Salesforce Service Cloud Reviews

• 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.

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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.

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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.

• Case Management
• Service Cloud Console
• Workflow Rules
• Territory Management

Logging activities and creating opportunities are easier than before, and it provides visibility of the sales pipeline.

Reporting needs improvement as sometimes we need to export data and work with it in Excel.

I've used it for three years.

Once set up, we've had no issues with deployment.

We've only had one stability issue in three years.

No issues with scalability.

9/10 - Sometimes cases need to be escalated more quickly.

No other CRM product was used before.

I did not participate in the initial setup.

We implemented it through a vendor team.

If you want to use Enterprise Edition or above and use a complex architecture, look for an experienced consultancy/in-house consultant to set up your organization initially.

It is at a very mature stage. We are are able to customize Salesforce so that the we can unleash it in our own way, in a way we like, rather than being confined to doing things their way.

The business for one of our client was completely based on Excel for renewing the business. With the implementation of a complete Service Renewal Cycle using Salesforce, their threshold value of conversion got reduced from 1-2 weeks to a single day!

• Salesforce Community
• Salesforce Sales Cloud
• Content
• Library

I have been using this solution from more than three years.

There have been no issues.

There have been no issues.

It is easy and perfect for scaling.

3/10

3/10

One customer switched from Siebel to Salesforce. They did this as Siebel was not adaptable to changing client environments.

It's always easy.

I am part of a vendor team and do the implementations for our customers.

It is always easy when you get to an account executive for the licenses.

I would recommend Salesforce only if you're a large business. For mid-level businesses it is quite hard.

The features we find most valuable are--

• It's easy to customize,
• It's a responsive solution,
• It provides a great user experience, and
• The console is nice, easy to use, and provides relevant and timely data.

When I was a sales administrator for about 70 users, we went from needing two full-time administrators to just one part- time administrator. It greatly reduces overhead in terms of personnel needed to manage he organization.

I've used it for about two years.

We encountered no issues with the deployment.

We encountered no issues with stability.

We were able to scale without incident.

The Salesforce customer service has been excellent.

Technical support has been great.

The initial setup was moderately complex. It requires strong consultant skills to design how you want to process cases.

Don't look at just license costs. Factor in infrastructure savings as well as reduced head count needed to support Service Cloud.

The built-in, ready-to-go package of case management, email management and social media management with a knowledge base helps to speed up the implementation time. I can have a new service center operational within a few days if needed, although more complex implementations still may take much longer.

The most important feature though is the platform’s upgrade approach. There is never a need to install an upgrade. The upgrades are applied automatically three times a year, and every customer is always operating on the latest version of the software.

As a consultant, I have seen the implementation of Service Cloud reduce contact center handle times by minutes per call, which can translate to millions of dollars in savings for large operations. The cloud infrastructure helps to speed up implementation time and accelerates how quickly you can release new features to users.

For most contact centers, it will improve overall uptime performance, but it is important to ensure a good quality internet connection for all users. There is no way to access Service Cloud if you lose your public internet access.

My clients have raised concerns with the knowledge search algorithm. Sometimes it seems the most relevant knowledge articles are not the ones that are returned in the search results. Salesforce has made substantial strides to improve on this over the past few releases.

Salesforce is rolling out a new user interface called “Lightning Experience” which is not yet available for Service Cloud. I would like to see it fully rolled out to Service Cloud, which they do plan to do.

Seven years as an implementation consultant.

There are elements of Service Cloud which cannot be smoothly migrated from sandbox environments to production, leading to manual steps in a deployment.

For example, translations have to be manually applied in production, and on-demand email-to-case must be set up directly in production.

I have had mixed experiences with standard technical support over the years, so I would highly recommend considering buying premium technical support to enable skipping of the first line of tech support.

I have worked almost exclusively with Salesforce for the past several years because Service Cloud is the solution all of my clients have been buying. I previously worked with RightNow, which is now Oracle Service Cloud. But I found the upgrade process with RightNow to be problematic, leading to customers getting stuck on out-of-date versions of the product.

Companies already using Salesforce for other CRM functions will find Service Cloud implementation to be straightforward. If a company is migrating to Service Cloud from an on-premise solution like Siebel or SAPCRM, the biggest change is getting adjusted to life with a cloud platform.

The support model needed is different with Service Cloud. There are no servers to maintain or patch, but there must be a plan in place to evaluate and prepare for the three yearly upgrades and to prepare users to take advantage of new features as they are released.

I am an implementation consultant, so my advice would be to consider using an implementation consultant for your first release, but have a plan in place to transition in house over time. Make sure your implementation consultant partner is certified and follow up on their references. Use them to educate your in-house team during that first implementation.

Anyone can learn Salesforce if they have prior CRM experience, so make sure your in house team gets involved in the implementation and takes ownership. At some point the consultant will leave, and then you must be able to take over.

The best time to negotiate the price is at the very beginning. Since this is a subscription model, you will be paying for it indefinitely, and it’s easier to negotiate the rate down from the beginning.

Also, have an exit strategy in place to transition off of the platform should you not be happy with license negotiation during future renewals. It will give you more leverage during those negotiations.

Anyone can sign up for a free “developer org” to play around with the product. Get hands on with it and get comfortable before making a purchasing decision. The Salesforce Trailhead program provides free online tutorials to learn about all the features of Service Cloud.

Also, consider attending the annual Dreamforce conference to learn how other companies are using Service Cloud and to get advice from them.

• Service Console
• Knowledge 1
• CTI Integration

It's increased our contact centre agent efficiency.

There is no control over the appearance of Visual Flow pages, giving the appearance of an amateur web application within the Salesforce interface.

It would also be good if there were a workforce management component to balance call distribution in a contact centre based on agent skills and experience.

I've been using it on and off for 12 years.

The solution is very stable.

It's very scalable. Being cloud-based, the application easily scales to high user and transaction counts.

Tech support is responsive, but they often suggest the solutions that one has already read by doing a Google search. I usually have to escalate to tier two to get the answer I need.

But to be fair, being a certified Salesforce consultant, my questions are usually more complex than a regular end user’s questions.

I migrated my tech support team off of BMC Remedy and have migrated many clients off of Siebel and other systems.

Salesforce is much more easily configured so it can change as your business processes change; it’s extremely scalable so it can grow as your business grows, and it’s API is extensive so you can integrate with back office systems in a relatively straightforward way.

It's straightforward. For a small- to medium-sized business, the system can usually be set up with no custom development. Enterprise organisations will usually require some code to be written along with data migration and data integration.

However, when I migrated my team from BMC Remedy to Salesforce, I did so with no previous training and was able to customize the system to my requirements using the declarative interface. I migrated the data myself using the salesforce Apex Data Loader, which is available for free.

I implemented it myself as described above. However, I would recommend using an integrator. They know the system really well and can ensure your system is implemented following best practices and taking advantage of all the latest features.

While my original implementation was satisfactory, it could have been much better. One example is, I lost all of my record creation dates from the legacy system because I didn’t know that Salesforce could make the Created By and Created Date fields editable when creating records as part of a migration.

My recommendation on pricing is: “negotiate”. The Salesforce account executives can be flexible on price at times so don’t be afraid to negotiate a better price. You may have to commit to a longer contract but you won’t regret it.

Also, if you’re going to do an implementation project, only purchase enough licenses for the implementation team and arrange to start paying for your other user licenses when you go live.

If you’re doing a three month implementation, there’s no need to pay the subscription fees for users who won’t log into the system until you go live.

Use a Salesforce partner and make sure their consultants are certified. Talk to three different firms, and don’t let price be the only driving factor. Rather, look at the firm that seems to best understand your requirements, has good answers on why particular parts of the implementation will cost what they’re proposing, and has a solid methodology that they can easily explain to you.

Simply choosing the least expensive option often costs more in the end with either delays, change requests or worst case, failure.

• Knowledge Base - can provide answers to customers, and customers can find answers themselves
• Customer Community - direct customer feedback

We have improved our customer service and call-deflection rate with Service Cloud, particularly with Knowledge Base and Customer Community features

The pricing of the various editions could be improved.

I've used it for six years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

10/10

8/10

We previously used Microsoft CRM Dynamics.

Data migration was an issue since it required extensive data mapping and business rule changes.

We did it in-house.

It's estimated at 135% over two years.

It should be implemented only in organizations with over 20 users. Otherwise, it's expensive to manage.

We also looked at Pegasystems.

You should start with organization-wide default settings, then user set-up, then accounts, contacts and the cases and case-related items should be last.