Salesforce Platform Reviews

We deployed Salesforce for global shared services, for global business services, where we consolidated and standardized on case management software. It's a marketing cloud. We used Einstein as well. We had a pretty large Salesforce deployment. If it was for all internal customers around our global shared services and business services, which was connected with the contact centers. We built contact centers in Manila, Prague, Bogota, and Tampa, among others. Salesforce was the platform that we consolidated all our processes on. We brought it together with Genesis and Interactive Intelligence around the call centers so that we brought everything together.

When we first did the assessment, it was global and it was for putting in a standardized software platform for all the corporate functions of HR, finance, procurement, payroll, and compliance. We standardized all their processes on Salesforce, and then we did that around case management and knowledge management as well. We did that across all those call centers, and that was our Salesforce deployment. We had to EBOM that with ServiceNow and Workday and all the financial systems, SAP, et cetera. We use Salesforce as one of our enterprise platforms.

The flexibility around the deployment is the most valuable aspect of the solution.

The user-friendliness and the interactiveness of Salesforce are great. The tools that came built with it are useful. Between Genesis and Salesforce, there were some schemas that were prebuilt. In terms of the implementation around the popups on the Genesis system and the Interactive Intelligence, they had some pre-built Salesforce schemas which made it very simple. 

With AI for Einstein, the bot capabilities, self-service capabilities, were great. We built a global portal that was Einstein, and the bots were key for the self-service capabilities that we were trying to deploy as part of this transformation to digital, and we basically put all of our documents and we digitized just about all the processes. There was a lot of our documentation as well and we put everything online. Einstein helped in the evaluation of these products. It helped navigate for the users, the end-users, which were all internal. We had some external too, as we ended up providing that service for third parties around invoicing and procurement. That said, Einstein helped in the user effectiveness and efficiencies around the interactions.

The biggest challenge we had was the cost and the licensing, and we ended up getting an ELA, so enterprise licensing agreement. That took a lot of negotiations and a lot of pressure, however, we were able to get good pricing, the community licensing, and they bundled in Einstein. They bundled a lot of capabilities for us with the ELA.

I've used the solution for the last two years, although it was deployed in 2017 or 2019.

The stability is very strong. We haven't had any issues. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

The product is scalable. 

We ended up getting premium support. Due to the fact that it was a critical environment, the call centers, we ended up getting the premium support that was built into the package that we provided. We did get the higher level, higher SLAs, to make sure that there was business-critical support.

We had a large Salesforce deployment in our pharma and medical device organizations. Therefore, we ended up getting enterprise licensing. We ended up having a good set of knowledge. We ultimately used Deloitte to do our development, and Deloitte had some very, very strong capabilities in Salesforce, specifically around case management. That got us going pretty quick. We had a very successful deployment in Salesforce.

From a capability standpoint, Salesforce has really met our needs. It was pretty easy to deploy. We kind of stuck to the basic versions and tried not to customize. We did configurations, however, we tried to stay native for most of Salesforce.

You really have to work hard with the licensing. they are open to negotiating, however, it takes a while to get there. 

We evaluated Salesforce, Appian, Pega, ServiceNow, Remedy, and we ended up selecting ServiceNow and Salesforce.

We selected Salesforce over Pega as we were able to consolidate everything on it. Then we selected ServiceNow for the IT side of it.

I'd advise to definitely not customize. As they rolled out the new versions, which were every six months, there had to be some significant testing and verification that happened. New companies need to have a good, strong third-party provider that is very experienced to assist. We used Deloitte. We did investigations. We evaluated Accenture, KPMG, and some others - even IBM - however, basically, we decided on Deloitte and that was a good decision for us.

You need to have a really good partner who has a center of excellence, or experts, that could give you a lot of insights into what they've learned that could jumpstart your deployment. I'd advise new users to just stay standard and really focus on the licensing. Otherwise, it could get really costly. 

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We are quite satisfied with Salesforce. 

We are using Salesforce Platform to manage our leads, proposals, and POs.

Salesforce helps manage our leads and the conversion of leads, perform analytics, generate sales reports, track what is converted, what is in the proposal phase, etc. It is also being used to manage discussions with clients by connecting with emails.

The most valuable features of Salesforce Platform are its analytics capabilities. The automation and connection with emails allow us to track discussions with clients. Its dashboards are also very useful and provide detailed insights.

One area that could use improvement is the approval mechanism in the authenticator, which is unstable. It often stops working after two or three times and requires the use of codes.

We have been using Salesforce Platform for five years now.

Salesforce Platform is stable. Apart from the issue with the authenticator, everything else works fine.

We are using it for a couple of users, so I cannot comment on the scalability aspect.

We were using Odoo as an ERP before switching to Salesforce Platform. Odoo has a CRM module, but it is not as professional as Salesforce. Odoo requires more customization and coding.

The initial setup involves some customization and working on parameters. It normally takes one week to ten days to configure.

We are integrating Salesforce with Jira, and we have experts to handle this, so there were no issues on our end.

We evaluated Odoo. However, it is not as professional as the Salesforce Platform.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

I use Salesforce Platform in my company for sales-related activities. I use Salesforce Platform to keep the details of all of my prospects and manage data to create a pipeline, manage that pipeline to get a high-level and a very low-level view of what my sales activities look like.

Salesforce Platform has improved the way my company functions since it provides us with quick sales reports on how our performance metrics are while also allowing us to use different platforms like RingCentral, which we use in our company to make calls. The integration of Salesforce Platform with RingCentral helps our company manage everything through a single platform. Through Salesforce, my company can get a high-level overview of what sales and sales activity look like for us. With Salesforce Platform, you can create a pipeline or create projections for future sales.

The most valuable feature of the solution is its overall ability to manage everything, including the sales pipeline and quick creation of sales reports.

The pricing of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement since, right now, I am not sure if Salesforce Platform has any plans for start-ups or small businesses. If Salesforce can create a cost-efficient price plan for small businesses, it would be great.

The product should offer different price packages for different types of businesses.

I have been using Salesforce Platform for a year. I use the solution's latest version, which was released three to four months ago.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I haven't contacted the solution's technical support much. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup of Salesforce Platform was straightforward.

The solution is deployed on the cloud.

I have definitely seen a return on investment from the use of the product since I could see a lot of things happening in our large organization, especially in terms of everything being managed well.

If you operate a big company with a lot of employees or people, then you should go for Salesforce Platform since it can help you transform how you manage your business while providing a high view of what your business looks like and how you can improve it further.

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution as a CRM for client tracking, renewals, and opportunities and as a database for prospects and other CRM tasks. 

From an organizational level, this solution is great for being able to manage your business efficiently day to day.

It is a stable product.

The solution scales extremely well.

Technical support has always been helpful and responsive.

I don't have any notes for improvement. It serves us well. 

I've used the solution for probably ten years. 

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. I'd rate the stability nine out of ten. 

The solution is super scalable. It's easy to expand. 

Salesforce has excellent support. I have no complaints when it comes to their level of service. They do a great job of getting right back to you. 

Positive

I've never had to set up the solution. I really just get my username and password from the company, and then the company manages all of the data inside. 

I'm not sure of the exact pricing. However, they do charge licensing per seat. 

We're customers and end-users.

I'd rate the platform nine out of ten. It's the strongest CRM out there, and they've been around the longest. The support is great.

We primarily use the solution as a classic contact database like report building and things of that nature.

Salesforce is really the workhorse of CRMs at this point. I compare every CRM experience to Salesforce since it's really just the standard at this point. 

I love the report building that is available. 

The integration capabilities are great. Salesforce is great, however, it couldn't be what it is if it didn't integrate with every other cool tool that's out there. I'd say the integrations are probably my favorite part.

It's stable and reliable.

The solution can scale. 

I'd like some sort of automated cleaning functionality. The management of Salesforce could be quite a task. Old and unusable contacts can add up over time. If I could wave a magic wand, it would be to initiate a self-cleaning feature. 

I started using the solution four or five years ago. 

I've never had any issues with stability. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution seems perfectly scalable. However, it becomes increasingly more difficult to maintain and stay clean.

I use it at a pretty large organization. 

I've also used ZenDesk at one point. However, it doesn't have the same functionality. 

I'm not sure about the initial setup. I've never done an implementation from scratch. 

I'd rate the solution a nine out of ten. I've been pleased with the solution overall. 

We primarily use the product for many things related to customer tracking. 

We like that everything is in it. It's a very robust product that can be used for many things. 

The solution is easy to use. 

The initial setup is very easy.

It's stable. 

We'd like to combine customers together. In Salesforce, every customer is unique and it's not possible to bundle them together effectively if they are from the same company or move companies, et cetera. 

I've been using the solution for five or six years at this point. It's been quite a while now. 

The solution has been quite stable and very reliable. I can't recall dealing with bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is scalable.

I've changed positions, and in my area, 50 people are using it. However, in the past, I've been in a company where 1,000 people were on it. 

I've never used technical support. I can't speak to how they are with clients who need help.

The initial setup is not complex. It's quite simple, quite straightforward. 

I'm just a customer and an end-user. My company does not have a business relationship with or sell Salesforce products. 

I'd recommend the solution to others and advise they give it a try.

I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I use the Salesforce Platform for quoting, tracking, and updating customer information. We've also had a solution that we've created or built on top of Salesforce. We've recently deployed some native solutions, which I haven't used yet. Our entire project management team has been a recent adoption. There's is another third-party solution called Hot Docs, for reports.  I think you're going to be moving to another application that's even more functional.

The solution has plenty of features that are useful.

We have a lot of strategic accounts and large accounts that are tied with all the growth and acquisitions across North America, being able to tag parent-child accounts in an easier fashion would be better. This is the biggest pain point is associating parent to child and being able to align and manage it better. Overall a better parent-child relationship between accounts would be a benefit.

I have been using Salesforce Platform for approximately seven years.

The solution is stable and reliable.

We have multiple things that we built on top of the Salesforce Platform which our team utilizes. One's called Customer Planning Opportunities, which is about 16 globally. When through an opportunity, a salesperson on the service side can create requests for us for some of my teams, and then it sends out a mass email. 

There are multiple public and private pages that they've developed which we can log activities, such as sales, pre-sales, and pre-sale planning. We can upload documents that everybody can go and gather. If we upload a document in our Customer Planning Opportunity, which is built on top of Salesforce, it doesn't have to send attachments within the CRM. 

There are some places where there are some disconnects

The technical support is responsive. I don't personally call them, but they're very good about if you want to learn or receive additional training within the application. It's pretty good.

We have a technical team that does the implementation, and we hired third-party resources too for the deployment. I wasn't part of the deployment team.

Salesforce does a user capacity analysis on a regular basis. For example, if you're not using certain areas, you may lose access. If you don't go in and quote and edit quotes, all of a sudden you may lose your rights to quote.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Salesforce Platform an eight out of ten.

The platform allows you to plug into all Salesforce capabilities.

The platform allows you to do so many things. It could be easy for people to customize it outside of business models. So, some patterns could be more generally available so that it guides the team to not customize the system on the outside itself.

Salesforce could add cognitive functionality. It's still a way to go. There are some particular cognitive functionalities that I've been set up in the market that Salesforce can do in implementing.

It could introduce more templates and industry-specific package solutions, particularly emphasizing energy implementation within those industries. This level of granularity within sub-industries would enhance Salesforce's ability to offer plug-and-play solutions rather than solely focusing on customization options.

I have been using Salesforce Platform as a partner for three years.

I have worked with SAP and Oracle with a lot of customization. Most specific customizations with platforms are less defined in Salesforce regarding the focus on CRM and its market. E-commerce platforms support Aruba SAP.

The initial setup is not complex. It allows you flexibility to reach the point where you can break the function. So there could be some controls around. A configuration manager helps you even though you want to customize to reduce the customization so you don't break the system.

Salesforce products take a long to realize their benefits. It's organizational-wise. So, from a technology perspective, it has not been processed immediately, but we are looking forward to reducing the multiple points of cost in the coming years. Maybe we will see Salesforce have a positive impact.

We encounter the challenge of exchange rate fluctuations. While the platform may not be inherently expensive, its pricing is based on US dollars, which can pose unpredictability for users in different regions. For instance, if you plan a project with a certain budget, a slight change in the dollar exchange rate can impact your budgetary constraints. 

Once you customize Salesforce to outside, it doesn't scale. When upgrades happen, they fail a lot because now you've taken a lot of customizations, and they're not necessarily within Salesforce.

I've been using predictive analysis capabilities and capabilities around consuming basic information like email.

I recommend the solution, but the price point is a crucial consideration. The challenge is that only large companies in my region, those with substantial budgets, could afford it. It's more suitable for established businesses; startups might struggle with the cost. Salesforce might not be attractive for small and medium enterprises due to its higher price than other solutions available.

The solution is technically a good platform but needs investment and commitment. The investment required to make it worth it.

With the introduction of NetFlow Logistics processes, one aspect of the Salesforce Platform that stands out is its industry-based insights. Consider, for instance, a smaller financial services brokerage. Within such organizations, a wealth of knowledge is dispersed across various departments. This knowledge can be harnessed by effectively implementing Salesforce alongside compatible tools to facilitate smoother transactions and enhance organizational efficiency. I'm eagerly anticipating further developments in this direction, particularly in terms of NLP learning and the integration of voice assistants. These advancements can potentially empower agents within companies to engage with customers more effectively, leveraging internal insights. Such innovations will likely be deployed through a shared-site model, offering a novel approach to customer interaction and service delivery.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.