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Switched from MS CRM to reap benefits of SaaS.
November 13, 2012

Switched from MS CRM to reap benefits of SaaS.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Professional

Modules Used

  • Sales Cloud

Overall Satisfaction with Salesforce Sales Cloud

  • Reliability / Uptime
  • Saas, not installed
  • Huge and active community
  • AppExchange (but search is lousy)
  • Platform very easy to develop on
  • Core product development is being ignored in favor of “social CRM” (chatter, etc).
  • Increasing emphasis on enterprise functionality and not SMB (where they started)
  • Primarily designed for sales management, not portfolio management. The workflow (account – contact etc.) is not ideal. Also would be better if there were some reverse lookup capability where if a contact is added under a new account name, the software could look up that contact to see if he already exists in system to prevent duplicates.
  • If ”niche” user like us (venture capital form), community is a bit less helpful since the use cases are not standard
  • No account management (client success) unless big client. Left hanging.
  • Much easier to manage deal flow
  • Better contact management (after Exchange integration (using external connector to do this)
• Usability is a major issue (as it is for all CRM systems). User interface and workflow design needs lots of work. System is great as a management tool (dashboards giving insight into how business is performing) but from the point of view of the end-user having to enter data into the system, it’s terrible.
• Usability is a major factor in inhibiting adoption internally.
• Really needs to be re-architected in HTML 5. They appear to be working on an HTML 5 mobile version called touch designed to run on iPads and iPhones, but the UI of the core application is not being re-done. Not just a matter of making it prettier – core UI needs to be re-designed.
LexisNexis InterAction CRM. InterAction had one killer feature which is missing from all other CRM systems: DataSteward which is a workflow engine allowing changes to data records to be entered into a queue for approval before the changes are actually made. Great feature. However, apart from that, SFDC is clearly a much more fully-featured product.

Using Salesforce Sales Cloud

  • System of record for contact and deal flow management
  • Integrated directly with Exchange server to sync calendars etc.

Evaluating Salesforce Sales Cloud and Competitors

Salesforce Sales Cloud Implementation

One of the consultants screwed up the field names and there are still field name inconsistencies throughout the system. Premium support contract actually covered this and would have been a much better option.
  • Vendor implemented
  • Implemented in-house
• 60% self-implemented (Dave) and 40% PS company called Strategic Growth SFDC Consultants)

Salesforce Sales Cloud Training

  • Online training
  • In-person training
• The person giving the advanced admin training was excellent
• Online training was not very detailed

Salesforce Sales Cloud Support

• Support staff – 8: Helpful, knowledgeable, good at helping with “how-to” issues
• Providing solution to things that don’t work – 3: Since SFDC is a multi-tenant SaaS system, new feature prioritization / bug fixes tend to be very slow. Also, support will not provide any code to manage workarounds. For this reason, signed on for premium admin support, which is useful but costly.
Yes
We needed help to manage workarounds for bugs.

Salesforce Sales Cloud Reliability

Integrating Salesforce Sales Cloud

  • SQL Server
  • Fund Management S/W
  • LinkedIn
  • Exchange Server (currently underway)
SQL and Fund Manager integrations are critically important. Exchange integration will also be important (if it works correctly).
Integrations work pretty well and were very easy to complete since they are native integrations.