Salesforce Platform Reviews

We primarily use Salesforce to manage pipeline opportunities. We are customers of Salesforce and I'm a senior enterprise multicloud strategist.

Salesforce enables us to track the percentage of opportunities that progress, the percentage that don't, and the reasons why.

This solution gives us a great platform to import and save customer data from various sources, and then manage them using outreach and various plugins to keep activity up. The dashboards are great, I can see lost or suspended accounts, year to day, total opportunities either as owner or team member, team pipelines, etc. It's very modular, so I don't have to continue to run reports and then track them myself. They have third-party plugins which are basically the same as features that enable you to get whatever functionality you need. It's fast and it works well, it's easy to aggregate information from multiple sources and all in all, I feel like it makes us a lot more productive as opposed to having to go to multiple websites. Here you can pull up an account, see all the tabs for that account without the need to have seven different tabs open on your browser.

The reporting functionality is very granular and you can do a lot with it, but unfortunately, it's not very intuitive. It's hard to get the report to show exactly what you want. It works if you turn it into a tile in the dashboard but working through it and creating the report is a little cumbersome, it's terrible. It's not super user-friendly, it takes time and some fiddling around. Simplified reporting would be great, but perhaps I don't have enough experience. I could spend some time figuring it out but for now, I create a report that I never have to create again. It's in a dashboard, so I don't get the opportunity to create much. With some training, I'd likely be better at creating reports. 

I've been using this solution for six months. 

The solution is stable. 

I've been able to scale very easily. We've doubled the size of our team in the last year and it's really easy to add new users and with a couple of minutes of training they've pretty much got it down. For that kind of internal growth and for everyone to be using it relatively well in such a short period of time, is great.

We have an internal technical resource that's able to assist on the Salesforce side. One of the things we've added recently is a button where you can essentially open a ticket for questions related to the use of Salesforce. In the past, I would reach out to our internal support team to help me build a report. Now, we simply have a request button that gets us to Salesforce.com support. I open the ticket and get a very quick response which is really great. 

From my perspective, they need to incorporate plugins. Salesforce is a great platform. It's like being able to use the apps on an iPhone. It looks good, you can make calls and it's easy to use but it's the ability to add apps which makes it great. In Salesforce terms, the value lies in the modular solutions through the plugins.

In terms of rating, the solution loses points because of the non-intuitive reporting. On the other hand, it provides many benefits. I would therefore rate the solution eight out of 10. 

The initial setup is straightforward. 

The solution scales extremely well.

The stability has been great.

There's a learning curve. It was a bit hard to understand the logical way of working with it, just at the beginning.

In Salesforce, you cannot adjust the level of information to what you want to exploit or to use yourself and not share. In a big environment, it's hard to hide information you need, so you have to get local writing for avoiding sharing information you don't want to share with other sales guys or management. It's useful for your business, for your objective, however, it's not useful if you share it on too large a scale, as name dropping is something our consultants and our other sales guys try to avoid in order to be discreet.

I've been using the solution for one year at this point. 

The stability has been great. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or free. We find it to be completely reliable.

The scalability has been excellent. We haven't had any issues and don't see any limitations at all. if a company needs to expand, it's not a problem to do so. 

I've never had to contact technical support. Therefore, I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are. We have our own internal team that we would turn to if we ran into any problems. 

I've used Microsoft Dynamics. I come from Microsoft Dynamics and it was more integrated with our email solution. It was for the agenda, the calendar, and all the tools you use to just work on a daily basis.

The initial setup is really easy.  It's not overly complex or difficult. However, that said, figuring out how to us is a bit difficult to start with.

We have a pretty limitless license. However, I don't know the exact costs involved. I'm just a user and do not handle any of the payments or contracts between Salesforce and our company.

We are a partner from Salesforce. There is a special agreement with them. 

We are Salesforce partners. 

I'm in sales. I'm working on Salesforce. My consultants work with different tools, and they are certified on it. 98% of our consultants are certified on solutions.

Overall, it's been a good solution and we've been happy with it. 

For those considering using the solution, I would advise that the company or team follow the different enrollment videos to be ready to jump into the Salesforce mechanisms.

I'd recommend using the solution. 

I'd rate the product at a nine out of ten. However, I find Microsoft Dynamics better. 

There are many use cases as we have done more than 300 projects globally. One of the projects was where we implemented a customer care solution for dealers, sub-dealers, contractors, et cetera. We have worked in aviation, where we designed solutions there as well. One client was a manufacturer of parts for the aircraft. The quality check of each product, each spray part, what they were manufacturing, was pretty hard. It's supposed to go through ten different testing checkpoints. We designed a solution for them on Salesforce, to follow the protocol and the process.

Apart from that, I've worked on many real estate projects where a company used it for managing properties, including rental properties and construction. We have worked with integrating Salesforce with a government website where they used to update the new buyers of the property across Philadelphia. We pushed data from that government website into a client's Salesforce. That way, they were always aware of sold properties, when, and by whom. They used the information to make a pitch for renovation assistance services. 

The solution has grown its services over time. Now, for example, it includes a Sales cloud, Marketing cloud, Service cloud, et cetera.

I liked the classic version of Salesforce. There are a lot of really great basic features.

It's very flexible and offers tremendous features for customers.

The solution is stable. 

The product works well at an enterprise level.

Pricing is the biggest factor. The cost right now is too high and I've had a lot of clients leave. 

Sometimes customers can get annoyed as there are just too many features to understand and work with. They should consider reducing their offering, or work to streamline it so that it is not so overwhelming. There are now many great competitors that offer more streamlined, easy-to-understand services. 

Customers need accounting, and, right now, they need to go elsewhere, to something like Xero, for example, or QuickBooks. It would be nice to have some kind of accounting available right in Salesforce. 

The stability could be better. 

We don't get any leads from Salesforce here in India. It would be helpful if we could use the product to get us leads. 

We've been on the Salesforce platform for about 11 years at this point. It's been over a decade and we've used it for quite a while. 

In Salesforce, I haven't seen many issues. However, in some cases, we have clients that for some reason don't see specific add-on features and we bring in Salesforce to understand why certain things do not appear. 

However, for the most part, the stability is good and doesn't cause any issues. 

We have not set a benchmark in terms of the size of companies we work with. We don't work with thousands of users. We are helping single users from companies and we have worked with 4,000 plus users at an enterprise level.

That said, this solution works well for enterprise-level organizations. 

A customer who is coming to Salesforce for the first time, and doesn't understand CRMS, may need to take time to understand business practices. However, if a person is in IT or software, they usually get it a bit faster. They can handle the complexity.

During implementation, it's best to take baby steps before getting into complex cases. There's a learning curve, however, the level of the learning curve varies from customer to customer. 

The amount of time deployment takes depends on the kind of project.

The pricing is pretty expensive. 

We're using the enterprise version of the solution. 

I've done only four or five projects since I started my own shop back in 2010. Most of the projects which we have done are all for overseas companies. 80% are from the US and 20% are from the rest of the globe, including Australia, Canada, Europe, and the UK.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

It is our customer base, and we use it for just about everything.

I am using the unlimited latest version. It is on the Salesforce cloud.

We use the whole gamut of it. We use it for customer information. We also use it for prospecting. It has information about our delivery team such as who has got a particular account. It also has any type of service information that is needed, such as billing address, demographics, system information, account teams, and account planning. If we want to delve into a customer, we can account plan and find out what they've got and what their networking environment looks like, and this information is held in our records. If something happens to me, and somebody called about that particular record, they can find this information and pick from where I left off.

It is easy to close pending deals. When a customer signs the paperwork, it has got the e-sign incorporated in it. So, when a customer says, "Yeah, let's move forward with that.", we send an amendment or a contract to the customer via e-sign. They sign it, and it comes right back to us. After that, the person who does the sign off on contracts signs it, and when they're finished with it, it comes right back to me stating that it has been signed and countersigned, and now I can go ahead and process that order and get to the customer a copy of the record so that they have a copy in their records. It is overall an easy place to keep things organized.

It is a good solution. It has a learning curve, but once you learn it, it is a very good piece of software to have to keep up with everything, such as cancellations, new accounts, new contacts, and new opportunities. We also sell co-location, so it gives us a lot of data center information, such as what rack this customer is in and how much power they've got on that particular rack. It gives a lot of information. You just need to know where to find it. Once you learn it, it is just easy to navigate. 

I can go anywhere with it because it is web-based. All I need to do is get to it, and I can get to my customer. It is pretty straightforward. It's like any piece of software nowadays. It has an application that can be taken with you anywhere. It is on my phone, and it is also on my iPad, desktop, and laptop, so I can take it with me anywhere. It is very easy to use and easy to access.

I like it because of the fact that it lets me know what I'm working on and what I've recently worked on. It also helps me and allows me to do tracking. If I want to go out and find out how many times I've touched customers, I can find that information out. It tracks such information, and we use it. If we send any type of promotions out, it tracks who gets those promotions and how they've responded to those promotions. It is just a well-organized space that kind of has everything that you need to take care of your customer.

There is always room for improvement. It can be hard to learn, but when you have somebody who is experienced in this, it is like anything else. It is like Excel, you'll never know everything about Excel, but there's somebody who would possibly know. I'm sure I don't know all of the ins and outs of Salesforce.

In terms of additional features, it has got pretty much everything in there. It has a lot of information, and it is perfect for me. I'm an old-school guy, so I think it's perfect, but I'm sure there's going to be some room for improvement somewhere along the line.

I have been using this solution for the last five years, but my company has probably been using it for quite some time.

The only glitches that you'll have will be the operator, but once you know the navigation of it all, you won't have a problem with it. It's like anything else you learn.

It is easy to scale. I use the unlimited version, so I've not been stumped on anything here. In terms of usage, all the personnel in our company use it.

I've signed up for difficult classes, and they've been Johnny-on-the-spot to help out and to see if there's anything else that they can do. Their customer service is top-notch.

It is pretty straightforward. It is pretty easy to set up accounts.

I don't know anything about its cost, but I'm sure it has got a nice little price tag that goes along with it. 

I would recommend this solution to others if they can afford it. It doesn't mean it is expensive. I don't know what it costs, but if you can afford it, it is a good way to get in. 

It is a good product, and it has served us well. It keeps us organized, and it keeps us with our customer numbers. It has a learning curve, but you got to start somewhere. Like anything, you have to learn it. If you've got a good attitude and an open mind, you can learn anything.

I would rate Salesforce Platform a 10 out of 10.

We primarily use the solution for the CRM, the customer relationship management, but now we are expanding its usage to allow our customers use access an online customer portal based on salesforce community and using B2B commerce  

It was a great add-on to our digital landscape. It is an easy-to-use, easy to customize platform.

Salesforce is not a product, it is a platform, there is a huge difference between the two use cases. 

The platform allows us to receive and collect information easily.

There's a great ecosystem within Salesforce:

1) A huge network of implementation-certified  partners  who have great knowledge about the platform

2) A Market place where you  can download 3rd party apps on the platform

3) There is very good online documentation available and Salesforce offers good communication with its clients. It's very user-friendly and has a system that is easy to learn.

We've found the stability to be quite good.

The initial setup is easy.

The product can scale well.

The solution doesn't really have any weak areas. Overall, it's a very good product, but technical support could be a bit faster. For the standard support, their SLA is about 48 hours which is not that fast if you have a serious issue 

Based on the platform capabilities. I see that the Platform is very, very capable of handling a full ERP, and not only a CRM.

Maybe in the near future, SF will launch their own ERP system.

We've been using this solution for ten years at this point. It's been a decade. It's been a long time.

The stability of the product has been good overall. We don't experience any downtime. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. You do need access to a good internet connection, however. Without a strong internet connection, you may experience some problems. However, that's not the fault of the Salesforce backend in any way. 

The scalability is very good. If you need to expand it, you can do so relatively easily.

Technical support is okay. It's average. Their response times could be faster in terms of getting assistance to us. I'd rate it overall at a four out of five. Mostly we are happy with the level of support.

We did previously use another solution before Salesforce.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It's not overly complex or difficult. 

The time it takes to deploy depends on what your plans are for the solution. Without any specific customizations, it's a very quick process. Once you log on, you have access.

The solution is relatively expensive. It also comes with extra costs. For example, extra technical support is a bit more. It can add up.

We did evaluate a few other options before ultimately choosing Salesforce. Among these was Microsoft.

We're just Salesforce customers. We don't have a business relationship with them.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We're mostly quite satisfied with the product and its capabilities.

I'd recommend the solution to other users and companies. However, you need a strong team to manage it. You need to have suitable admins on hand to properly implement the rules. 

We primarily use the solution for Account Management and Lead Management.

The most valuable aspect of the solution is the unit coordination between sales and marketing when it comes to lead management.. We needed one CRM where we can have all the relevant lead lists, customize lead information fields over there, upload important information, update information and pass the information from sales to amrketing and vice versa and ensure a seamless coordination - that was the best part of it because it improved the productivity and no longer we rely on email threads or manual excel sheets -we had a robust mechanism.

Another interesting feature is integration with other marketing automation platforms like ZoomInfo, Outreach etc. This significantly reduces our workload or maintaining or integration of data across tools and seamlessly helps us execute our activities. 

The initial setup was straightforward.. It didnot take any time to learn and set it up. 

The product has proven to be stable. We have not faced any productivity or workability issues. 

The pricing is good.

We've found the technical support to be very helpful and responsive. 

Basically, Salesforce has two different views. One is the plastic view and one is the lightening view. If I log in the view is not returned for me specifically. For example, if I'm working with view number one, and I toggle to view number two and then log out when I log out, I come back and I'm still back in view number one. I'd like to stay in whichever view I need.

Sometimes what will happen is we work on it and then we move to a different tab and work on something else. After five minutes, when we come back, it automatically signs out. The thing is, every time we need to re-login. I would like to propose a session extension pop-up. This means that there will be some kind of reminder that your session is going to expire in the next two minutes and to please sign in if you want to continue. 

We haven't been using the solution for a short amount of time. We've used it for about two to four months.

The solution is quite stable. There are no bugs or glitches. We haven't found that it crashes or freeze. Its performance is reliable.

We have yet to attempt to scale the solution generally. 

We did not add any users, however, we have added more and more workflows. We've been able to customize to our needs. In that sense, it can scale.

We have five users on the solution currently.

I'm not sure if we have plans to expand the product at this time.

I've been in touch with technical support and would give them a rating of nine out of ten. They are quite responsive. We've been very satisfied with their level of assistance.

The initial setup is not complex or overly difficult. It's very straightforward, very easy. A company shouldn't have any issues with the process.

I cannot recall the exact amount of time that the deployment took.

I don't have too much insight on the licensing, however, the pricing is quite reasonable. It's not overly expensive. 

We did evaluate one solution, however, Salesforce is the best when it comes to marketing.

We are just a customer and an end-user.

It is my understanding that we are using the latest version of the solution at this time. 

Salesforce is great. Without any doubt, I would say one should definitely go for Salesforce. It does a lot of sales and marketing in the CRM that would help you if you work on productivity. If someone wants to have a single place where they need to be productive and that will deliver to the sales and marketing list, then yes Salesforce is the place.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We've been very happy with its capabilities overall. 

We use it to manage the customer base, sales funnel, and sales team. We also intend to use it for CRM.

It is very modular in approach. It is very light, and it can be used on various devices. It could be used on an Android phone or a laptop, which makes it good for the sales team on the road.

It could have a lot more customization options in terms of fonts and reports. 

There should be an even lighter version with just two or three fields. It could be a bit more light if the field guys want to use it on a mobile phone on the road. 

For deploying it for CRM, maybe we can have our customer database, project funnels, and projects to help us in managing our supply chain business.

I have been using this solution for almost ten or eleven years. In my current organization, we have been using it for the last two years. I have also used it in my previous company.

It has been quite stable. We didn't have any challenges.

In terms of scalability, it has been good so far. I have seen it working fine for a team of 10 people as well as for a team of 1,000 people. There are probably more than 1,000 users in our organization globally.

In this organization, it is primarily for managing the sales team and sales funnel, but we also intend to use it for CRM around three years down the line.

I am a sales guy, and from my point of view, I never had any problem.

It is straightforward.

I have heard that it is fairly priced. It offers ROI.

It is a good platform. To deploy it in your organization, users should identify their problems and needs. They should align it with their needs in terms of customization. 

I would rate Salesforce Platform an eight out of ten.

We use the product for management processes such as grading sales orders, including all the KPI for the sales team to close negotiations. I'm head of IT and corporate process and we are customers of Salesforce.

Now that mail and other communications have been automated by Salesforce, we have seen a 60% increase in efficiency levels. In addition, we improved 30% of the analysis of the KPIs in the sales team.

The value of this product to us is the seamless experience and having a fully integrated solution with all the market solutions. Salesforce also have a lot of partners with product teams for major project support. There are continuous improvements to the platform. Each day we find new functionalities or reports and it's very good for the team.

The solution is very expensive compared to CRM solutions. It requires a lot of configuration that could make it difficult for some people. We are lucky to have a partner helping us. In addition, the license together with the cost of implementation, makes it very expensive. In some cases it's good to be modular, but in this case each time you want to integrate something, there's an additional cost. If you want to integrate with Office 365 you have to pay; if you want a seamless process with the marketing team or the accounting team, you have to pay. Right now our process is good and we can do anything we need but we may need something more in the future. 

I've been using this solution for six months. 

We haven't had any issues with stability. 

Scalability is great, we can do anything we want. Again, you have to pay for it but scalability is good. If you want to add processes, functions, area, additional information, it's very good.
For now, we have the sales manager and the principal sales team using the solution. Marketing and other users don't have access yet. 

Customer service responds very quickly, within a few minutes. They will respond with a solution within about three hours. 

The initial setup was okay because we paid for the configuration using an external partner and we didn't have the internal resources for that. We defined the process and all the designs with the partner in the first week. It then took another month to define the environments and some functionalities. The process took a total of five weeks. We currently have one IT leader who spends about 20% of their time on it and then an admin who spends about 10% of the day making changes and administering. We are going to increase usage in the coming year in the sales team and maybe increase some functionality.

My advice is to consider in detail what you are acquiring because you might not get everything you need in the initial quote provided by Salesforce. It's tricky and the price will be high. 

We don't plan to replace Salesforce but we're looking at other ERP solutions to integrate with Salesforce. 

It's important to understand what you need for the short, middle and long term. Salesforce is a huge platform and might provide a level of functionality that you don't need. I would highly recommend implementation with a partner. It simplifies the process and if a company doesn't have the resources or people to administer the platform, it can effect the outcome. It's good to have a Salesforce administrator to assist when you need help. 

I rate this solution a nine out of 10.