Experience in using and implementing Salesforce Service Cloud makes it easy to recommend
Updated September 30, 2015
Experience in using and implementing Salesforce Service Cloud makes it easy to recommend
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Unlimited
Modules Used
- Salesforce Cases
- Salesforce Entitlements
- Salesforce Live Agent
- Salesforce Console
Overall Satisfaction with Salesforce Service Cloud
Service Cloud is deeply embedded in our customer support processes. We utilize Cases, Chatter, Force.com, and Communities to communicate with our customers. It helps us effectively collaborate internally and with our customers to log and resolve issues. It eliminates the threading of email, provides concise logging and tracking of issues and keeps artifacts readily available for project and run teams.
- Service Console allows a customizable view of a great deal of information in a single location, keeping agent context within a click.
- Salesforce Knowledge easily provides access to multiple types of information for internal, customer, partner, and public use. It has the ability to feed agents the most relevant articles to help agents close cases with more ease.
- Service Cloud is highly extensible. We integrate it to many other systems and I have helped many customers integrate very relevant data into Salesforce to ensure age3nts have a more complete picture of the customer and their past interactions and transactions with the company.
- Service Cloud easily handles multiple channels of customer case intake with little need for customization. Much can be done through Configuration so you can get your project done sooner.
- Service Cloud is deeply tied to Sales and Marketing on Salesforce so it supports cross-departmental processes and helps build a 360 degree view of customers.
- Salesforce has a flexible model for routing of cases, but it could use improvement in the area of skills based routing and more complicated case assignment based on agent presence. Salesforce has this on their roadmap, so the functionality appears to be coming, but this is a typical area of customization when it comes to implementation.
- Service Cloud runs many large call centers around the world, but Salesforce could improve upon the process of onboarding and offboarding agents when it comes to high turnover and large call centers. This can certainly be done, but it's a bit of administrative work for customers today.
- Service Cloud has grown significantly and one evidence of that is the speed of product change in areas such as Questions, Answers, and Chatter Answers. They are all designed to be the same type of interaction where a customer can ask something of the community, be given possible solutions, and continue to post their question and receive an answer. That particular feature has been evolving, though it has not significantly affected existing implementations. The good thing is, the product keeps maturing.
- I have seen Net Promoter Scores (NPS) improved significantly with customers because the agent had immediate access to information previously challenging to find by agents.
- Workflow and approval processes ensure consistent processes are followed by agents and help move cases along as necessary with less user intervention. This results in much more efficient use of agents' time.
- Some would knock Salesforce on price when it comes to subscription licensing, however, when you take into account the overall cost of licensing traditional software, running your own servers, databases, and so on, Salesforce is very cost competitive. Additionally, since Salesforce has three product releases per year which all customers take automatically, you have access to new features much more often than with traditional software deployments, leading to additional functionality without the costly expense of upgrades.
Salesforce has increased their traction in the SMB space for service with the acquisition of Desk.com. It provides a good entry level solution for customer service and knowledge for less complex organizations. Additionally, it gets them up and running quicker. Without Desk.com, many customers would have previously gone with Zendesk, but the advantage companies have with Desk is that when they grow, they can easily grow into the full Salesforce Service Cloud suite without needing to redeploy or rearchitect. While other companies are now making a bigger splash in the news about cloud based service offerings, Salesforce has the most experience and is a constant innovator in that space, so they frankly lead the pack. Salesforce has consistently grown the breadth of their service products and in time added premium licensed features as standard products, which is a very nice benefit.