A high level of competition, oversaturation of the market with identical products, and growing demands of consumers dictate new conditions for business participants in the struggle for customers. In the conditions of the information society, it is quite appropriate to use modern information technologies, particularly customer relationship automation systems – CRM (Customer Relationship Management). The main goal of the CRM system is to create a single ecosystem for attracting and cooperating with customers.
Since the CRM system provides fast access to data, it becomes much easier for users to cooperate – as a result, the productivity and efficiency of some processes increase. Another strong argument in favor of CRM systems is that they are great for companies of any size and industry (real estate agencies, banks, transport companies, telecommunications companies, medical and government institutions, and many others).
Salesforce General Characteristics
Salesforce has a 20% market share in CRM systems. According to statistics, more than 150,000 companies (for example, Adidas, Schneider Electric, T-Mobile, Toyota) use Salesforce worldwide. It is a large-scale system with wide access to integrated products and flexible configuration, which makes it possible to create a suitable version for a specific user. Therefore, it is not surprising that the professional services salesforce is in high demand today.
The key features of the Salesforce service:
- Accumulates information about customers;
- Works on any device (iOS, Android);
- Provides access to numerous add-ons (using AppExchange), integrates with the call center;
- The clear and convenient interface of Salesforce Sales Cloud combines all wide functionality (sales, service, marketing promotion, relationship with the clientele, analytical data, etc.);
- Generation of leads and tracking of sources.
The technical capabilities of the Salesforce system are very broad and include co-browsing, working with payments, creating lists of tasks and schedules, receiving and sending messages, mailings by e-mail, storage, managed partner-client database with the function of joint work of an unlimited number of people, search, filter system, internal chat, customer distribution, callback function, integration with social networks, scaling, lead generation, etc.
Salesforce CRM Advantages and Disadvantages
Salesforce CRM has a number of unique advantages, among which it is important to highlight the following:
- Quick start. Salesforce gives customers a unique opportunity to launch their business in just a few days without any hardware requirements. Cloud hosting provides real-time access to data and increases business efficiency by minimizing response time;
- Business automation. Salesforce CRM makes business more efficient. Sales managers can closely monitor customers and deals, analyze all the data in detail, and adjust the sales strategy according to the received information. In addition, the system provides many opportunities for process automation;
- Flexibility. CRM design depends on specific business needs and can be adjusted for each particular business case. An administrator can easily configure it, and it does not require programming skills;
- Personal applications. CRM provides an opportunity to create any application using its own framework.
Salesforce also has some drawbacks:
- Price. The price is usually determined by taking into account the internal products selected for use, data volume, and other parameters. But for some companies, this CRM can be expensive;
- Complexity. Due to the system’s huge number of functions and possibilities, regular users need training and some time to get used to the interface. Each company that uses CRM usually conducts special training for employees to give them the necessary skills to use CRM successfully.
Top 5 Salesforce Software for Business
Salesforce is a comprehensive business automation platform, so it represents a complex of useful software for solving various business tasks:
- Community Cloud is a platform for interaction that ensures access to the information requested. It allows to create offices and portals for customers, partners, and employees, as well as provides them with the information they need to create support service requests, make orders, and resolve issues;
- Service Cloud is a customer service platform. It provides clients with a maximum of communication channels, convenient tools for analyzing the effectiveness of service processes;
- Sales Cloud is a sales management platform. You can use it to manage your business online from any device, interact with customers more effectively, analyze sales, record tasks, conduct activities, receive messages, make online reports, etc.;
- Marketing Cloud is a marketing automation platform. It evaluates the effectiveness of various customer engagement channels, gets detailed information about potential customers, as well as analyzes the target audience;
- Commerce Cloud is a cloud commerce platform that enables buyers to make purchases from websites, social networks, and mobile phones. It receives complete information about buyers’ actions and orders, using modern AI capabilities for personalized sales.
As we can see, Salesforce software is quite diverse and profitable for businesses. It automates many business processes and takes the company to a whole new level.
Conclusion
Therefore, Salesforce is rightfully called one of the most powerful CRM platforms in the modern market. It runs in the cloud and allows businesses to optimize marketing, sales, and communications, as well as improve customer experience. The important feature of this CRM is that it can bring benefits to almost any organization – from customer service and sales to marketing, recruiting, etc.
Salesforce CRM provides functionality with countless ways to grow and evolve business relationship management strategy. Storing all customer data in one place, detecting service issues, and determining sales opportunities are just some of the unique features that Salesforce offers. Try it and see for yourself!
Sharon Howe is a creative person with diverse talents. She writes engaging articles for WonderWorldSpace.com, where she works as a content writer. Writing allows Sharon to inform and captivate readers. Additionally, Sharon pursues music as a hobby, which allows her to showcase her artistic abilities in another creative area.