Salesforce Service Cloud vs. ServiceNow IT Service Management

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Salesforce Service Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Service Cloud is a customer service platform that helps businesses manage and resolve customer inquiries and issues. It provides tools for case management, knowledge base, omni-channel support, automation, and analytics, enabling companies to deliver exceptional customer service experiences.
$25
per month
ServiceNow IT Service Management
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
ServiceNow is a fast-growing service management provider that went public in 2012. Built on the ServiceNow Now Platform, the IT Service Management bundle provides an agent workspace with knowledge management, and modules supporting issue tracking and problem resolution, change, release and configuration management, and (on the higher tier ITSM Professional plan) ITAM and software asset management.
$10,000
per year
Pricing
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow IT Service Management
Editions & Modules
Starter Suite
$25
per month
Professional
$80
per month
Enterprise
$165
per month per user
Unlimited
$165
per month per user
Unlimited+
$165
per month per user
Starting Price
$10,000.00
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow IT Service Management
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow IT Service Management
Considered Both Products
Salesforce Service Cloud
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Service Cloud is linked to our internal Salesforce CRM tool which is a huge advantage. It allows everything in one place and also allows us to integrate with other tools such as Kimble.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service cloud integrates with its own world-class CRM which enables our agents to work more effectively and efficiently. We already had Salesforce Sales Cloud so it was a really easy transition. It was easy to set up and all our information was already there. The …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Service Cloud was a good choice for us vs. the other tools primarily for the seamless integration with all the other functionality in SFDC and the easy customization it allows. While ServiceNow has similar capability, we had to build an integration to SFDC during the time we …
ServiceNow IT Service Management
Chose ServiceNow IT Service Management
ServiceNow is much better than Salesforce Service Cloud and it has more functionality and better ways to manage incidents and problems as compared to the competition. Oracle Service Cloud comes close but I will recommend ServiceNow unless you are an Oracle shop. If you lots of …
Top Pros
Top Cons
TrustRadius Insights
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow IT Service Management
Highlights

TrustRadius
Research Team Insight
Published

Salesforce Service Cloud is a digital customer service platform in the help desk software category on TrustRadius. It allows users to respond to internal and external service requests across a variety of digital channels and provides automated and self-service help for customers. 

In contrast, ServiceNow is an IT management service (ITSM) tool that allows organizations to centralize and align the delivery of information technology services and processes. This helps provide a better end-user experience. It can also be used as a technical support/ticketing system for internal or external purposes. 

Features

These platforms can both be used as support platforms. However, Salesforce Service Cloud is primarily used as a customer service platform while ServiceNow focuses more on supporting organizations’ internal technical needs—including providing technical support. 

Salesforce Service Cloud provides users with a comprehensive view of customer communications and serves as a single source of truth for tracking customer interaction histories for the entire organization. It also provides access to self-service portals to articles, knowledge-bases, account information, and the organization’s customer community. Using the Service Cloud, users can provide one-on-one or automated support across digital channels like chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, etc. 

ServiceNow provides organizations with features related to IT service support, application building and deployments, and workflow streamlining. These capabilities include the ability to automate business processes, a no-code mobile application builder, workflow applications builder, intelligent chatbots, Machine Learning-driven task automation, a configuration management database, and performance analytics. 

Limitations

Both platforms have a wealth of features and support a variety of use cases, but each has a few limitations to be aware of. 

Users on TrustRadius comment that Salesforce Service Cloud has so many features that learning how to use the platform can be overwhelming, especially for new users. Many have said that customization is needed to take full advantage of the system and that Salesforce Service Cloud has limited out-of-the-box functionality. Prices for certain add-ons can also be expensive. 

ServiceNow customers on TrustRadius note that user-interface can be clunky and hard to navigate. Some users also feel that report building can be difficult. The software also requires a significant amount of engineering resources in order to customize it exactly to your business needs. 

Pricing

Salesforce Service Cloud offers four different pricing tiers. The higher-priced plans provide access to more advanced features such as service contracts and entitlements, web services APIs, and access to 24/7 support. All plans are all billed annually, on a per user per month basis. The initial price points for each plan are as follows: 

  • The Essentials plan is $25 per user per month 
  • The Professional plan is $74 per user per month 
  • The Enterprise $150 per user per month 
  • The Unlimited $300 per user per month 

ServiceNow does not disclose pricing information on its website but will provide a customized quote upon request.

Features
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow IT Service Management
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Service Cloud
8.8
68 Ratings
11% above category average
ServiceNow IT Service Management
8.2
67 Ratings
1% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets8.866 Ratings8.866 Ratings
Expert directory8.547 Ratings7.650 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications9.256 Ratings7.662 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation8.452 Ratings8.359 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission9.266 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket response8.865 Ratings00 Ratings
Service restoration00 Ratings7.655 Ratings
Self-service tools00 Ratings9.064 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards00 Ratings8.861 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Service Cloud
9.0
64 Ratings
15% above category average
ServiceNow IT Service Management
-
Ratings
External knowledge base9.157 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledge base9.062 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Service Cloud
8.9
68 Ratings
15% above category average
ServiceNow IT Service Management
-
Ratings
Customer portal8.948 Ratings00 Ratings
IVR8.531 Ratings00 Ratings
Social integration8.642 Ratings00 Ratings
Email support9.367 Ratings00 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration9.259 Ratings00 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Service Cloud
-
Ratings
ServiceNow IT Service Management
8.5
60 Ratings
4% above category average
Configuration mangement00 Ratings8.259 Ratings
Asset management dashboard00 Ratings8.658 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement00 Ratings8.752 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Service Cloud
-
Ratings
ServiceNow IT Service Management
8.0
61 Ratings
4% below category average
Change requests repository00 Ratings7.561 Ratings
Change calendar00 Ratings7.455 Ratings
Service-level management00 Ratings9.157 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow IT Service Management
Small Businesses
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP Service Cloud
SAP Service Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow IT Service Management
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(74 ratings)
8.3
(78 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(6 ratings)
9.0
(13 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(12 ratings)
6.3
(11 ratings)
Availability
9.5
(19 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
8.6
(7 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(20 ratings)
7.3
(22 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow IT Service Management
Likelihood to Recommend
Salesforce
This is great for cold calling and starting clients from scratch. A lot of entry is required to build a customer profile, but if you are diligent in entering this information, then it can be extremely useful, and you will thank yourself down the road for having an organized database with as many or few details stored. It is a little more challenging for existing customers who have a wealth of information on their files because the transfer of information can be quite tedious.
Read full review
ServiceNow
In our organization, we are using ServiceNow extensively. Change Management, Incident Management, Problem Management, Time tracking are few modules which we use extensively. This sort of model will work for any product or service based companies as the product is built on ITIL framework. So this product will be suited for small or large scale companies to better organize and add controls and track SLA's for technology or business process.
Read full review
Pros
Salesforce
  • Allows us to make changes quickly and with relative ease
  • Can be flexible enough to use among several teams who do very different work
  • Salesforce in general provides SO much training that anyone on the team can skill up and help maintain the system
Read full review
ServiceNow
  • When I have a number of requests to make, for example a request to add a dozen or so user accounts to more than one group account in Active Directory , I can put all the needed information into the initial form, add it to my "shopping cart" and all of that information remains on the screen for the next item for which I only need to edit a few items (like the AD group name in this example), and keep adding them to the shopping cart until I have them all. When I "Check Out" each of those items is generated as a separate task under the one request. It simplifies and expedites the creation and tracking of these kinds of requests.
  • I can easily and quickly see what tickets are currently assigned to me in order to prioritize them and remain aware of my workload.
  • Numerous fields for CIs can be used when trying to find the entry for a particular item. For example, IP Address, server name, raw text, classification, and so on.
  • To help with making sense out of related tasks, when a task is assigned to me and I need to open another task for a different team to work in order to complete my task, I can open a sub-task from my ticket so that the relationship between the two can be pulled up later into reports. For example, I may have a task to build a new vm, and need to open tasks for networking, security accounts, software installation and so on. By opening sub-tasks from my assignment, the time spent by all parties concerned is tied together for more meaningful cost accounting.
Read full review
Cons
Salesforce
  • Incredibly complex to set up and configure.
  • Multiple points of potential failure.
  • Things Desk.com did out-of-the-box require customized code and components in Service Cloud.
  • Front-facing community is extremely difficult to configure and comes with many limitations.
  • No help is provided by Salesforce without expensive Premiere Support plans.
  • Expensive! Hidden costs and development costs are going to make Service Cloud far more expensive than almost any other Help Desk provider out there.
Read full review
ServiceNow
  • It is hard to find areas for improvement, the tool is very powerful. That said, building the CMDB still involves some manual interaction which was not how it was presented in demos.
  • The CMDB data is almost too deep and detailed. When you build the relationship map it can be so large that it is overwhelming. You can limit this, but the default maps are massive if you are discovering lots of device classes.
  • The product is expensive. Since they are the leader in the industry and the product has tons of features, they definitely charge for it!
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Salesforce
Professional edition works best for a small company with lower call volumes and is very useful but as you grow exponetially I think it has limited ability to do all the things we want to - SLA management, defect, release management to name a few. Reports and dashboards being available in real time.
Read full review
ServiceNow
To be completely honest setting up a new ticketing system can be a pain in the ass. Once you have it setup and customized the way you want it, you don't want to switch unless you're unhappy with the product. Unless future releases and updates really muck the system up, I wouldn't change.
Read full review
Usability
Salesforce
I had Salesforce experience prior to using Service Cloud which made it a little easier to learn and navigate, but overall my team (some who had no Salesforce experience) caught on very quickly and found Service Cloud to be easy to use.
Read full review
ServiceNow
The dashboard is so confusing, [there are] many clicks to open a task and search by a ticket. The Enterprise customisation [we did] has finished to kill the software and creates a really bad experience on a daily basis. [It is] So slow, and so many clicks to process a ticket. Works only on IE so, that [should] make you realize that [it] is a bad idea.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Salesforce
Salesforce has a more than 99% uptime rate and Salesforce Service Cloud is no exception. I have never had any issues experiencing outages or service degradation when it comes to using the Service Cloud product (that I can remember). Always reliable and easy to use, I would recommend this product as your go-to for helpdesk, service desk, incident management, call center, and other business process needs.
Read full review
ServiceNow
We have never had any issues with ServiceNow's availability that I am aware of in the two years I have been using it.
Read full review
Performance
Salesforce
There are issues with page load performance and database performance for sure, but we are a very complex setup with a lot of automation and processing for 2000+ users so this is not surprising. We are also global, so the issue with distance from the regional servers is a problem.
Read full review
ServiceNow
For a massive system, page loads are reasonably quick, including searches.
Read full review
Support Rating
Salesforce
It depends on what support package you buy from Salesforce. That can be good or bad. It's highly flexible to your needs pricing wise. If you have devs on staff then don't buy support. If you don't, then sfdc offers support for a cost.
Read full review
ServiceNow
I would give it this rating because we have had no major issues with the support for ServiceNow after we implemented it at our organization. They seem to respond promptly and efficiently if we ever do need to open a support case with them about an issue we are having.
Read full review
Online Training
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
ServiceNow
To type in what should be a text box, you have to click an empty cell, a tiny text box pop up opens with a check box and an X. You the. Type in the text box and have to click the check mark. If you have a bunch of fields to fill out, doing this is very annoying. Absolutely know thought went in to this. I'm sure somebody in marketing thought it was a good idea. It wasn't.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Salesforce
We are still working through issues with the implementation. Things are also always changing so the original implementation required many changes
Read full review
ServiceNow
Without exception, every client I have worked with has been very happy with their resulting product. While this is partly due to my work, I must point out that the platform is the winning decision, not the implementer.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Salesforce
Salesforce service cloud is more configurable than Zendesk and Freshdesk. It has its own inbuilt AI chatbot also which further improves service agent efficiency. Salesforce is more integration agnostic and has pre-built connectors with multiple 3rd party systems. However, in terms of pricing it is priced at a premium compared to the other solutions
Read full review
ServiceNow
We used to use Jira to handle service tickets but it's way too robust for something this straightforward. Due to the nature of Jira, you needed to already have a lot of documentation and knowledge about who should be assigned the ticket, so the lift of creating a ticket was time consuming.
Read full review
Scalability
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
ServiceNow
ServiceNow works as an enterprise solution.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Salesforce
  • Because this is a cloud service, the security, implementation framework and feature list is very mature and you don't have to develop these during implementation.
  • The larger the implementation programme the better the licensing arrangements
  • Free developer toolkit for proof of concepts or showcasing features
  • Limited to annual subscription model
Read full review
ServiceNow
  • Overall ServiceNow has a positive impact on getting the SLA of tickets down in supporting our customers.
  • One negative impact has been the amount of time to get the product to produce an ROI, it's almost too big to fail and too big to replace. You almost become committed to the product. Good or bad.
  • Another negative impact would be if you track metrics of employees and time tracking, there is a lot of scenarios where engineers will track time on tickets but not get credit for closing them as the assignee function of tickets can only be tied to one user and credits only the engineer who closes the ticket.
  • Another positive impact would be the level of security for permissions and scaling the workloads is robust and you will get out of the system what your team is willing to put in.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Salesforce Service Cloud Screenshots

Screenshot of Workflows and OrchestrationScreenshot of Service CatalogScreenshot of Contact Center