of the latest information.
Open the Salesforce app to get a 360-degree view of your upcoming day, or to dial into a call with your team or an important client. Using Salesforce on mobile, you’re able to get real-time insight into your pipeline and your current ranking on the sales leader board. You can also get answers from teammates before company meetings, and keep your entire team in-sync when it comes to important contact details.
Salesforce integrates with more than 50 popular business apps, including (but not limited to) Kayako, JIRA, Intacct, HappyFox, and SurveyGizmo. Through the Customer Platform, Salesforce has made new APIs and tools available to enable businesses to build connected apps that integrate with the Salesforce platform, as well.
Pricing for the Sales Cloud starts at $5 per user, per month (for the Contact Manager plan), and ranges all the way to $300 per user, per month (for the Performance plan). The company’s most popular plan is the Professional plan, which costs $65 per user, per month.
Most well-known CRM solution in the marketplace
Helps businesses sell more and grow faster
Connect with leads, accounts, contacts, and business information
Collaborate with teammates in real-time
Mobile tools for staying connected
Below are some frequently asked questions for Salesforce Sales Cloud.
Salesforce Sales Cloud offers the following pricing plans:
Starting from: US$25.00/month
Pricing model: Subscription
Free Trial: Available
Basic sales and marketing for up to 5 users
$25
/user/month*
(billed annually)
Complete CRM for any size team
$65
/user/month*
(billed annually)
Deeply customizable CRM for your business
$125
/user/month*
(billed annually)
Unlimited CRM power and support
$250
/user/month*
(billed annually)
Salesforce Sales Cloud offers the following features:
Salesforce Sales Cloud has the following typical customers:
Large Enterprises, Mid Size Business, Small Business
Salesforce Sales Cloud supports the following languages:
English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish
Salesforce Sales Cloud has the following pricing plans:
Subscription
Salesforce Sales Cloud supports the following devices:
Android, iPhone, iPad
Salesforce Sales Cloud integrates with the following applications:
Birst, CogniDox, Gold Lasso, Intellect, InterWeave Smart Payment Gateway, Nirvaha Commissions, O2B, Sofon Guided Solutions, SurveyGizmo, TeamSupport
Salesforce Sales Cloud offers the following support options:
FAQs, Forum, Knowledge Base, Online Support, Phone Support, Video Tutorials
If you or your team does not have the time to fully invest in training and learning the platform to a deep extent, than this software would be a waste for you. I would recommend speaking with a SalesForce consultant about the different reporting, campaigning, sales, etc. capabilities before making the investment. Though the Customer Support side of SalesForce, in terms of issue resolution, have not been helpful, the SalesForce sales team is very knowledgeable and give honest opinions on what different functions, plans, etc. they would recommend to fit your specific needs. The sales team has actually saved us money by showing us how to more efficiently manage our plan with them.