What is our primary use case?
We had a pretty large Salesforce deployment across our company. This deployment was for all internal customers around our globe, such as shared services and business services, which were connected with the contact centers in each region of the world (NA, LATAM, ASPAC and EMEA). Salesforce was the platform that we consolidated all our Level 1 and Level 2 processes on. We brought it together with Genesis across all call centers which integrated our platforms.
When we first did the assessment, this was at a global level. We were putting in a standardized software platform for all the corporate functions, such as HR, finance, procurement, payroll, and compliance. We standardized all their processes on Salesforce case management and knowledge management. Key day to day to day integration was required with ServiceNow and Workday and other financial systems, such as SAP. We used Salesforce as one of our enterprise platforms.
We use ServiceNow for the IT side of our operations and needed to e-bond tickets and requests across these systems
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of Salesforce Einstein Analytics is the flexibility around the deployment, overall capabilities, user-friendliness, and interactions with the tools that came built with it.
The interaction with AI for Salesforce Einstein Analytics was required for our contact agents and some of our portal capabilities. With the Bot and self-service capabilities, we built a global portal. The Salesforce Einstein Analytics and automation capabilities were key for the self-service capabilities that we were trying to deploy as part of this digital transformation. We put all of our documents in and we digitized almost all documents and put everything online. Salesforce Einstein Analytics helped in the evaluation of these solutions. It helped navigate for the end-users which were all internal. We had some external requirements as well because we ended up providing procurement and financial services for third party invoicing and procurement. Salesforce Einstein Analytics Einstein helped in the user effectiveness and efficiencies around the interactions.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Salesforce and the Einstein Analytics product for approximately two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Salesforce and Einstein Analytics is reliable, it is a strong solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Salesforce and Einstein Analytics is highly scalable across a large enterprise organization.
How was the initial setup?
Overall Salesforce and Einstein Analytics was easy to deploy. We tried to stay to the basic versions and not do too much customize. We did configuration, but we tried to stay native for most of Salesforce and Einstein Analytics.
We had a large Salesforce deployment in other areas of the company We received enterprise licensing, and we ended up having a good set of knowledge.
What about the implementation team?
We ultimately used Deloitte to do our development. Deloitte had some very strong capabilities in Salesforce, specifically around case management. They had us up and working quickly. We had a very successful deployment in Salesforce.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The biggest challenge we had was the cost and the licensing. If you are able to negotiate a Enterprise License Agreement, you should. This will remove a lot of negotiations and a lot of pressure from the deployments and ongoing support. You should be able to bundle different SalesForce products within the ELA, like Community licenses etc...
We purchased the premium support because the call center was a critical environment. We ended up getting the premium support that was built into the package that we provided. We did get the higher level with the SLAs to make sure that it was business-critical.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated other solutions for contact center and in the end, we liked the way Genesys and Salesforce and Einstein Analytics integrated . The implementation around the popups on the Genesys Systems had some pre-built Salesforce schemas, which made it very simple.
What other advice do I have?
From a capability standpoint, Salesforce and Einstein Analytics met our needs.
I would advise others not to customize as much as possible, because as they roll out the newer releases every six months significant testing and verification would have to happen. It is important to have a strong third-party provider that is very experienced. We used Deloitte, but we evaluated others like Accenture, KPMG, and IBM, but we decided on Deloitte and that was a good decision for us. Having a partner who has a center of excellence or experts that could give you a lot of the tips that they've learned could jumpstart your deployment and stick to the standards. Focus on the licensing because it could get costly fast.
I rate Salesforce and Einstein Analytics an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.