Salesforce Review: How Can a Good CRM Tool Help You in 2021?

What is salesforce?

This platform has been helping some of the very best sales teams in the world reach greatness through simple yet effective solutions. As a CRM-focused software, salesforce promises to deliver top quality, professionalism, and a huge number of features, targeted for each specific industry and type of business. 

Salesforce Pros & Cons

PROS

• It has a mobile app: Salesforce comes with a mobile app that allows your business to grow in a smart and fast manner, even when you are on the go. It can be downloaded for free from the App Store or Google Play and be used right away.
• It has a free trial: This software also provides new clients with the possibility to try its services for free as part of a 14-day trial. This trial offers all the features that you might find useful in case you are planning to become a full-time customer.
• It offers very targeted services: As part of their Customer 360 concept, all the features are split into various industries and niches so clients can go directly to what fits their goals and not get lost among features that might not be for them. 

CONS

• It takes a long time to get used to: The Salesforce software can take a long time to get used to, especially if you’re new to these CRM tools. The multitude of features can become overwhelming and a new client might easily get lost and not know where to start. 
• The dashboard can be slow at times: The tool’s whole dashboard along with its many functionalities can be very slow at times, making it impossible to work with. The problem seems to be fixing itself after a few minutes but it can still be annoying.
• The more you use it, the more expensive it gets: Another thing that clients might find discouraging is the fact that the more you use Salesforce and see results, the more expensive it gets to keep up. As your brand needs more features because it reached a higher level, you will need to pay extra to move to a more advanced plan.

Who is Salesforce Good For?

• All business types: All business types, regardless of their size, can use Salesforce to make their jobs easier and to create better connections for increased revenue. Thanks to its multi-tenant cloud computing model, all clients can be sure that their data will always stay safe and secure.
• Businesses in all industries: As I already said, thanks to the Customer 360 concept, businesses in various industries can select exactly what kind of features they need so they don’t end up paying for tools that they never use. 
• Seasoned players: Salesforce might look simple to use at a first glance but it’s not really something that a beginner could easily understand. Its large number of features and its complexity can be overwhelming for someone who has never worked with a similar tool.

Salesforce Isn’t Recommended For:

• Novice individuals: Like in the aforementioned paragraph, I wouldn’t recommend a novice to use Salesforce if they never touched a similar software before. Yes, the company does provide technical support and documentation but these do not replace actual experience in this domain.
• People looking for free CRM software: In case you want a CRM tool that is free forever, Salesforce is definitely not the one. It only has a free trial but if you want to enjoy its full benefits, you will have to pay.

Salesforce Pricing

It’s mandatory to note that this is a very small representation of the multitude of paid plans that Salesforce has. Most of them are completely customizable depending on the industry of your business and goals. Likewise, the features that these plans have can change from one to the other. In fact, those too can be customized according to your needs. 

Cancellation/Refund Policy

The Salesforce team reserves its right to modify the features of an account or terminate it altogether at any time, especially in case of a violation of rules. The company can also charge extra fees for added features. The website does not have any mentions of refunds for its clients.

Salesforce Features

Like in the case of the pricing plans, the Salesforce features are numerous and split into various industries so it would be impossible to explain each of them in this review. However, I will offer some extra details on the most important, right now.

·       Sales Cloud

Rating: 5/5

Thanks to this interesting feature, companies can now grow, expand, and also increase revenue and sales. Having the best sales instruments is mandatory and features like contact and opportunity management, sales forecasting, and mobile CRM are extremely useful. 

·       Marketing cloud

Rating: 5/5

The Salesforce marketing cloud helps businesses develop better customer relationships with the help of an e-mail, advertising, mobile, social, and interaction studio, journey builder, and many other tools meant to help you put your client first. 

·       Customer support

Rating: 5/5

Having a professional and organized customer support system means cherishing your clients. Thanks to this feature, you can offer the necessary support on any channel, use intelligent workflows, get valuable insight, and take advantage of smart productivity instruments. 

A look at the complex dashboard of Salesforce’s free trial

·       Commerce cloud

Rating: 4.9/5

This Salesforce commerce platform helps you stay one step ahead of your customers’ journeys and personalize engagement, innovate quickly, and use a smart and scalable platform that does everything for you. This feature helps you meet all of their demands and fulfill their wishes efficiently, for increased revenue. 

·       Analytics tableau

Rating: 4.8/5

This feature comes with drag-and-drop analysis, interesting visual patterns, and the possibility to integrate governance and data management. Plus, it also has AI to help you overcome obstacles and offers clients the possibility to share important data between teams for better results.

·       Learning

Rating: 5/5

Salesforce also has a learning platform called myTrailhead which aims to help teams develop and learn new skills together. All learning that is done there is custom, fun, useful, and you can always see valuable insights on what your team is doing. 

Creating new leads on Salesforce looks like this

Salesforce Automations

Salesforce has a very interesting end-to-end workflow platform called Einstein Automate which allows businesses to create, run, and manage automatic processes easily. 

• E-mail marketing automation: Salesforce offers companies the possibility to automate entire processes, including e-mails, tasks, events, API, etc. It is all done through point-and-click tools that are easily accessible and highly functional.
• Automated processes: The same platform offers the possibility to automate business processes across multiple systems as long as they are connected, and to embed workflows pretty much anywhere. 

Here is how a sample opportunity looks like

Salesforce Integrations

Probably the most important collaboration that this platform has is with Slack. This is aimed at facilitating communication and creating a smoother experience when it comes to collaboration within your company. Besides this, another prominent integration is with the MuleSoft Anypoint platform. This helps brands integrate data from any system and contains a large number of integrations as well as APIs, complete with a 30-day free trial.

How a test looks like on the MuleSoft Anypoint platform

Salesforce Alternatives

Sendinblue is a good option if you want something that is very easy to use and more focused on e-mail marketing. The lowest possible price for it is $25 per month but at this price, you get a wide range of features and tools that you can use to improve your brand. 

Omnisend is another nice alternative in case you want a platform with almost all possible features that could help a business. At a price of only $16 per month, this one is definitely worth checking out especially because it’s also very client-oriented and has a nice UI.

SendX is the option that you can go for when you are on a budget but still want a good tool. Its lowest price is only $7.49/month and is certainly a bargain considering the prices of some of its competitors that don’t offer many extra things.

Conclusion

Salesforce is truly a 360 degree CRM solution for all kinds of businesses. Its final goal is to help clients grow and increase revenue by facilitating collaboration and communication among its teams and employees. It certainly has the features to accomplish that along with a plethora of fixed or customizable plans, tailored for each type of brand and industry. I definitely recommend checking it out in case you find yourself in need of such a tool.