Item: Salesforce Sales Cloud
Rating: 8
Author: Mark Hautala

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use the Salesforce Cloud to forecast our pipeline and keep track of opportunities. We can see multiple contacts within accounts and assign the people involved with the sale to each unique opportunity. It is a great system of records. Leadership can review each representative's pipeline and check the notes to see what is going on with contacts and opportunities.

Pros and Cons

System of records.
Provide leadership timely details.
Add notes of what you need help with.
Review sales pipeline.

Navigating the user interface.
Make sure to save changes or they will be lost.
Too many fields and many aren’t used.
Accuracy of forecast, would be nice to have best vs worst case scenarios.

Return on Investment

Able to combine opportunities.
Provides visibility to know where other opportunities could be.
Improved productivity on team meetings.

Scalability

Salesforce Cloud can be used by small teams but is better suited for organizations with over 500 sellers. It’s nice that the representatives can see what is going on with other accounts with opportunities and use that information to determine who they should talk to within their accounts. Leadership can run team meetings better with their pipeline section in Salesforce Cloud.

Customer Data Management

It’s helpful to see keywords that are most top of mind and important to our customers and then use those same keywords to speak back to them. They feel a synergy that we are talking about the same thing with that AI feature. It also allows us added time that we are not researching on our own but instead have a tool helping us.

Alternatives Considered

HubSpot CRM and System 5

Salesforce is a much more robust platform and is better suited for larger sales teams. There are better forecasting capabilities for different verticals of sales teams, so you can gain better insights from the data. Salesforce Cloud could be used by smaller organizations, but I believe the cost would not be worth it compared to the competition.

Key Insights

Do you think Salesforce Sales Cloud delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Salesforce Sales Cloud's feature set?

Yes

Did Salesforce Sales Cloud live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Salesforce Sales Cloud go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Salesforce Sales Cloud again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Marketo Sales Connect, Outreach, Sendoso

Likelihood to Recommend

This is a very robust platform. There are many fields and places to input information. Internally (within the organization), you need to be sure representatives have the views they need, and leadership has the correct views they need. We had to edit fields so that it would be easier to review the pipeline and various opportunities. It’s a great system of records for seeing where deals stalled and when it may be more appropriate to reengage.

Great enterprise CRM.

Software Version

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Salesforce Sales Cloud