Salesforce Service Cloud Reviews

The flexibility of the platform is what really separates it from the crowd. With Salesforce, I can:

• Use clicks vs. code for automation purposes. Examples of this are workflow rules and visual flows.
• Utilize Salesforce's proprietary Java based language to implement more complicated business logic. Additionally, I am able to extend this functionality with their JSP based visual-force language.
• Salesforce has many different ways of accessing their platform with APIs. There is the REST, SOAP, Metadata, connect. Salesforce also offers a lot of pre-built toolkits (Like Javascript and PHP) which make external connections a snap.

The platform is being used to unify multiple business divisions onto a single platform. Currently, each of the eight or so businesses are utilizing their own platform based on multiple technologies (one is a DOS based system with a Fox DB). By utilizing Salesforce as our centralized platform it is enabling our business units to share leads across divisions and give a singular view to our customers.

I would like to see them focus on improving existing functionality instead of trying to market new functionality that is not enterprise ready. While I appreciate their push towards staying on the bleeding edge, it is a shared platform. Thus it is essential that new functionality is able to function with large amounts of data, which Lightning currently is not.

I've used Salesforce for over six years

There have been no issues with the deployment.

There are some governor limits which can make life difficult at times; however, I believe it is important to have these limits in place in order to maintain stability.

I believe that Salesforce gives you the ability to grow your CRM instance in a very scalable way and is usually fairly willing to extend the governor limits with good cause.

This is the one area that I really dislike about Salesforce. Dealing with their Level One support is a nightmare. I used to be in tech support, so I recognize the need for level one, however, for enterprise level customers whom pay for their "premier support", should get premier support not outsourced technical support with whom it takes over an hour of re-iterated explanations of a problem. Granted, most of the issues I call about are complicated; however, that in and of itself should allow for easier escalations.

For this particular project, I did not; however, I have evaluated others against Salesforce in the past. What has usually been the tipping point is:

• The flexibility of the platform
• The tri-annual releases, which ensures that the platform is up-to-date
• Normally painless upgrades

This question will vary vastly from organization to organization. It it easy to get setup with Salesforce; however, with its malleability, setups can be incredibly complex.

I've done it with both. My recommendation would be to steer clear of vendors. Find good people to work with in house. Vendors usually will only add extra time to the project. They usually deliver less than optimal solutions that will need to be re-done later. I have worked with major providers, including like Apprio, ICON and Slalom. All of these vendors have had "consultants" with much less exposure to the platform than myself and generally delivered really crappy code that took way longer to develop than it should have.

Hire experts. Look for an advanced certification if you can find one, if not make sure that they are experienced. Throw fundamental problems at them during the interview to see if they are able to respond appropriately. Salesforce is an IT platform, thus the experts should have a fundamental understanding of database and code structures. Remember that a part of a good implementation will involve process transformation. Do not look at the platform to as a new way to do old things. Take this as an opportunity to evaluate what you are doing well and not well, then use technology to improve those area's that are appropriate. Also, remember that technology should not be used as a nanny system. It is a tool and should be used as such. Utilize users that are power users of your existing systems. Let managers or executives drive overall objectives, and let the power users provide guidance on how the system will be utilized. In the plethora of implementations I have been involved in, this is a common occurrence and ends up creating a lot more work once development has been completed.

The most valuable features for us are Cases, Community, and Chatter.

Service Cloud has allowed our organization to centralize multiple tools and resources into one tech stack that has optimized our ability to coordinate service efforts across the organization.

UI/UX has always proven difficult to keep up with. Salesforce, in general, requires a continued training effort to keep people up to speed and to encourage adoption in the tools. While there have been big improvements to date, simple things like ability to bookmark, right-click or otherwise multi-task panes and articles in Salesforce and the community have been missing.

We've had no issues with deployment.

We've had no issues with stability.

We've had no issues with scalability.

Preparation and training is 90% of the work. Get to know the product before deploying widely. Have your admins get into Trailhead and invest in the training offered by Salesforce.

The two most valuable features for us are the customizable consoles and the ability to use custom objects.

We deployed the Live Agent function and the Social Sites feed connection which improved the response time for customer issues/feedbacks. The integrated Knowledge Base function also improved the speed.

The prices for storing files - like example attachments - are really high per GB. We have an alternative to-do task which has one purpose, to find an alternative file storage service that we can later on connect with Salesforce. 

Nowadays, we are lucky because the customers would like to connect on-premise Sharepoint with Salesforce and there is a solution that we can easily apply to them.

I started to use it two months ago and absolutely love it. Currently, I’m part of an implementation project where we earned high satisfaction from our client.

We haven't had any issues with deployment so far. 

All the limits of the Salesforce platform are well documented. I’ve seen poor documentation and bad implementation, but Salesforce is not like that. 

Looks like they are hiring the best developers.

There have been no issues with the stability.

There has been no issue with scaling it.

I’ve used much of the legacy solutions previously within various enterprises, and found none of them to be as good as the Salesforce product.

We kept the initial setup simple and straightforward. Then we continuously improve it because the product is new for our everyday customers.

I'm working for a consultancy that implements Salesforce products.

Always consult with a partner company around your area. Partners can provide different licensing constructions.

The standard case management features such as case teams, case queues, and approval processes are useful for various use cases, such as service organizations, call centers, support teams, etc.

Service Cloud provides a best-of-breed cloud-based case management and call center solution. It's cost-effective, easily configureable and maintainable, and simple to learn and support.

I'd like to see a better UI/UX. It also needs more competitive pricing on the Service Cloud feature licenses.

I've used it for three years.

There should be no issues with deployment so long as best practices for Salesforce deployment are followed. I haven't seen any major issues with deployment.

Deployments become more complex when they involve heavy custom development, but for a configuration-based solution, it is very simple.

Stability is never an issue with the Salesforce platform.

Scalability is never an issue with the Salesforce platform.

Salesforce's customer service is great.

It's great, but I recommend Premier+ support for quick turnaround on issues.

As a SaaS product, Service Cloud is very easy to set up by someone with Salesforce administration skills. There are some features and functionality that are unique to Service Cloud, so it's best to have a certified ServiceCloud Consultant

Whether using a vendor or having your internal team set up the system, make sure that a certified Service Cloud consultant is involved in the analysis and solution-ing of the product, even if you are only using the basic Case functionality through a Sales Cloud license as opposed to a full-fledged Service Cloud feature license.

Great ROI on this product, especially if you keep implementation and maintenance costs low through configuration and declarative functionality as opposed to custom code. Basic Case features are available through the standard Salesforce Sales Cloud licensing, and more advanced features such as the Service Console and CTI integration capabilities are available through a Service Cloud feature license.

Try to align your business processes to the native feature sets in the product as much as possible by using the configuration and declarative functionality instead of customizing the solution using code.

Not only will the initial implementation be quicker, ongoing maintenance and support will be cheaper and easier as well.

There are several Case Management and Call Centre solutions, but the Salesforce product is considered a best-of-breed solution, and is a leading industry product. Compared to Siebel and other case management solutions, Service Cloud is more cost effective and easier to configure.

The Cases and Case Deflection features are the most valuable for us.

If you can get customers to self-serve, this is invaluable and save your customers' time and your staff's time. Our NPS actually went up when we introduced this as customers loved self-service and our cases went down by 50%.

I'd like to see more of a blog feature to allow better updates from our staff and link to it socially. This would save us having to run these through two different systems.

I've used it for 12-14 months.

We've haven't yet had any issues with deployment.

It's been stable for us.

We've had no problems scaling it for our needs.

Customer service has been great as we're a beta customer.

Technical service has been great as we're a beta customer.

Yes, we were previously using Zendesk as our ticketing/case system. We chose to move to Service Cloud and Community Cloud because we were running our sales side on Salesforce and support on Zendesk. We wanted a single view of our customers so both sales support and accounts could see what was happening with the customer.

The initial setup was straightforward as we were able to set this up in a matter of days.

We implemented all this in-house. As Community Cloud is all template-based and no code is required, this was very simple to set up.

Use the templates for community and use Community Cloud with Service Cloud as they work very well hand-in-hand. Use Case Deflection and the knowledge base articles.

• Case creation and tracking
• Workflow automation
• Notifications with templates
• Technician scheduling (using CalendarAnything)

All cases were tracked in Excel by individual service coordinators and, therefore, they were unable to share workload or centralize services. We used a custom program for technician scheduling that could not be easily expanded to multiple service branches, where only central office had this functionality. All communications (emails) were with individual service coordinators, resulting in inconsistent communications. Service Cloud changed all that.

There's an issue where creating a repetitive appointment creates two appointments on the first occurrence.

We've used it for more than a year.

We have no issues with deploying it.

We've had no stability issues.

We're able to scale it for our needs.

Customer service is excellent.

Technical support is excellent.

We considered purchasing an app for service management, so we evaluated Service Max and JBB Mobile. We did not proceed with either as our company is in the process of implementing SAP.

Setup was straightforward from a data standpoint since we were already using Salesforce Sales Cloud and, therefore, customers and products were already loaded into Salesforce. The main focus of this project was to define new service management processes and configure Salesforce to match the processes.

We used a certified Salesforce systems integrator. I highly recommend using a systems integrator for the initial implementation, ensuring there is sufficient knowledge transfer so that the internal team can support after Go Live.

Head count in service management was reduced, department moved into a profitable position, and we increased service business by 30%.

My advice would be to ensure that the business process owners fully understand and support the solution. Don’t let them skip design meetings, or they will question every decision that was made later in the process, causing rework of the configurations.

• The most important feature is the seamless integration with Salesforce data. ZenDesk inserted data when not present, but the integration left something to be desired with many Contact last names of Unknown (which is challenging with deduping). It is important to have the reps directly using Salesforce so they are more inclined to keep Account and Contact data current.
• We haven’t used Salesforce Knowledge, but this would also be beneficial.
• Being able to report on the Case data and use it to create Dashboards for our upper level management who are already familiar with Salesforce is important.

We can create Dashboards showing which clients are receiving a high level amount of cases or Case Types that trigger a possibility of an issue with the client.

It gives our Account Management team the chance to be proactive and solve any underlying big issues a client could be experiencing (and prevent them from seeking other vendors).

• Why is merging Cases not something that comes out-of-the-box? We had to purchase Case Merge Premium to merge our Cases.
• The Macro creation isn’t very user friendly. It would be beneficial to organize the macros into folders also. I think the average support rep without Salesforce knowledge would have issues creating macros.
• When sending a reply email to a client directly from the Detail View of a Case, it will insert your signature at the very bottom of the thread (which no one sees). You have to use the Case Feed to insert your signature below your reply.
• Sending an email from the Case Feed has a character limit (which can be extended, but it is limited). If you have a very long email correspondence with a client, you may need to shorten it in order to send.
• There is no field on the Case to show who the last email correspondence was from. I had to create my own field for this.
• When opening a Case tab in the Service Console and a customer replies to the Case while open, you have to completely refresh the tab to see the recent email to reply to (not automatic). Sometimes a rep may not notice this, go to send an email, and get an error that they need to refresh.

I've used it for approximately one year.

There are no issues with deployment at this time.

We've had no issues with stability.

We have no issues with scalability at this time.

N/A

N/A

We were using ZenDesk before being purchased by another company that was using Service Cloud. After we merged orgs, we began using Service Cloud. As a help desk solution, ZenDesk is much better. I've also used Kayako.

We had no issues with the initial setup.

We used a vendor because we were migrating data from another organization at the same time.

N/A

N/A

N/A

Use standard fields/options when possible and keep it simple! Don’t overcomplicate things and make sure to ask support reps what their problem points are and what they need to be successful.

The whole CRM suite is valuable, and it's a platform upon which to rapidly build applications. The ease with which a customer can get up and running on the CRM functionality for their Call Centers is an awesome thing about Salesforce.

Salesforce is always ahead of the curve with new functionalities rolling out every quarter. It does get a little tricky playing around with certain features in Salesforce and you have to get used to it.

Specifically, they need to improve the Knowledge Management module. Right now, managing articles is a pain for administrators especially if an admin needs to maintain thousands of Knowledge Articles in a Salesforce organization. Also, the new revamped UI of Service Cloud that has been introduced as part of Winter '15 release is quite confusing. I hope to see the issues fixed in Spring '16 release.

I've been using it for over four years.

Not as such. However, Salesforce deployment can appear to be a little overwhelming at first to a beginner, but there are ample tools out there to make it as smooth as butter.

It's awesome. You can raise a case for anything. Their support is pretty good.

Plus, the community is so large and helpful that you can just tweet using #askforce, and your questions are answered immediately by the community members.

I have been using it since the beginning of my career.

Pretty easy. You can just sign up and start with their out of the box CRM solution right away.

I'm a consultant and it's quite fun to set Salesforce up.

Given the functionality it gives you out of the box, the price is quite competitive and highly customizable per customer's needs.

Try it and you will be awestruck.