Item: DemandTools
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

DemandTools is used to mass edit Salesforce records to support the Sales team. We use it for a variety of tasks - including uploading new data with PeopleImport, standardizing data, de-duping Salesforce, reassigning accounts/contacts when we realign territories. Currently, I'm the only user as we only have one Admin. I am looking to work with it more regularly and have set data-maintenance tasks on a regular basis.

Pros and Cons

Data Standardization - it's a truly beautiful thing using this tool. There's more than one module that will let you update every record in the system if you have to, or you can filter it down to only update records that match particular criteria.
Data Maintenance - At least 10% of our database is duplicates. DemandTools works wonders in helping us clean those up. Especially helpful are the Lead2Contact and Lead2Account deduplication tool. We use these most in correlation with our marketing automation tool which creates new records as leads if the email address doesn't match. Running a quick scenario in Lead2Contact will merge the new leads with existing contacts without losing data.
Data Format - The ability to format my data uniformly brings joy to my OCD heart. Built in to the software are programs for North American businesses to standardize information. Phone numbers, states, countries, addresses, etc.

Better scheduling of tasks. This is something I would like to do but I haven't figured out how to do it yet
Better UI - I feel like I'm in the 90s or early 2000s
Ability to use punctuation in things - like searching for all accounts with a comma in them or a semi colon

Return on Investment

Increased employee efficiency from data standardization / deduplication
Faster touches on leads with the list importing tools
Cleaner data (see increased employee efficiency) which makes for a happier admin

Alternatives Considered

We went with DT because it met our needs at the time and was very cost effective. Cost is based completely on the number of users, so you're only going to pay for how many users you have (even though actual licenses to the software are dependent on how many you want - we just have one). Also, Salesforce Data Loader is really hard to use and their data importing functions are awful.

Other Software Used

Salesforce.com, Marketo, Asana

Likelihood to Recommend

If all you need is one aspect of the functionality, maybe it isn't the best - there's probably a cloud solution out there that will fit your need. But nothing - and I've reached out to the Salesforce Admin community about it - compares to the functionality and cost. Sure, there are tons of cloud dedupe tools out there - and a lot of them are pretty cool. But they don't have the additional functionality of DemandTools, like reassigning objects (any object), or mass-editing data. Additionally, DemandTools touches basically every Salesforce object. Most other solutions are limited to what objects they can interact with.

Users and Roles

1 - I am the only one who uses DemandTools. I am our CRM Administrator and Marketing Coordinator. Around 30% of my job is managing the CRM (Salesforce). DemandTools & its sister product People Import have provided me with significant time savings and have greatly improved the ability for me to fulfill all the roles of my job.

Support Headcount Required

I'm the only one that uses it, so I'm the only one that supports it. DemandTools customer service is very prompt so if I have an issue, I just open a case and they have generally gotten back to me in a matter of two hours or less. No internal support necessary

Business Processes Supported

Deduplication
Reassigning Territories (I do this at least once a quarter with over 100,000 accounts)
Modifying data formatting - like addresses. Or populating missing info (like if the Country should be USA but is blank)

Likelihood to Renew

Products Replaced

Key Differentiators

Price
Product Features

Price was probably the biggest one. DemandTools provides the biggest bang-for-our-buck. It offers so much functionality for the same price that other vendors offered only one piece of functionality. Going into the decision, there was no prior experience from anyone. Perhaps a "I think the admin at XYZ company uses this," but that was about it. The Salesforce Admins I knew all pushed me to using DemandTools.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

Maybe try to find some other vendors just to truly understand what the offering is. We've been with DemandTools since January of 2014, so I'm sure the software world has changed. At the time, it was definitely the best. It continues to have a very strong reputation amongst the Dreamforce crowd.

Usability

It's an old-school UI, but the training they provide is great so you get to learn how to properly use every module.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Convenient Feel confident using	Lots to learn

Easy Tasks

Merging. So much better than the SF UI!!
Running the same scenario over and over - once you set it up, you can just reuse it over and over. Especially helpful for things you do routinely, like formatting address or reassigning things.

Difficult Tasks

Scheduling things to run at regular intervals is hard

Best Addition to Your Salesforce Toolbox

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with DemandTools