What is Salesforce?
Salesforce is a customer relationship management (CRM) tool that employs cloud-based features in helping businesses deeply understand their customers and ultimately drive more sales. Salesforce Inc., a well-known American firm, is the brain behind this technology.
A customer relationship management CRM) tool, such as Salesforce, is a software businesses use to manage their employees and other aspects of their businesses, including business planning, customer interaction, marketing, lead generation, and sales. Broadly speaking, a CRM refers to both the tool and strategy used to collate customer data from various sources, including emails, websites, and social media. Companies require such information for analyzing and understanding the needs of their customers, encompassing current and potential customers. Initially, companies lacked the resources to access this kind of information, so they had to make do with the idea of a stereotyped customer, which wasn’t very effective. However, businesses have come a long way from using manually inputted data in ledgers to using cloud-based technologies that automate every aspect of their business operations.
CRM aims to ensure customer satisfaction, naturally translating to the growth of a business. This tool helps track the journey of obtaining a customer, from the marketing and sales phases to the customer service and support phases. CRM aids in curating every needed information about a customer, even when they’re still potential customers. It is also useful for maintaining day-to-day activities and communications among your team members. According to research, about 65% of companies invest in CRM within the first five years of operation. Therefore, these technologies are becoming an indispensable business asset because they focus on the core of your business – your customers.
Salesforce represents a carefully designed CRM software to improve marketing, sales, and customer service. It brings various teams together by providing a complete and unified view of customer data using the Customer 360 CRM platform. Salesforce also provides a vast collection of systems, including apps, community, sales, service, data, and analytics that are capable of serving hundreds of thousands of customers.
Salesforce
What popular features do you get with Salesforce?
- Chatter application for discussions
- Availability of mobile app
- Inclusive marketplace known as AppExchange
- Task management
- Leads progression tracking
- Framework for easy app building
- Collaboration with Microsoft Outlook
- Branded email templates
- Automation of certain actions
- Information aggregation on “dashboards.”
- Data to estimate sales revenue
- Provision of a customer support portal
Customer Support is available at Salesforce
Salesforce incorporates the use of various services. They include:
1. PaaS (Platform as a Service)
Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a cloud computing service that provides users with software and hardware framework to create applications and websites of their own. For instance, the Salesforce Lightning Platform.
2. SaaS (Software as a Service)
Software as a Service (SaaS), similarly known as web-based software, is a software deployment model provided by cloud service providers that makes cloud applications available to users. With SaaS, you gain seamless access to a software via the internet without needing installation.
3. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a medium through which IT professionals make available their resources, including storage and servers, to customers on a pay-as-you-go basis. It is a backend infrastructure for managing apps in the cloud.
Salesforce also has a wide variety of cloud services designed for different aspects of an organization. Some of them are sales cloud, IoT cloud, analytics cloud, service cloud, and marketing cloud.
What kind of business is Salesforce ideal for?
It is safe to say that Salesforce is ideal for all business sizes. It has the resources to accommodate small, medium, and large-scale businesses. Salesforce Inc. understood that the software might be a bit complex for small and midsize businesses (SMBs), so they created the “Essentials” plan. This plan is cost-effective and a good investment for small and medium-scale companies, giving them access to offerings such as Trailhead, AppExchange, and Salesforce Lightning.
Also, regardless of what industry your business falls under, you can leverage Salesforce and see impressive improvement in your performance. This CRM can be used by firms in the healthcare, media, retail, financial, education, transportation, and hospitality industries, among others.
Pros and Cons
- A strong selling point of Salesforce is its scalability. It influences a business’s growth with its automation tools and has the resources to keep up.
- Salesforce provides a broad range of services, featuring three distinct types of cloud computing: SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS.
- Its security is top-tier as it incorporates MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) and SSL (Secure Socket Layer).
- This software incorporates several third-party apps, including LinkedIn, Dropbox, and MailChimp.
- You have to pay extra for add-ons to enjoy the software fully.
- It may be too complex for small businesses.
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How much does Salesforce cost?
*based on information provided by the vendor. Actual cost may vary.
The amount you would have to pay for access to this software largely varies based on the plan you select, the number of people that would have to use it, and the information provided by the vendor. Therefore, investing in Salesforce is pricey but worthwhile. You may want to see that for yourself, so a 30-day free trial is available.
Salesforce has several products available for subscription. Here, we will be providing the prices for Salesforce CRM tool:
$25 for the Essentials Plan
The Essentials plan is the starting price that gets you access to the Salesforce CRM tool. This plan is suitable for small businesses as it offers lead and opportunity management, including opportunity for ten users.
$75 for the Professional Plan
This plan is an upgrade of Salesforce Essentials. With it, you can access more features such as lead and opportunity management, forecasting, and lead scoring. From here on, the plan can be used by an unlimited number of people.
$150 for the Enterprise Plan
Using this plan, you have access to a lot more than you do with the Professional plan. More features include sales console apps, opportunity splits, advanced reporting, sales team collaboration, and unlimited number of users.
$300 for the Unlimited Plan
With this plan, you have everything in the enterprise plan with the added feature of 24/7 customer support and unlimited number of users.
The Essential plan is an excellent choice for small businesses. However, when your business begins scaling, you may need advanced features you can’t access using the Essential plan, making it necessary to go for a higher plan.
The Sales CRM is Salesforce’s most popular product. However, there are plans for other products if you decide to go for them. Other popular products include Service and Pardot; these products work well with Salesforce CRM to deliver better results. The starting prices for Service and Pardot are $25 and $1,250, respectively.
Have it at the back of your mind that these are the monthly prices and users are billed annually where the price would have snowballed into quite the sum, especially if you want it to be used by a team. Nonetheless, you can be sure you will see the impacts of these technologies on your business operations.
Salesforce features several add-ons and applications to help you get the most out of its software. To find suitable products for your company and to know about the extra fees you may incur, you can reach them at 1-800-667-6389.
Final thoughts...
Technological improvement has led to the indispensability of cloud computing. Salesforce has made a name for itself in the world of cloud computing providers, emerging as the top global cloud computing organization. Depending on your budget, it may not be the right option for your business. But if you can afford it, you will enjoy their quality services and definitely see the impact on your business operations and revenues. If there are things you need clarity on, visit the Salesforce website.
