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Manage your entire sales cycle
November 06, 2017

Manage your entire sales cycle

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

Software Version

Other

Overall Satisfaction with Salesforce.com

We use Salesforce for both prospecting and account management. The sales department utilizes Salesforce and is not used in other areas of the company. It allows us to efficiently track prospecting activity and schedule check ins with our current customers. It also organizes our database so salespeople don't call into the same accounts.
  • Salesforce is great at day to day organization through schedules tasks and events. It helps with efficiency as you have your required tasks laid out for you as soon as you log in.
  • Customization in Salesforce is both a blessing and a curse. If you understand how to utilize custom fields to better organize your list views and reporting it is invaluable.
  • Being able to mass email directly from the platform is great as it automatically logs the activity and streamlines the process
  • It is a very intimidating platform to new users. It's not at all intuitive or user friendly and definitely requires some training and help.
  • No customer service. If you only pay for the basic license good luck figuring out problems as customer service just refers you to the community boards to search for it there.
  • Being able to efficiently manage your pipeline and prospects definitely helps increase conversions.
  • I've worked off of Excel sheets in the past and the time you save when using a well organized Salesforce is invaluable.
  • QuotaFactory
I've most heavily used the now defunct QuotaFactory for prospecting activity, which was better than Salesforce in that area. It was geared specifically towards prospecting activity and definitely feel it was a better option for business development. As an all in one solution Salesforce definitely is far superior as you can manage all aspects of the sales process.
In any scenario where you are managing outreach to clients, prospects, or both, I'm hard pressed to find a solution that better manages all aspects in one place. While it isn't ideal for business development, as it is geared towards managing the sales cycle, you can certainly prospect if you keep your instances organized.

Salesforce Sales Cloud Feature Ratings

7.8
Customer data management / contact management
9
Workflow management
8
Territory management
Not Rated
Opportunity management
8
Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)
5
Contract management
Not Rated
Quote & order management
Not Rated
Interaction tracking
9
Channel / partner relationship management
Not Rated
Customer Service & Support ()
Not Rated
8.0
Lead management
9
Email marketing
7
10.0
Task management
10
Reporting
10
7.0
Forecasting
Not Rated
Pipeline visualization
7
Customizable reports
7
9.0
Custom fields
9
Custom objects
Not Rated
Scripting environment
Not Rated
API for custom integration
Not Rated
7.0
Role-based user permissions
7
Single sign-on capability
Not Rated
Not Rated
Social data
Not Rated
Social engagement
Not Rated
Not Rated
Marketing automation
Not Rated
Compensation management
Not Rated
Not Rated
Mobile access
Not Rated

Using Salesforce.com

6 - The entire sales team utilizes the platform. It is used for prospecting, tracking activity, sales cycle, and account management.
1 - No one in the organization had a full understanding of the capabilities. Having had 5 years with the platform I've self taught myself how to fully utilize a lot of the features that are often not used. Ideally, you want someone who has had a lot of experience in the system and has been trained on how to set up and maximize efficiency.
  • Account Management
  • Prospecting
  • Tracking Pipeline and Sales Cycle
  • The biggest thing we have been able to do is find a lot of ways to utilize the reporting function to make sure our prospecting accounts are being touched
  • I would think upgrading to utilize the mass email feature would be huge. In the past I've utilized it and gotten a lot out of it.
While it's not perfect and can be overly complicated at times, there is not another solution out there that can do what it does. To get the same functionality you would need numerous disparate tools to match the amount of functionality Salesforce has. Having it all aggregated on one platform makes the complicated parts far more bearable.

Evaluating Salesforce.com and Competitors

  • Prior Experience with the Product
I've used the product for years and as far as functionality there isn't a better option out there.
There isn't much I would change, I've had exposure to numerous CRMs over the years and despite Salesforce's shortcomings around support and the steep learning curve to figure out how to use it there isn't a better option.

Salesforce.com Implementation

Salesforce.com Support

I understand you can pay more to get support but as I stated, I feel strongly that if you are paying for SAAS technology like Salesforce you should be afforded the courtesy of the company explaining how to use it's features. I like to refer to the basic license as the "Figure It Out Yourself" license.
ProsCons
None
Slow Resolution
Poor followup
Problems left unsolved
Support doesn't seem to care
No - I do not make decisions around the level we use, however I feel pretty strongly that any company you are paying for a SAAS solution should provide some level of support other than telling you to check the community pages. They definitely take advantage of being the biggest name in the game and really are not great with assistance on anything.
I cannot, and even if I paid for a tier that provided support the fact you are paying for it means you SHOULD be getting exceptional support every time.

Using Salesforce.com

While it certainly has a learning curve, once you get the hang of it and learn the ins and outs of the features you can easily work out of the platform pretty seamlessly. Less so if your organization has made a mess of the instance, but in a well manicured instance there isn't a better or easier option.
ProsCons
Like to use
Well integrated
Consistent
Feel confident using
Unnecessarily complex
Cumbersome
Lots to learn
  • Importing lists was quite easy from the start, as it imports from either .xls or .csv files.
  • List views, once they are built out, are very easy to navigate and manage
  • Building reports and dashboards can be cumbersome if you aren't familiar with the system.
  • Making list views can also be complicated for new users as even the smallest option in the process being off can result in nothing showing on the list view.
Yes, but I don't use it