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Salesforce has long been the CRM solution to beat. This pioneering platform excels with a stellar feature set as well as an ever-widening set of innovations, including AI, and ease of interoperability with a long list of Salesforce partners.
WHAT WE LIKE
- Tons of convenient integrations
- The most popular CRM platform
- Tools for each part of your business
COULD BE BETTER
- Pricey if you want a lot of features
- Time consuming and confusing interface
SCORE
- Ease of Use 9.2/10
- Support 9.3/10
- Pricing 9.2/10
- Features 9.9/10
What is Salesforce?
Salesforce CRM is an award-winning solution created by Salesforce as part of its extensive sales and marketing solutions under the Salesforce brand including separate systems for: Analytics, Marketing, Service, and Community Cloud. Powered by automation, sales representatives can maximize CRM data to highlight top leads and determine the separation between deals lost and won.
As a CRM, the software helps you to track all customer information and interactions in one location to follow more leads. The Lead Management, Marketing Automation, Sales Data, and Partner Management apps let you follow these leads until they are ready for conversion.
The software can also increase the sales team’s productivity whether they’re on location, at the office, or in cyberspace. It has a mobile app for Android and iOS devices featuring real-time data from dashboards and custom reports, plus a Feed First feature that lets you see the most important information based on your settings at a glance. Likewise, you can add more functions and tools from a long list of apps in the AppExchange. Salesforce Sales Cloud also allows you to get insights from varied, real-time customer data. Creating critical reports, sales forecasts, and territory models are accomplished with ease in the platform.
To give you more flexibility, Salesforce Sales Cloud integrates with external business solutions, such as: Desk.com, TeamSupport, LeadExec, FinancialForce ERP, Ambassador, Zuora, Zendesk, and other major CRM, sales, and accounting solutions.
Is Salesforce right for your business?
Let’s make one thing clear: Salesforce provides more than you’ll ever need. That is their major downfall. The one thing I did not like about Salesforce is the confusion when it comes to understanding what they provide with each package. Many users cite the same issues, and that is what generally turns them off from the service.
That said, if you’re looking for any of the following, you’ll likely feel right at home with Salesforce.
- A complete business CRM
- A “drag-and-drop” features style
- Seamless imports from other software
- Complex data and analytics
- Advanced training
Overview of Salesforce Features
- Account and contact management
- Opportunity management and score
- Lead management
- Sales data
- File sync
- File sharing
- Sales forecasting
- Salesforce mobile app
- Contact manager
- Real-time visibility
- Drag-and-drop interface
- Dashboards
- Visual workflow
- Multi-currency support
- In-line editing
- Lead assignment and routing
- Rules-based lead scoring
- Einstein lead scoring
- Web-to-lead capture
- Campaign management
- Duplicate blocking
- Mass email
- Salesforce engage
- Email templates
- Campaign influence
- Einstein activity capture
- Calendar
- Sales console app
- Enterprise territory management
- Opportunity splits
- Salesforce CPQ and billing
- Contracts, orders, quotes, products, and price books
- Chatter, files, topics, and recommendations
- Case management
- Lightning bolt solutions
- Partner communities
- Lead registration
- Roles and permissions
- Process builder
- Lightning platform
- Web services API
- Google apps integration
- File storage per user
- Sandbox
- MuleSoft Anypoint Platform integration
Overview of Salesforce Benefits
Salesforce CRM is built to grow accounts, close deals and find customers more quickly. These are the common benefits companies experience while using Salesforce CRM to manage their customer relationships:
It lets you close more deals
Get insights like opportunities using the software’s Opportunity Management. Get a full view of the customer, such as activity history, communications, discussions, and social mentions using Contact Management. Tracking deals and looking for competitive information is easier with the Sales Collaboration module. Likewise, the Sales Performance Management lets you set metrics-based goals and amplify winning performances of sales reps to motivate a healthy competition in the team.
You can get more leads
Track clicks, create campaigns, and automate the whole process to generate quality leads and cut the sales cycle. The Lead Management, Marketing Automation, Sales Data, and Partner Management apps allow you to create a systematic pipeline from lead to conversion.
It will accelerate productivity
The mobile app for Android and iOS lets you take the software’s main functions with you, on the field or at the office. Log calls, reply to hot leads, or work opportunities in real time. The Visual Workflow also lets you to drag-and-drop business processes fast, such as, deals, discounts, expenses. You can also share and sync files and track changes in real time for faster and more productive communication between you and your team.
It lets you get more insights
See a real-time view of your sales team’s conversions to help you create adaptive weekly forecasts. Use the Reports and Dashboards to collect and accumulate data for detailed reporting and analysis. Manage territories with the right model to set boundaries and customer volume and achieve a more balanced assignments among your reps.
Technical details
| Deployment | Devices | Support |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud Hosted Open API |
Windows Linux Android iPhone/iPad Mac Web-based |
Email Tickets Live Support Training Phone |
| Customer Types | Pricing Model |
|---|---|
| Small Business Medium Business Large Enterprises |
Monthly payment Annual Subscription |
| Language Support |
|---|
| English, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Portugese, Swedish |
Salesforce Pricing Overview
| Free Trial | Essential | Professional | Enterprise | Unlimited |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| √ | $25 | $75 | $150 | $300 |
Pricing information for Pipedrive is supplied by the software provider or retrieved from publicly accessible pricing materials. Final cost negotiations to purchase Pipedrive must be conducted with the seller.
If you thought things were complicated before, we’re about to take it up a notch. At face value, Salesforce looks incredibly cheap; cheaper than you ever thought possible. Each Salesforce edition appears to have straightforward base packages that go something like this:
Salesforce Essentials
- $25/user per month
Professional
- $75/user per month
Enterprise
- $150/user per month
Unlimited
- $300/user per month
With each of these packages, you get plenty of benefits which includes most of what we’ve already talked about.
We did say most.
There are many exceptions to the rules. Just navigating through the website and pricing information makes it is clear that these prices will be for the “bare-bones” service, with many paid add-ons.
For example, if you want marketing automation to pair with your sales plans, you’ll have to pay $1,250 per month for 10,000 contacts unless you choose the Professional plan or above.
If you want to use AI and automation to determine the quality of leads and the probability of closing, you’ll have to pay an additional $50 per month unless you choose the Enterprise plan or above.
The entire pricing system is absolutely exhausting to follow, and unless you hire a lawyer to spend 40 hours reading through it, you may well end up with something you don’t need or missing something you do need.
But while this might be confusing, it is also something I like about the product — because it allows you to cater the service to exactly what you need and nothing more.
How easy is it to use?
Salesforce is a classic case of “easy to learn, difficult to master”. There are just so many options you can add to the tool, you’ll have to be careful not to over-complicating things for your team. Adding too much, too soon can demotivate the people, which will result in them not using it as much.
Here’s our tip: look at how Salesforce Essentials is setup and use that as a starting point, even if you’re using Enterprise or a higher level. Master the basics first, then customize one step at a time.
Frequently Asked Questions
What companies use Salesforce?
Salesforce is most popular among computer software companies in the United States. These companies generally have between 10-50 employees and pull in between one and 10 million in revenue. On their website, they state that companies like T-Mobile, TransAmerica, and Unilever use the CRM.
What is the programming language of Salesforce?
The majority of it uses Java.
Does Salesforce work on Mac?
As of right now, it doesn’t appear that Salesforce has tools for Mac or Apple operating systems.
Salesforce is a complete CRM that allows you to pick the features you need. Get organized with this customizable CRM that will help you close deals and generate revenue.
