Item: Salesforce.com
Rating: 1
Author: Kurt Johansen

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Salesforce as our main CRM. Almost all aspects of our business are dependent on Salesforce and use it every day. Our Service team uses the Field Service component to Salesforce, mainly because of the main SF app does not cache data in any capacity, rendering it useless without a cellular connection, which is a reality in suburban areas of the country. Our Sales team is forced to use the SF Mobile App for their end of the business as there is no 'sales' version of the Field Service app to allow caching of future appointments. The main plus for SF is forcing all ends of the business to work on the same platform, making everything uniform for business practices. If all information, processes, and data go through the same funnel, everything is easily located, tracked, and communicated.

Pros and Cons

Automation: The ability to streamline complex processes is a nice benefit of the platform. It can become an amazing time-saver.
User Management and Creation, one initial profile and role setups are complete, is really simple and very quick.
Reporting, once your customization is complete, is very easy to build and export for whatever data visualizations you may need.

Costs vs. ROI: The initial cost to BUILD whatever instance your SF sales rep presents to you and sells; the COST associate to get to that build is NEVER explained or discussed.
The Salesforce sales rep's job is to sell you on an idea and hope, rather than practical application, implementation, and realistic expectations of the egregiously cantankerous and universally overpriced CRM.
They do not vet, manage or hold accountable their 'implementation partners'. Again, the sales rep for Salesforce; their job is to sell you the platform, not what you they showed you the platform can do. There is extreme neglect in discussing the actual cost to get their CRM platform to do WHAT they have showcased to you. Not to mention the time it takes to get there. Not to mention the partners they refer to you are random. These 3rd party companies do ALL the work and make ALL the money on behalf of Salesforce, for themselves. You get stuck in contracts with mediocre service or lackluster results and there is NO recourse for you as the consumer against these 'partners'.
If I want to sell GM cars, GM has standards and minimums they require in order for me to represent their brand. If I do shady dealings, rip customers off or am just a terrible business to be in business with, GM would strip me of my dealership title for their brand. Salesforce does no such thing. I could start a company to implement Salesforce, have you sign a contract and deliver a garbage product. If you go to SF to complain about that; "Our hands our tied" as I have been told.
Salesforce does not care about your user experience, they just want you to buy more. It is a Sales organization, not a software company. Again, they do not care about your business, the negative impact of their CRM rollout, or how terrible their 3rd party support partners are. They. Dont. Care. They just want your money.
SF is aware they are the biggest player on the block. They have all the cards. You, the consumer, as an individual business, have no power or say.

Return on Investment

The cost associated with Salesforce vs. how we used to do it as it relates to ROI is probably equal or negative. We had an older Access based system before this that worked, albeit slowly. But it worked. We didn't have to spend $4K to create a new layout view with automation behind it. We didn't have to spend 3 weeks building a report for a custom object. We didn't have to do anything to 'make' our CRM work for us.
The only reason we went to Salesforce was to get our Sales, Service, and Admin teams using the same platform. In the end, it made no real difference in operations or workflow. It was just a different window to view the data. But that new window cost around $200K over the span of a decade. Not worth it.

Alternatives Considered

I have no alternative to compare as SF is all I have known for 7 years. The program we used prior to this, Smart Service, although I am far out of experience in using it, as I recall, superior based on setup, usability, integration, and especially cost. Salesforce has a negative ROI for small businesses.

Key Insights

Do you think Salesforce.com delivers good value for the price?

Are you happy with Salesforce.com's feature set?

Yes

Did Salesforce.com live up to sales and marketing promises?

Did implementation of Salesforce.com go as expected?

Would you buy Salesforce.com again?

Other Software Used

Salesforce Field Service (Click Field Service Edge), Robly, Asana

Usability

There is nothing 'smooth' or 'seamless' about Salesforces UI if you have multiple data-points you need to see on the screen as it relates to a customers account. If you need to view or 'do' more than 2 or 3 things from your Account view, get ready to spend lots of $$$ and get ready for a very slow, miserable Salesforce Lightening experience. New edits to records don't load on pages, after save (you have to close your window and reload the record for changes to reflect on screen). That's just 1 example amongst many.

Support Rating

SF Support is garbage. Mainly because when you call them, they have no working conceptual idea of how your build of the CRM functions. NEVER purchase their top tier support, because again, they don't know how your build works, how its supposed to work or what any of the backend coding or changes your 3rd part developer (that SF makes you sign a contract with and hire to use their software) has made.
All ACTUAL support comes from that 3rd party. But you better make sure they answer emails sooner than 48 hours or have 24hour live support options. If your CRM takes a nose-dive, your business is down until your 'partner' does their job. Most small businesses cant afford to keep a SF Developer on payroll to attack these issues as they arise. So we are left to our own devices because SF support, as this whole review has encapsulated, doesn't give a shit about you or your experience. They just want your money.

Likelihood to Recommend

In the Field Service package of Salesforce, the auto-routing of work order tickets is REAL nice, as well as the automations you can set up based on rules, to allow specific scheduling of specific types of calls to be automatically assigned to specific people is a huge time saver. Report automation (scheduled reports sent to specific people on specific days) is a real handy tool as well. As a DB Admin, instead of being asked every few days for data, I can schedule the report to be sent to someone without them asking me for it or me having to think about it anymore.

On the other hand; Those perks I stated about took almost 2 years to achieve, thousands of dollars and untold hours of time. The biggest lie of Salesforce touts is its 'ease of setup'. We have been using it for roughly 8 years and are so deeply indebted to its use, walking away from it means we spent 10's of thousands of dollars each year, for almost a decade, for nothing. They are not a peddler of CRM, they have institutionalized indentured servitude on the business level.

Welcome to my Nightmare!

Software Version

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Salesforce.com