Salesforce Service Cloud vs. ServiceNow Customer Service Management

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Salesforce Service Cloud
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Salesforce Service Cloud provides companies with a call center-like view that enables them to create and track cases coming in, and automatically route and escalate what’s important. The Salesforce CRM-powered customer portal provides customers the ability to track their own cases, includes a social networking plug-in that enables the user to join the conversation about their company on social networking websites, provides analytical tools and other services including email, chat, Google…
$65
per month
ServiceNow Customer Service Management
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Built on the Now Platform, ServiceNow offers their Customer Service Management solution through the Standard and Professional Customer Service Management bundles. Both include agent workspace, knowledge management, survey and assessment module, and the community module, oriented in this edition to support customers rather than internal employees. The Professional bundle also includes performance analytics, predictive intelligence, and related tools to support customer support agents improvement…N/A
Pricing
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow Customer Service Management
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow Customer Service Management
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow Customer Service Management
Considered Both Products
Salesforce Service Cloud
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
I wasn't involved with the selection of this tool, but I used ServiceNow at a previous employer and preferred the ease of use and workflow of ServiceNow. Both offer customized templates, which is great, but ServiceNow was simpler to design and change. Salesforce has more time …
ServiceNow Customer Service Management

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow Customer Service Management
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Service Cloud
8.2
57 Ratings
1% above category average
ServiceNow Customer Service Management
7.1
6 Ratings
13% below category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.055 Ratings7.66 Ratings
Expert directory7.740 Ratings7.85 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications7.547 Ratings7.25 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation7.942 Ratings5.15 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission8.556 Ratings8.96 Ratings
Ticket response8.655 Ratings6.16 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Service Cloud
8.2
53 Ratings
3% above category average
ServiceNow Customer Service Management
5.2
5 Ratings
42% below category average
External knowledge base7.946 Ratings5.04 Ratings
Internal knowledge base8.551 Ratings5.45 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Service Cloud
8.7
57 Ratings
8% above category average
ServiceNow Customer Service Management
6.6
6 Ratings
19% below category average
Customer portal8.839 Ratings7.44 Ratings
IVR8.925 Ratings5.74 Ratings
Social integration7.834 Ratings4.24 Ratings
Email support9.156 Ratings7.35 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration8.949 Ratings8.15 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow Customer 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 9.3 out of 10
SAP Service Cloud
SAP Service Cloud
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow Customer Service Management
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(62 ratings)
7.5
(6 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(11 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
8.7
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.6
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.5
(29 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Salesforce Service CloudServiceNow Customer Service Management
Likelihood to Recommend
Salesforce
- Heavy volumes of tickets/ support workload - Audit trail of all dispute resolutions and customer history - Can be easily configured as per business requirements - Integration agnostic with 3rd party systems like CTI, ERP, other external systems Service CLoud can help increase your CSAT / NPS score by giving customers a better support experience and helping increase the efficiency of your service organization. It is priced more than some good competitors in the market but is more scalable and configurable compared to other solutions
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ServiceNow
It is well suited for medium to large companies that manage different teams and need to communicate constantly and track progress in a timely manner. It is less suited for small enterprises as it will overwhelm users with the features and functionalities embedded.
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Pros
Salesforce
  • Super fast set-up of the service from design through to production.
  • Robust method of release management from sandbox, to test, to production.
  • User access controls can be fine grain, which is great for GDPR requirements, limiting access to only necessary data.
  • Simple api integrations with other third party systems
  • Broad range of features and functionality
  • Einstein search features provides faster information mining for our agents as they help to resolve customer requests.
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ServiceNow
  • Allows for clear communication between help desk and end users.
  • Provides a clean inventory option for both hardware items and software licenses.
  • Navigation is very intuitive and user friendly.
  • Many reporting features for all levels of the company.
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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.
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ServiceNow
  • Adding in additional chat features would be nice
  • Viewing where you stand in priority
  • Having a way to automate more of the processes
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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.
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ServiceNow
No answers on this topic
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.
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ServiceNow
Bottom line is that it does what you need it to do. We've been using Service Now as a ticket managing tool for a few years now. There's really not much it can't do when it comes to recording interactions. It has been nice using inventory tracking for software licenses and hardware as well.
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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.
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ServiceNow
No answers on this topic
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.
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ServiceNow
No answers on this topic
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.
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ServiceNow
Support has been very good. Any time there has been a real issue, the team has responded very quickly and identified the issue without a lot of repetitive questions that I've seen from other services. There is a great external community and internal knowledge base that covers pretty much anything you need.
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Alternatives Considered
Salesforce
I have used Microsoft Dynamics in the past and I feel that Salesforce compares positively to it. While both software offers cloud based service and a mobile app, Microsoft Dynamics doesn't support integration with Gmail. One of the reasons we like Salesforce so much is that it can integrate with your email.
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ServiceNow
Connectwise targets small to medium enterprises and kept things simple for cross-organizational communications. On the other hand, ServiceNow with users with more than 500 at least, tends to create lag and tension when all are using the app at the same time, especially getting reports in a timely manner.
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Return on Investment
Salesforce
  • Probably negative due to the cost of Salesforce. We haven't seen a return on the sales side yet to really justify the costs.
  • On the positive side, it's nice to manage opportunities from cases and cases from opportunities.
  • Our data has never been more organized and in better shape, though it's a constant battle!
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ServiceNow
  • The negative impact for my team is the delay in team completing tickets but not a system issue.
  • A positive impact for my team is we can easily view the status of tickets and the follow-up emails are beneficial to maintain records of tickets.
  • Negative impact is that there is no user job aid or helpful tools for new users.
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ScreenShots

Salesforce Service Cloud Screenshots

Screenshot of Salesforce Service Cloud OverviewScreenshot of Salesforce Service Cloud - Customer CommunitiesScreenshot of Salesforce Service Cloud - Agent ConsoleScreenshot of Salesforce Service Cloud - Live AgentScreenshot of Salesforce Service Cloud - Wave AnalyticsScreenshot of Salesforce Service Cloud - Social Customer Support