Director - Enterprise Applications at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Helpful support, useful life cycle management, and highly stable
Pros and Cons
  • "The most beneficial aspect of Salesforce Sales Cloud is my development life cycle will have been shortened."
  • "The solution could improve the partner management and communities. For the enterprise licenses, we have the help, but it should also be extended with the features to the partner community."

What is our primary use case?

Salesforce Sales Cloud is mostly used for partner lead management.

What is most valuable?

The most beneficial aspect of Salesforce Sales Cloud is my development life cycle will have been shortened.

What needs improvement?

The solution could improve the partner management and communities. For the enterprise licenses, we have the help, but it should also be extended with the features to the partner community.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Salesforce Sales Cloud for approximately two years.

Buyer's Guide
Salesforce Sales Cloud
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Salesforce Sales Cloud. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
769,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Salesforce Sales Cloud is extremely stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of Salesforce Sales Cloud is good, we have not had any issues.

We have a few thousand users using this solution in my organization.

How are customer service and support?

We have premier support and it is very good. Whenever we hit roadblocks, we do reach out to the support and they're very cooperative.

I would rate the technical support of Salesforce Sales Cloud a four out of five.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously had an in-house solution. We switched to Salesforce Sales Cloud because it was a good time in the market to do so and the solution as all the latest changes in the industry which we would receive automatically into our organization.

How was the initial setup?

The complexity of the implementation of Salesforce Sales Cloud depends on the business. If your business process is complex, the implementation will turn out to be complex. Our implementation was a complex one because we have different processes we had to configure, it was time-consuming. It took approximately six to eight months to configure everything. 

What about the implementation team?

We used a partner for the implementation of Salesforce Sales Cloud.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price of Salesforce Sales Cloud could be reduced. It is expensive.

We pay for a standard license and there are not any additional fees other than the premier support.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise others Salesforce Sales Cloud is a good tool. However, the price is high and other solutions in the market should be looked at because of this.

I rate Salesforce Sales Cloud a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Managing Director at Aprika Business Solutions Pty Ltd
Consultant
We find the email to case functionality helps simplify the process for our clients when submitting support requests.

Valuable Features

I personally find the Opportunities to be the most valuable aspect of the tool. It helps me keep a close eye on the business' pipeline. We've also developed a native project management solution on the Salesforce platform called Mission Control. We use this to track the scheduling and performance of all implementation projects. This is of great importance to our business in understanding our bandwidth and efficiencies. We also find the Case object to be of great value, including the email to case functionality that helps simplify the process for our clients when submitting support requests.

Improvements to My Organization

We run our entire business in the cloud and Salesforce.com sits at the heart of our solution stack. We have a subscription based model for our products, such as Mission Control, Mercury SMS and InteliMail. We've integrated Salesforce.com with eWay, an online payment gateway to automate our monthly billing process.

Room for Improvement

The main area that I feel could be improved is the performance of the Salesforce1 mobile application. I find it to be too slow to be of any real value whilst out on the road.

Use of Solution

I have been using the Salesforce.com CRM system for over 12 years. I first used it as a Marketing Manager for the company I was working for at the time. In the last six years, I've been running Aprika, a Salesforce.com Consulting Partner helping to implement the solution for clients in Australia.

Deployment Issues

We've implemented Salesforce.com for over 200 clients and we've never come across a requirement that could not be delivered on the platform.

Stability Issues

We've implemented Salesforce.com for over 200 clients and we've never come across a requirement that could not be delivered on the platform.

Scalability Issues

We've implemented Salesforce.com for over 200 clients and we've never come across a requirement that could not be delivered on the platform.

Customer Service and Technical Support

The standard Salesforce.com support process is very good. They also have a premier support option which provides a very quick response time. In addition to this, the community of users are extremely helpful and supportive to one another and using the success.salesforce.com website, you're always guaranteed someone will be able to help you out.

Initial Setup

We are a Salesforce.com Consulting Partner, so we're the team helping the client implement their required solution. Salesforce.com conducts regular, independent research which states a client that works with a consulting partner to implement the solution is 65% more likely to be successful.

Implementation Team

We have implemented Salesforce.com for over 200 clients, as you can imaging, there's been varying scales of complexity in the requirements ranging from a simple out of the box configuration through to solutions requiring a lot of customisation using Apex and Visualforce as well as integration with third party systems.

Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

I do hear that Salesforce.com licensing is expensive, but once clients start using the system and the light goes on in relation to understanding the power of the platform, they realise it's well worth the investment.

From a personal perspective, one of the key things Salesforce.com provides us is insight into our business that would be difficult to achieve otherwise. We're able to easily track conversion rates, budget performance, staff efficiency rates and many other key metrics that are important to our business.

Other Solutions Considered

12 years ago, I initially compared it to a number of other solutions through a tender process. We conducted our due diligence and Salesforce.com came out top by a long way. As a Consulting Partner, we typically see prospects comparing Salesforce.com and MS Dynamics. Generally, we see them evaluate the two products and in most cases, they'll establish Salesforce.com is the more powerful, flexible and scalable solution.

Other Advice

Don't hesitate - if you're looking at using Salesforce.com, you're on the right track. After a few months, you'll wonder how you managed without it. In terms of implementation, I would strongly recommend engaging a consulting partner, it doesn't have to be Aprika. They can bring real value add to the project and ensure the system is set up to support user adoption. Engaging staff from various parts of the business in the initial implementation is also a key ingredient to successful adoption.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Aprika holds three different partner accreditations with Salesforce.com. Cloud Alliance Partner - we work with clients to ensure they successfully implement Salesforce.com within their own business ISV Partner - we build our own applications on the Salesforce.com App Cloud, such as Mission Control, Mercury SMS and IntelliMail, which are available from the AppExchange PDO Partner - we work with other ISV Partners who do not have the technicals skills to develop their business concepts. We provide the support these clients need to develop a solution on the App Cloud.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Salesforce Sales Cloud
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Salesforce Sales Cloud. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
769,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Consultant at a tech consulting company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Robust and customizable with many useful features
Pros and Cons
  • "There are many extremely useful features."
  • "There are also certain restrictions on the reports in terms of the number of records. Ideally, that should be removed."

What is our primary use case?

I am fundamentally a consultant to businesses exploring CRM solutions. My first choice, subject to the customer's budget, is Salesforce. At my office, we have been using Salesforce primarily for lead management, sales cycle management, renewal management, and sales performance management. We have also integrated it with our help desk and our HRMS. 

We use the Salesforce Platform edition with 300 objects which gives us a phenomenal ability to develop specific functionalities that we need for our unique requirements.

How has it helped my organization?

An integrated approach to CRM always helps in streamlining activities across all the departments. We have been able to better our response times, reduce our sales cycles, and have increased overall sales revenue. Similar results have been observed for all our customers who have implemented and adopted SalesCloud in the right manner. 

We have developed a module for integrating our digital marketing tool with Salesforce. The campaign ROI monitoring ability has helped us to increase our marketing effectiveness to a great extent.

What is most valuable?

There are many extremely useful features. Lead scoring is useful for automatically signaling the importance and urgency of acting on any particular lead. Website integrations are useful for getting in the lead data into Salesforce along with auto-tagging of the customer's point of interest. The automation rules that have been set up across all modules deliver tremendous value by speeding up things, ensuring process compliance, and increasing productivity. 

The customized and role-based dashboards help our team to make the right decisions.  

What needs improvement?

Featurewise, the product almost has all CRM features that one can think of. Beyond CRM, if the integration with MS Office can be made tighter and smoother, that could be great value for customers. Especially integrating MS Word and MS Excel would be really useful. 

If a lighter version of CPQ is made available, it would help many midsize customers. As of now, Salesforce is the most expensive CRMs out there - making it a bit more affordable will help them in a big way. 

There are also certain restrictions on the reports in terms of the number of records. Ideally, that should be removed.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for more than seven years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is extremely stable. We haven't seen any nasty surprises. trust.salesforce.com is a great place to check the stability and dependability of Salesforce.  

Irrespective of the number of concurrent users, the automation rules, reporting requirements, workflows etc, the system performance remains the same. There is no performance degradation by additional of number of users or increase in data or increase in automations or functionalities whatsoever. 

trust.salesforce.com gives a real-time view of all salesforce datacentres and the various clouds in terms of their health, availability, uptimes, maintenance status, security and compliances. There is a lot more indepth information if one really wants to dig deeper. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is highly and seamlessly scalable. it is very robust at any scale.

How are customer service and support?

This is not applicable to us. However, the back-to-back support from Salesforce has been pretty good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have used a homegrown application earlier. Switching to Salesforce was due to the capabilities provided by the Salesforce platform. It practically molds itself as per an organization's working style. 

How was the initial setup?

It wasn't complex for us as we are ourselves are implementation partners. For customers, it can turn out to be pretty overwhelming. 

There are so many features and so many possibilities, it is very easy for anyone to keep asking for more. That is often the biggest pitfall. A step-by-step phased approach is usually more successful.

What about the implementation team?

We have a highly skilled implementation team.

What was our ROI?

We've seen an ROI of at least 20%.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Salesforce surely is one of the most expensive CRMs out there. However, if implemented in the right manner and adopted extensively, it does deliver a great value to the organization. 

While deploying Salesforce, I would generally suggest engaging a consultant for optimizing the license costs. Salesforce sales team may try to oversell. A 3rd party consultant like us can help you with an unbiased opinion. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate others while choosing for ourselves. However, as a consultant, we frequently need to show customers comparisons with Navision, SAP, and Oracle.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Apart from being users of salesforce, we are also an implementation partner to Salesforce.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
IT Leader at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Consultant
Simple, intuitive, user friendly software with certain challenges in digitizing complex business processes around CRM

What is most valuable?

Chatter, Mobile Platform along with Mobile Push, Salesforce synchronization for MS Outlook, simple & smart analytic dashboard

How has it helped my organization?

User Adoption has improved a lot resulting in improvement of Data quality & ROI of Software.

What needs improvement?

Need to make complex CRM processes as Out of Box features, Address interface challenges between Salesforce and On-premise enterprise Software, Lot of dependency on affiliate software such as Service Max & Marketo

For how long have I used the solution?

7 years

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Digitizing complex business process around Sales (Multiple layer of approvals), building complex dash board consolidating Sales, Marketing data (Marketing ROI), building interface between Salesforce and On-premise enterprise software.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Yes. In Data synchronization & Replication.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Yes, when we moved beyond 3000 seats, we had challenges in meeting some Performance & Scalability standards.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

I would rate them 7 out of 10.

Technical Support:

I would rate them 6 out of 10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Yes, I used Siebel & we switched to have better user adoption and better manage the cost of ownership of CRM software.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup was easy however we faced a lot of difficulty when we tried to interface it with other enterprise applications.

What about the implementation team?

Our business was a mixed one i.e. combination of in-house & vendor team. Initially, we had a lot of challenges in terms of scaling up vendor team.

What was our ROI?

Unfortunately, we don't have a comprehensive way to capture ROI however we can observe both tangible & intangible benefits of using Software (Better user adoption, simplified data entry, better decision making through alerts of software, etc.)

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Setup cost was way higher than expected. We spent close to $1.5 million on setup including interfaces for 3000 seats. Our d-d cost is approx 900k.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes, we evaluated SAP CRM, Oracle On-demand and Siebel

What other advice do I have?

I strongly recommend it for a small to mid size company.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Jose LuisGonzalez - PeerSpot reviewer
Territory Manager at Dynatrace
Real User
Top 20
Sales CRM used to manage opportunities and provides a centralised view of our customer base
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a good platform that shows consolidation of information for our customer base."
  • "The performance is sometimes slow. There is too much information and this makes it difficult to find the answers we are looking for."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution for opportunity and account management, contact management, quoting, marketing and for registration of events.

What is most valuable?

It is a good platform that shows consolidation of information for our customer base.

What needs improvement?

The performance is sometimes slow. There is too much information and this makes it difficult to find the answers we are looking for.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for three and a half years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is a stable solution. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This is a scalable solution. 

How are customer service and support?

We have not needed to contact customer service and support. 

What other advice do I have?

I would advise others to customize the solution according to their business needs and goals and to make it as user friendly as possible.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
MADHAV CHABLANI - PeerSpot reviewer
Consulting Chief Information Officer at Tippingedge
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Easy and quick to install, with good performance
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are performance and integration."
  • "I would like to see licensing fees reduced in the next release."

What is our primary use case?

It is used almost entirely by the organization to connect with clients and patients.

What is most valuable?

The performance is good. I am satisfied with the performance of this solution.

The most valuable features are performance and integration.

What needs improvement?

There are always issues that must be addressed. And, in the end, I believe we have the support of these organizations, and we are working toward solutions.

I would like to see licensing fees reduced in the next release.

For how long have I used the solution?

We are based on Salesforce. I believe they've been using it for a long time before my tenure. We are still using Salesforce Sales Cloud.

We are using the most recent version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Salesforce Sales Cloud is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Salesforce Sales Cloud's scalability is good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

There are several beta programs that are also run with us and for which we receive support. It is not only because of product upgrades but also because of beta programs.

There were native developments available, but as part of corporate policy, we chose Salesforce.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy. It's far easier in the present times.

The client is virtually very easy. At the moment, I believe everyone works from home, and it has taken us an unimaginable, very short time. It was up and running and continues to do so.

What about the implementation team?

The installation was done by the individuals themselves.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We must pay for the licenses. Then it comes from the internal budgets.

It should be cheaper.

What other advice do I have?

It is very good, and I would recommend it to others who are considering using it.

I would rate Salesforce Sales Cloud an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Delivery Manager at kbtg
Real User
Good reporting for tracking as well as costing leads, and it scales well, but it is expensive
Pros and Cons
  • "Salesforce Sales Cloud is a stable solution."
  • "I would like to see a more affordable licensing model."

What is our primary use case?

Salesforce Sales Cloud is used for selling, tracking leads, verifying customer information, scheduling appointments, visiting customers, and costing leads.

Open the case to the back end for something that cannot be done in the front end. Perhaps we have a case open to the back end.

What is most valuable?

For a user, it's okay.

What needs improvement?

The cost could be lower. I would like to see a more affordable licensing model.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Salesforce Sales Cloud for four or five years.

We are using the latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Salesforce Sales Cloud is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Salesforce Sales Cloud is scalable but requires additional licenses. At times we cannot scale for some users because of the license, and the cost.

We have more than 100 users in our organization.

How are customer service and support?

I have not contacted technical support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We use RPA products in our organization such as Kryon.

I believe, is from the user's perspective, in our bank, the user will be the, and not the developer; we empower the user in the operation to try to record robotics by themselves, not the IT team, or the developer. As a result, the user can show the client because it is simple to use for any user.

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the initial setup.

What about the implementation team?

The vendor handles the maintenance of the solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We pay a yearly subscription fee.

What other advice do I have?

I'm not sure about Salesforce, but the user side is similar to an app with this solution. That is acceptable from an IT standpoint. Actually, I'm not involved in this project very much, so I'm not sure what the issues are. I'm only in charge of RPA, not CRM, so I'm not sure.

I would rate Salesforce Sales Cloud a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Director Product Management at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Real User
It integrates well with Excel, and the reporting features are good
Pros and Cons
  • "Salesforce's user interface is easy to use, and the reporting is good. It worked well with Excel, so I was okay with it. I don't know about integration with any other software because I didn't have to deal with them."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use Salesforce for the sales funnel from prospects to leads.  

    What is most valuable?

    Salesforce's user interface is easy to use, and the reporting is good. It worked well with Excel, so I was okay with it. I don't know about integration with any other software because I didn't have to deal with them.

    What needs improvement?

    I didn't use Salesforce too much, so I can't say much about it because I don't think it would be very accurate.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I don't have much experience with Salesforce. I've used it for about a month or so. Most of my experience is on the sales side, not the service parts. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Salesforce is stable. I didn't notice any hangups.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We had about 50 sales and marketing people working with Salesforce. 

    What other advice do I have?

    I rate Salesforce seven out of 10. 

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Salesforce Sales Cloud Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: April 2024
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Salesforce Sales Cloud Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.