In the ever-evolving landscape of business technology, adapting to change is no longer a choice — it’s a necessity. And when it comes to managing those changes seamlessly, Salesforce stands tall as a powerhouse. However, navigating the intricate realm of Salesforce Change Management can often leave even the most seasoned professionals scratching their heads.
We unveil six invaluable tips that promise to unravel the complexities, making the process not just manageable, but downright straightforward. Whether you’re a salesforce novice or a seasoned pro, these insights will empower you to wield change as a tool for growth, without breaking a sweat.
Clear Change Identification and Prioritization
Before embarking on any salesforce changes, it’s essential to meticulously define the scope and objectives of the proposed modifications. This involves a detailed analysis of the current system, identifying pain points, and recognizing opportunities for enhancement. Once potential changes are identified, a rigorous prioritization process should be employed.
This prioritization should be based on factors such as the anticipated business impact, alignment with strategic goals, and feasibility of implementation. The impacts of any change should be thoroughly evaluated, considering both short-term and long-term consequences. This includes assessing potential disruptions to existing processes, workflows, and user experiences, as well as estimating the financial, resource, and time investments required for successful implementation.
ALSO READ: HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OUT OF YOUR SALESFORCE INVESTMENT
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Successful salesforce change management thrives on collaborative efforts across diverse departments. Forming a dedicated change management team comprising representatives from different functional areas fosters a holistic approach. Involving stakeholders early in the process ensures that all perspectives are considered, mitigating resistance and enhancing buy-in.
Open communication channels must be established to facilitate idea sharing, status updates, and issue resolution. This collaborative synergy not only promotes comprehensive change planning but also empowers a sense of ownership among stakeholders. By uniting expertise and insights from various disciplines, organizations can navigate change with collective strength and drive more successful implementations.
Comprehensive Change Documentation
Thorough documentation is the backbone of effective salesforce change management. Detailed records of change requests, requirements, and implementation plans ensure a clear roadmap for all involved. A well-maintained repository of version-controlled documentation facilitates transparency, aiding in tracing the evolution of changes and reducing confusion. This meticulous documentation also supports knowledge transfer, enabling seamless onboarding and continuity.
By meticulously capturing every step and decision, organizations establish a reliable foundation for change, ensuring that stakeholders remain informed and aligned throughout the process. Robust documentation safeguards against uncertainties and serves as a valuable resource for future enhancements.
Thorough Testing and Quality Assurance
Rigorous testing and quality assurance are cornerstones of successful Salesforce change management. Crafting comprehensive test plans and scenarios allows for the meticulous examination of new configurations and functionalities. User Acceptance Testing (UAT) involving end-users validates the changes from a practical standpoint, ensuring they meet user needs and expectations.
Addressing any detected bugs, performance issues, or discrepancies during testing guarantees a smoother transition. A robust testing phase minimizes post-implementation disruptions and fosters user confidence. By prioritizing quality assurance, organizations fortify their change management process, delivering dependable solutions that align seamlessly with business objectives.
User Training and Support
Empowering users through effective training and ongoing support is pivotal in salesforce change management. Developing comprehensive training materials, including guides and tutorials, equips users with the knowledge to navigate new features and processes. Conducting engaging training sessions and workshops enhances user proficiency and fosters a positive transition experience.
Providing accessible avenues for user support, such as help desks or forums, ensures timely issue resolution and knowledge sharing. Prioritizing user training and support cultivates user confidence, reduces frustration, and promotes efficient utilization of the salesforce platform, ultimately contributing to the success of change initiatives.
Effective Change Rollout and Monitoring
A well-executed change rollout and vigilant monitoring are pivotal to salesforce change management success. Careful planning of controlled rollouts or pilot launches ensures gradual adoption and minimizes disruption. Monitoring user adoption, feedback, and system performance provides valuable insights into the effectiveness of implemented changes. Iterative improvements based on real-time data help fine-tune configurations and address evolving needs.
This proactive approach guarantees that the change’s impact aligns with expectations, promoting sustained user satisfaction. By maintaining a watchful eye on the ongoing change process, organizations can swiftly adapt, optimize, and enhance the Salesforce environment, driving long-term success and continuous improvement.
Simplifying Salesforce change management is a multi-faceted endeavor that demands strategic planning, collaboration, documentation, testing, training, and vigilant monitoring. By adhering to these key principles, organizations can navigate transitions with clarity, engage stakeholders effectively, and ensure seamless system enhancements. Embracing change as an iterative process allows for agility and continuous improvement, leading to a Salesforce environment that not only meets current needs but also lays a solid foundation for future innovation and success.
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The future is Artificial Intelligence and that future is now. This statement was the clarion call delivered at the Salesforce World Tour London in June 2023. Nearly 14,000 delegates gathered to explore how the company’s technology helps organisations enhance their customers’ experience and smooth operation efficiencies. As you’d expect, the focus was firmly on the huge potential of AI.
“We have a decade’s worth of experience in deploying AI for the benefit of our clients,” explained Salesforce’s CEO of UK and Ireland, Zahra Bahrololoumi, in her opening keynote. “In that time, we’ve delivered AI for CRM, published 227 AI research papers, and filed 300 AI-related patents as well as investing in large language models.”
The message is simple: AI may seem like the next big thing, but it isn’t new to Salesforce. The company is already deploying it across its offer and, as Bahrololoumi went on to say, “in the new cycle of innovation, we need to think AI-first.”
Building trust
There is a challenge with such an approach. It has to do with the level of trust consumers feel towards what they perceive as emerging technology. Generative AI may have the power to transform the customer experience, but Salesforce’s own research shows that 59 per cent of people don’t trust companies with their data. “There is a ‘trust gap’,” said Bahrololoumi. “Today is about closing that gap.”
In a traditional big data model – one in which companies aggregate and analyse data in their CRM to enhance their understanding of customer needs and habits – data is stored in a particular location. That gives Salesforce’s clients a sense of ownership and control over access.
But as Patrick Stokes explained, this contrasts with the way AI functions. The company’s EVP for product and industries marketing explained that in an AI system, data is learned, not stored. There is no single location to store data, because large language models pull together several different ideas and concepts to think like a human.
To illustrate this, Stokes gave the example of an apple: “If I asked everyone in the room today what an apple is, you’d all be able to raise your hand and tell me. But if I asked you to point to the location in your brain where the data about an apple is stored, you wouldn’t be able to do that – because you don’t store data about an apple in one place. Your brain stores information about various properties of an apple and brings that together to correctly identify one.”
AI works similarly, which begs the question of how to protect data when it is being used in such a multifaceted way. Stokes was quick to assert Salesforce’s expertise in responding: “We have been solving problems like this for [more than] 20 years, helping enterprises use their data while also protecting it.” He gave examples of the move to shared data centres in 1999 and the use of predictive analytics in 2016, in which Salesforce has shown its ability to generate meaningful insight without blending customer data from multiple sources.
Not only do these examples evince Salesforce’s expertise in protecting data while leveraging its power. They also speak of its track record of innovation. Through a worked example, Stokes showed what comes next: using context-rich prompts in generative AI to communicate in a personalised way with customers, while deploying Salesforce’s “Einstein GPT Trust Layer” to mask or protect sensitive data. The result is a system that’s easy for Salesforce’s clients to use, unleashes the full power of generative AI, and results in an enhanced customer experience.
Public sector focus
While the power of AI is self-evident and will have been experienced first-hand by any of the 100 million reported users of Chat GPT since its launch in November 2022, the real force of Salesforce’s offer lies in the secure access its platform provides to large volumes of customer data. Many of the presentations in the World Tour underscored that strength, and those aimed at delegates from the public sector circled around common themes.
The first was the power of AI to further transform service delivery – building on the progress already seen through digitisation and data analytics. Recognising the utility of its cloud-based CRM solutions for public sector organisations, Salesforce’s message was straightforward: just think how much more can be achieved by using AI.
A further theme was the improvement in user experience, for both staff and citizens, through adopting Salesforce’s technology. This was illustrated by case studies from partners including NHS Professionals, regional police forces, and Northern Trains – all of which revealed the power of cloud-based computing to transform the way the public interacts with service providers, and the quality of services themselves.
A session about the rollout of financial support to households as part of the Energy Support Schemes between December 2022 and February 2023 demonstrated another theme: that service delivery can happen at pace when customising standardised platforms rather than building from scratch.
What all the public sector sessions had in common was their capacity to exemplify the overarching messages of the World Tour London: Salesforce makes it easier for organisations to interact with the public; its technology enhances the quality of such interactions and makes them more meaningful; and it is already ahead of the game when it comes to AI.
These are messages those in the public sector are primed to hear, thanks in no small part to the strides made in data-driven service delivery over the last decade or more. With an AI-shaped future already a reality for the commercial sector, and the “trust gap” closing, it is only a matter of time before the government fully embraces its power. And with a partner like Salesforce, the rewards of doing so appear great – for officials and citizens alike.
Read next a detailed account of the public sector sessions
delivered at Salesforce World Tour London
CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer
Rob Kim | NBCUniversal
The Nasdaq is rolling over, duh.
The oils are headed higher. No kidding.
So, let's sell tech and buy oils.
Solid idea?
Everything else, except, perhaps a handful of industrials, as well as Walmart (WMT), which reports this week, and Club name Costco (COST), which reports next month. And, the defensives are almost as toxic as the artificial intelligence-infused techs.
That's really where we are, isn't it?
It's like the whole stock market changed without anything changing.
We are still gaga over everything AI. We are still leery over oil and gas. We keep talking about nearing the end of the Federal Reserve tightening cycle. We know inflation is cooling.
Like most software, Slack developed over time adding a slew of new features like Huddles, Canvas and workflows. But like any piece of software that is over a decade old with all of those new pieces, it makes sense to revisit old design decisions, especially in the context of being an enterprise communications tool that is now part of the Salesforce ecosystem.
To that end, the company announced a major makeover today including a dedicated way to track direct message threads, while generally making it easier to see what information is relevant to you and your job.
Slack’s chief product officer Noah Weiss, says that the product has changed and the product team wanted the interface to better reflect where the product stands today.
“We’ve added a lot more tools and capabilities into the core Slack product that really has evolved from being a collaboration tool to a full-fledged productivity platform,” Weiss told TechCrunch.
The problem is that the interface hasn’t been able to keep up with making those tools accessible and easy to access, and the product team wanted to fix that with new interface overhaul.
The old Slack interface is on the left. The updated one is on the right. Image Credits: Slack
Beyond the tools issue, especially as part of Salesforce, the company is working with ever larger companies with thousands of people on the platform. At this scale, it has become harder to pinpoint the information that is important to an individual employee or team, and Slack wanted to make it easier to surface that.
With that in mind, one of the key design ideas was to centralize a lot of the information that was in lists in the old version. For instance, by clicking the DMs button in the new interface, you can find all of your DMs in one place. This is a drastic improvement over the prior approach and lets you interact with all of your DMs in a single view.
New dedicated Slack DM view. Image Credits: Slack
In addition, there is an Activity page where you can see all of the messages for you related to your work without having to hunt and peck for it. This allows you to very quickly see the work that’s relevant to you.
If you want to mark one of those items to get back to later, you can do that, and then check the Later page to see all those tasks you put off in a single place. Again, the idea is to simplify the workflow.
The More button gives access to canvases, workflows and integrated enterprise applications.
Finally, you can also search with the magnifying glass icon and add a new message, canvas, huddle or channel from the + button.
Finally, Weiss said that the company wanted to future-proof the platform with an eye towards generative AI, knowing that AI will play a key role in helping people find and summarize the growing amount of information in the platform.
“There are 2500 apps in the Slack App Store, and all of your first party tools, if you’re a large enterprise, get integrated into Slack and get combined with all of your conversations which happened in channels, and suddenly you’ve got this amazing knowledge repository that builds up naturally over time. A lot of these generative AI capabilities will allow you to then have a much more conversational approach to unlocking the knowledge that’s inside Slack,” he said.
The company is beginning to roll out these changes today, but it could be several months before you begin to see them. Weiss points out that the changes you’ll see will depend on your plan.
It’s worth pointing out that the company included this odd caveat in its announcement (Update: and has since removed it): Any unreleased services or features referenced here are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available.
You can take that as you will.
The NHS is a juggernaut in the healthcare sector and its strength comes from dedicated healthcare professionals in service. However, even the mightiest have their limits. Funding strains and scarce resources clash with escalating costs and an ageing population. A workforce shortage dilemma looms, burdening overworked staff and compromising care quality, and waiting lists have become a battleground, leaving patients yearning for adequate attention. These are some of the daily challenges at play, testing the resilience of organisations, workers and patients alike. The dire need for a solution to these problems is driving the uptake of next-generation technology for its capacity to Excellerate outcomes and the burden of care. NHS Professionals and non-profit clinical trials specialist Protas know first-hand the transformational power of AI-driven digital transformation, and their leaders shared their experience with the public at Salesforce World Tour 2023.
Workforce management
NHS Professionals is the largest staff bank and business in Europe dedicated to NHS staff. "We serve about the equivalent of 180,000 clinicians in the NHS in a transient manner every week and provide about 46 million hours of care through our workforce," said CEO Nicola McQueen, noting the organisation is undergoing a significant digital transformation to better deploy, interact with and utilise their workforce.
McQueen said one of the biggest challenges is “utilising every hour of care our workforce can provide in a flexible way that suits them”. She noted that another challenge is quickly mobilising and training large numbers of workers with diverse skills, something NHS Professionals learned through the pandemic.
David Callow, CIO at NHS Professionals, said the agility of the Salesforce platform allows them to quickly change and sculpt their service without needing a lot of new code or long waterfall processes. "We are using Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud and Sales Cloud to deliver a service that treats workers as humans, not as a number in the system, and makes their lives easier," he explained.
With Salesforce, the organisation has moved from a system where workers had to find and book their shifts to a system that proactively pushes relevant shifts to workers based on their patterns and motivations.
Dr Simon Eccles, Chief Health Officer at Salesforce and former Chief Clinical Information Officer at the NHS, said the quantum leap in management capability that NHS Professionals experience with Salesforce is powered by AI technology. "Doctors, nurses, and health professionals must be rostered into complex staff grids. Artificial Intelligence allocates people into the right slots, takes care of their leave, and comes up with the best possible match. So much quicker and with so much less effort that AI will transform care delivery for the better."
Staff retention is key to delivering better services to patients, and McQueen believes that making shifts more flexible will help with that. She said: "As workers want flexible work, they need to keep training and development in relevant areas, and with Salesforce, we can supply workers the ability to track their career progress effectively. Having this capability at their fingertips is critical to deliver a good experience to the staff."
Patient engagement
Empowerment is another key area where virtual care has a role to play. While the NHS does not market its services, it communicates with citizens to encourage them to attend appointments or screenings. "Salesforce's solutions can help target communications to different citizen groups in more effective ways, for example, by sending different types of reminders to those who always attend, those who need flexibility, and those who do not engage well," said Eccles, noting that providing citizens with clear care pathways and effective communication gives them more control and empowerment, which can help them receive the right care and act as their own advocates. "This patient engagement leads to better health outcomes and reduces the burden on the system," he added.
Protas, the not-for-profit designer of randomised clinical trials, is a success story on the engagement front. Stefan Blixen-Finecke, the company CIO, explained how they are designing clinical trials with efficient use of data and technology tailored to the needs of the trial rather than a generic approach.
The main challenge is that current clinical trials are excessively costly, burdensome for participants, and often fail to generate clear evidence to develop new treatments for common diseases. All of this results in fewer new treatments for common conditions.
"We are building a unified platform on Salesforce technology to manage all aspects of clinical trials from start to finish, tailoring the platform closely to the needs of each trial to Excellerate data quality and user experience," Blixen-Finecke said, noting the partnership Protas-Salesforce is enabling others to run trials more affordably and effectively.
Protas is also implementing quality assurance and quality control during data entry to Excellerate data quality and DevOps practices to enable frequent changes and updates to the platform while maintaining validation and compliance.
Protas and NHS Professionals are paving the way for next-gen digital transformation in the healthcare sector. Their experiences demonstrate that solutions that combine care coordination, citizen engagement, and AI can help reduce the burden of care. When implemented effectively and ethically, these digital technologies have the potential to transform care and Excellerate health outcomes genuinely. The key is providing a more patient-centred and personalised view of care that empowers citizens and clinicians with the right information and tools.
Read next a detailed account of the public sector sessions
delivered at Salesforce World Tour London.
Salesforce Editor’s Score: 9.5/10
|
Pricing/value |
9.2 |
|---|---|
|
Features |
9.7 |
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Customization, add-ons and integrations |
9.8 |
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Ease of use |
9.1 |
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Customer service |
9.5 |
Why We Chose Salesforce as the Best CRM for Customization
Salesforce is arguably the best-known CRM provider on the market. It has an established community and a well-earned reputation for being a leader in the customer relationship management field. While it was created to meet the needs of enterprises and large businesses, Salesforce has expanded its scope and now actively targets businesses of all sizes.
Unlike more rigid competitors, Salesforce CRM provides countless personalization and customization options, giving businesses a high level of control over how the system looks and acts. We were particularly impressed by how Salesforce handles workflow automation and by its pioneering integration of AI in CRM customization.
Notably, Salesforce was one of the first CRM platforms to open itself up to third-party developers, giving it more apps and customization options than any other provider. If Salesforce doesn’t have a built-in function you need, there’s almost certainly an app to compensate. If not, a developer can create and deploy a specific solution.
Salesforce CRM’s initial setup requires time and IT skills. Its learning curve is far steeper than those of many other CRM providers we reviewed. However, you’ll enjoy flexible CRM software guaranteed to accommodate all custom processes and meet the changing needs of your business. For all these reasons and more, Salesforce is our top CRM choice for customization.
Salesforce CRM’s pipeline management feature gives an overview of your sales opportunities. Source: Salesforce
Salesforce may not be the best choice for businesses with less complex operational needs. If your SMB’s CRM needs are straightforward, check out our review of monday.com CRM to learn about a well-executed system designed for SMBs.
What We Like About Salesforce CRM
- The Salesforce CRM is highly customizable; with time, you can modify almost every element to fit your specific business needs.
- The lowest-priced plan includes advanced features such as mass emails, marketing campaign management, a drag-and-drop app builder, and lead auto-assignment.
- Salesforce has an immense selection of support materials, videos and tutorials, as well as a helpful online community.
What We Don’t Like About Salesforce CRM
- Due to the sheer volume of customization and automation options, setting up the Salesforce CRM to match your business’s specific processes and needs can be time-consuming. It may require training for your in-house marketing team and administrators.
- You must know CSS, HTML and other coding languages to customize specific elements within Salesforce.
- Salesforce’s pricing model can be confusing; there’s a lack of clarity around add-ons, which can drive up costs.
Ease of Use
Despite its complexities, Salesforce is surprisingly easy to implement and use. Here are some notable ease-of-use factors we discovered.
- Salesforce’s navigation process is straightforward. We like that Salesforce keeps the navigation process simple. The upper tab-style layout is typical across business and personal software, making it easy to grasp; categories like “Home,” “Contacts,” “Accounts,” “Leads,” “Tasks,” “Reports” and “Opportunities” need no explanation. You can get instant help from the question mark icon in one of the corners of the screen – a handy feature we’ve seen on many other CRM packages.
- You can use Salesforce at a limited level out of the box. Because of its numerous features and customizations, setting up the Salesforce CRM takes more time and expertise than other solutions we reviewed. However, we appreciate that Salesforce’s smart default setup options help businesses use the CRM out of the box. You can gradually modify contact, opportunity, account, task and workflow elements as you explore the software’s full scope over time.
- Salesforce doesn’t provide practice data. Note that you’ll need data to practice on during onboarding; Salesforce doesn’t supply this. To get practice data, you can duplicate and isolate existing data or use a service like Mockaroo to create dummy data.
- Salesforce’s onboarding and support resources are robust. We were pleased to see that Salesforce offers a wealth of support materials, webinars and guides to facilitate the CRM implementation process and resolve usability issues. Its global Trailblazer community is also an excellent resource. Additionally, the vendor promises a two-day query response time.
- Onboarding users and updating permissions is straightforward. While in-house administrators may need specific training, we appreciate that Salesforce provides excellent admin controls. Setting up various permissions based on groups or individual users is simple. This is notable because some CRMs allow only admin settings by group. Creating different displays and workflows for various departments and employees is also straightforward. If you have even moderate technical expertise and admin experience, you should have no trouble onboarding users, updating permissions or managing this CRM daily.
Salesforce’s visual dashboards help your team pinpoint problems and work on solutions. Source: Salesforce
Salesforce’s upper-tier plans supply business owners access to live support, coaching sessions and adoption guidance for an additional fee. This may be useful if you’re considering switching CRM systems to Salesforce.
Salesforce Features
The Salesforce product boasts an impressive array of CRM features that make it one of the best on the market. Here are some of the most notable features that provide excellent CRM software benefits.
Comprehensive Business Ecosystem
We like that Salesforce’s business products seamlessly integrate. Businesses can grow with the Salesforce CRM and gradually adopt new features as needed. Additional Salesforce product categories include:
- Sales Cloud
- Service Cloud
- Marketing Cloud
- Commerce Cloud
- Safety Cloud
- Heroku (Heroku is an app development platform; read our Heroku review to learn more.)
- Quip (a collaboration tool)
- Salesforce Platform (with high-level development, customization, analytics and built-in AI)
You can use Salesforce’s impressive range of third-party apps to run many aspects of your company, from marketing to fulfillment. HR, data analytics, workforce collaboration and finance apps plug directly into Salesforce CRM. You can even add ERP apps to Salesforce to build a system close in function to the ERP platform described in our review of Oracle NetSuite CRM.
We also like how Salesforce’s AppExchange breaks down apps by industry. There are 12 sector-specific areas on AppExchange, including communications, financial services, manufacturing and professional services.
Salesforce is a capable solution for companies that want to Excellerate customer service performance. Read our review of Salesforce Service Cloud to discover how it helps supervisors and teams manage ongoing customer relationships.
Customization
We were impressed by Salesforce CRM’s vast customization capabilities – an area where it truly stands out among the competition. While many CRMs we reviewed offer options for customizing deal and contact fields, email templates, and dashboards, Salesforce lets you do much more.
Here are some of our favorite customization options:
- Change how pages look and function. You can change how pages look and function to suit your specific needs. Use the CSS settings to adjust the spacing between page elements, colors and fonts. You can modify customer records to show just the lists, sections and fields you want particular co-workers to see, improving employee collaboration.
- Use object control to customize the system. The Salesforce CRM’s object control is superior to that of other CRMs we tested. Objects are “fields” within databases (like name, address, email, etc.). Salesforce makes it easy to add objects so you can record exactly the information you want on accounts, contacts and leads. You can set permissions on records and fields to determine who else can view and edit fields. You can even make objects actionable by adding buttons, actions, triggers and links to create processes for adding a new customer, supplier or co-worker to the database.
- Use the developer console to create custom apps. We really liked Salesforce’s developer console. Many businesses, particularly SMBs, won’t have in-house programmers but may use freelance developers to develop specific functions within Salesforce. Salesforce gives these developers a dev console where they can write, test and debug code for your custom applications. We found the inclusion of Apex triggers within the dev environment particularly helpful because it will shorten the development cycle in most instances. A developer sandbox and an app builder are included with every plan.
Sales managers can customize their dashboards with specific objects. Source: Salesforce
Integrations and Add-ons
We like that CRM users can build customizable systems and integrate their favorite business apps via the Salesforce AppExchange store. Other CRM software companies we reviewed have similar online stores for add-ons, but Salesforce’s is far more comprehensive, with thousands of available integrations.
The company makes it easy to search for add-ons based on the product name and view industry-specific product bundles. Because Salesforce is such a huge company, its industry-specific add-ons are expansive. There’s even a separate section for small business-specific add-ons, many of which are free.
On the AppExchange, you’ll find five different solution categories:
- Apps: Similar to mobile apps on Apple’s App Store or Google Play, AppExchange apps are direct, preprogrammed plug-ins that interact with Salesforce. You can customize most apps via their settings. Apps add new functions or Excellerate and augment existing functions on your platform.
- Lightning Bolts: Lightning Bolts are prebuilt templates providing extra features to employees, partners, suppliers and anyone accessing your Salesforce CRM. Hundreds of Lightning Bolts have various use cases. For example, there are supply chain management bolts for suppliers, project management tools for employees and tools to access client account information.
- Flow solutions: Salesforce incorporates Flow Builder, a tool that simplifies workflow automation via a simple drag-and-drop approach. Flow solutions are prebuilt workflows or processes you can import directly into the Salesforce Flow development tool.
- Lightning data: These are customer tracking tools that can enrich customer and prospect data and keep them updated regularly. We saw four such tools during our review process.
- Components: Components are reusable features you can deploy to build your own apps within Salesforce. There are nearly 300 free components and around 30 paid ones.
Salesforce is embracing the “low code” and “no code” trends with its Lightning App Builder and Salesforce Flow drag-and-drop tools. Read our HubSpot review to learn about another CRM with drag-and-drop functionality.
New apps are added to the AppExchange daily, further enhancing its appeal. Source: Salesforce
Intuitive Productivity Tools
We were pleased to see Salesforce’s intuitive productivity-boosting tools, particularly its built-in project management features. (Freshworks has similar tools; read our Freshworks CRM review to learn more.) Once implemented, sales and marketing departments – as well as managers – will find it easy to manage and build workflows, assign and follow tasks, and check off permissions.
Salesforce’s visual dashboards allow sales reps to check KPIs and track their progress toward quotas, facilitating productivity and accountability. We like that you can add meetings straight from the calendar tab and see an instant overview of your schedule.
Additional add-on productivity tools are available through the AppExchange.
Artificial Intelligence
Salesforce’s artificial intelligence (AI) strides impressed us with capabilities beyond those of the competitors we reviewed. Salesforce was a CRM-AI pioneer, launching its high-profile AI tool, Einstein, in 2016. Today, the company has picked up the pace amid breakthroughs in the generative large language model AIs (like ChatGPT and Bard) that power tools like Einstein. Einstein is available on Salesforce’s upper-tier plans or as a paid add-on.
Einstein can do the following after gathering data from system use and user input:
- Help salespeople with call prompts
- Handle web chats via the Service Bot chatbot
- Recommend products to clients to facilitate upselling and cross-selling
- Create excellent product presentations
- Generate workflows to make companies more efficient
- Predict with a high degree of accuracy which deals will close
- Deep dive into social media and present you with sentiment analysis about your brand
- Help CEO decision-making with decision support systems that supply advice based on live analytics
Einstein, in its current form, is amazing, and we look forward to seeing its next iterations. We expect AI (and the solutions other CRM providers develop) to be integral to corporate life and CRM adoption in the coming years. We’re not awarding best use of AI in this round of CRM reviews; however, if we were, Salesforce would win.
Einstein can flag emails in which leads express critical concerns that could prevent a deal from moving forward, allowing a sales rep to prioritize those messages and act fast to grow and sustain customer relationships.
Salesforce’s Einstein tool can help with sentiment analysis so you understand how your brand is perceived. Source: Salesforce
Trailblazer Community
Nearly every CRM vendor we reviewed has some form of an online community. However, Salesforce’s Trailblazer community is particularly impressive, replete with documentation invaluable for admins. You can find step-by-step guides on everything from creating custom CRM reports to turning on user notifications.
There’s also an extensive user-only forum for direct communication with other admins and CRM users and a comprehensive Trailhead learning platform with various product-related courses, upskilling opportunities and official certifications.
Salesforce Pricing
You can purchase Salesforce’s Sales Cloud CRM via one of four subscription tiers:
- Essentials
- Professional
- Enterprise
- Unlimited
Unlike Salesforce competitors monday and HubSpot, there’s no free plan.
Only Essentials is available on a month-to-month basis; all other plans require an annual contract. Bear in mind that annual contracts often require you to pay for the whole year upfront, which may not be ideal for some businesses.
All costs below are applied when billed annually. All plans allow you to send 5,000 email marketing messages daily from the platform, which is much more generous than many other providers we reviewed.
Essentials
Price: $25 per user per month; available for up to 10 users
Features: Account, contact, lead, task and opportunity management; lead auto-assignment; prevention of duplicates; automatic capture of a lead’s available web information; mass email; marketing campaigns; customizable reports and dashboards; email integration with Gmail and Outlook; and Salesforce mobile app
Professional
Price: $75 per user per month
Features: Everything in the Essentials plan, plus pipeline management, lead registration, rules-based lead scoring, collaborative forecasting, a forecasting mobile app, quote and order management, roles and permissions, and a developer sandbox
Enterprise
Price: $150 per user per month
Features: Everything in the Professional plan, plus workflow and approval automation, sales teams and territories, opportunity scoring, and advanced reporting
Unlimited
Price: $300 per user per month
Features: Everything in the Enterprise plan, plus a sales engagement hub, AI-powered sales insights with Einstein, sales cadences and 24/7 support
Other Charges
Salesforce is pricey compared to other CRM solutions we reviewed. It’s a massive product with many add-ons and customizations; the subscription costs listed here should be considered jumping-off points.
You can spend considerably more on Salesforce. For example, CPQ & Billing, which allows you to quickly configure, price and quote complex solutions, costs $75 per user per month. Other add-ons include Pardot, Quip, Einstein AI and Sales Dialer – all sold separately. There are additional costs if you opt for training or help with implementation.
Many other SaaS products offer free versions and low-cost, entry-level subscriptions that can be used indefinitely. While $25 per user per month isn’t exorbitant, it’s not a realistic long-term option for most small businesses because only 10 users are supported at that level. The next plan jumps to $75 per user per month – significantly more expensive than the competition.
We recommend taking advantage of Salesforce’s 14-day free trial to ensure this CRM is worth the investment.
Onboarding and Implementation
Implementing CRM software always takes care and patience. But due to its breadth of customization options, Salesforce CRM’s implementation process can vary drastically, taking anywhere from a few days to several weeks. While that may seem alarming, users will quickly see that this CRM is worth the effort once it is set up.
Salesforce and third-party agencies can manage your initial implementation and launch for you. Still, this help comes at a cost, depending on your company size, number of employees, data volume and complexity, third-party integrations, and customization level.
Fortunately, you don’t necessarily have to create a complex solution immediately. You can use the software out of the box and modify it as your business needs evolve. Thanks to the Salesforce CRM’s intuitive design and overall sophistication, the learning curve isn’t steep for non-admin users after implementation.
In addition to a vast library of training materials, Salesforce offers adoption guidance and coaching services for an extra cost. That may be worth it for business owners concerned about setting up the CRM and onboarding users.
Use the Data Import Wizard from the Setup menu to import up to 50,000 standard objects – like contact, lead and account information – from a CSV file.
Customer Service
While Salesforce is a market leader in CRM technology, integrations and capabilities, we found that it falls short in the customer service department. When we reached out for information about the company’s services, the response was delayed.
When we did communicate with customer support reps, they were very helpful and used real-life situations to explain the product’s features and answer questions about the program. They were very clear and offered several solutions to help further our understanding. However, compared to other providers we called, their answers could have been more detailed.
Unfortunately, Salesforce has a C-minus rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and isn’t an accredited BBB business. It earned 1 out of 5 stars and closed 55 complaints within the last three years. That’s disappointing and surprising for a company that’s so well regarded in the industry.
On the plus side, Salesforce provides an extensive selection of self-guided resources, access to the Trailblazer community and basic technical support. Additionally, its Unlimited package comes with 24/7 assistance.
For an additional fee of 30 percent of your total monthly service fees, users can access 24/7 phone support, expert coaching and a dedicated account manager.
Limitations
Salesforce CRM is an excellent solution; however, we did identify some limitations:
- Customizations can be complex. Salesforce’s biggest strength – its customization capabilities – is also a potential downside. Setting up a fully customized CRM tailored to your business’s specific sales funnel, structure and workflows requires time and, ideally, a dedicated IT team. Entrepreneurs and smaller companies might be better off with an easy-to-use yet still customizable solution like Zoho. (Learn more in our detailed Zoho CRM review.)
- Salesforce requires technical knowledge. Most of the Salesforce CRM’s customizable elements require some basic technical knowledge of CSS and HTML. This is slowly improving since the introduction of the Lightning App Builder and Salesforce Flow tools. For example, the Lightning Email Templates use a more interactive drag-and-drop functionality, similar to some rival CRMs we reviewed. Salesforce is getting simpler and more intuitive over time. However, it’s not there yet.
- Pricing can be challenging to understand. Due to the number of available add-ons and platforms, it can be difficult to estimate the final price of your desired CRM solution. However, Salesforce’s sales and support teams are happy to provide a unique quote for your business.
Methodology
When evaluating the best CRM software, we conducted extensive comparative research of dozens of software solutions in the category. Our product review process was designed to help you find the right CRM for your business. It included customer support team communication, trials to evaluate product functionality, and an evaluation of each provider’s tutorials, webinars and support materials. We also took pricing into consideration. When looking for the best CRM for customizability specifically, we examined customization options, available integrations, reporting and analytics, and sales automation.
Salesforce FAQ
Is Salesforce easy to learn?
Though the Salesforce system has an extensive collection of CRM features and add-ons, its intuitive design and standard CRM lingo make it easy to learn. The vendor also provides various training materials and courses on Trailhead, the company’s free online learning platform, to get you started.
Can I use Salesforce for free?
Salesforce doesn’t have a free plan; its pricing starts at $25 per user per month. However, the company offers a 14-day free trial so you can assess whether it’s a good fit for your business.
Bottom Line
We recommend Salesforce CRM for …
- Businesses that need a flexible and highly customizable CRM solution.
- Companies that want access to a large collection of integrations and add-ons to suit their processes and industries.
- Businesses looking for a CRM that can expand with their evolving needs.
We don’t recommend Salesforce CRM for …
- Businesses that want a free CRM solution or advanced CRM functionality at an affordable price.
- Entrepreneurs and small businesses with limited IT resources.
- Companies that need a straightforward CRM system that works right out of the box and is easy to customize with no technical skills required.
Nadia Reckmann contributed to this article.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates– Salesforce today announced the general availability of Einstein Studio, a new, easy-to-use “bring your own model” (BYOM) solution that enables companies to use their custom AI models to power any sales, service, marketing, commerce, and IT application within Salesforce, helping them get more from their AI and data investments.
Einstein Studio makes it easy for data science and engineering teams to manage and deploy AI models more efficiently, and at lower cost. Companies can now easily use their proprietary company data from Salesforce Data Cloud to train models from Salesforce’s ecosystem of curated AI models, including Amazon SageMaker from Amazon Web Services
(AWS), Google Cloud’s Vertex AI, and other AI services.
Einstein Studio trains AI models on proprietary customer data from Data Cloud, the first real-time data platform for CRM. Through this BYOM solution, customers will be able to use their custom AI models alongside turnkey LLMs provided through Einstein GPT, enabling them to deliver comprehensive AI fast.
Why it matters: Companies across every industry are rushing to integrate AI as IT leaders anticipate an enormous impact on their business. However, nearly 60% say they are still a year or two away from implementing AI solutions. And according to a Gartner® press release “On average, 54% of AI projects make it from pilot to production.”
Einstein Studio trains AI models on proprietary customer data from Data Cloud, the first real-time data platform for CRM. Through this BYOM solution, customers will be able to use their custom AI models alongside turnkey LLMs provided through Einstein GPT, enabling them to deliver comprehensive AI fast.
Why it matters: Companies across every industry are rushing to integrate AI as IT leaders anticipate an enormous impact on their business. However, nearly 60% say they are still a year or two away from implementing AI solutions. And according to a Gartner® press release “On average, 54% of AI projects make it from pilot to production.”
The solution: Einstein Studio makes it faster and easier to run and deploy enterprise-ready AI across every part of the business, bringing trusted, open, and real-time AI experiences to every application and workflow.
How it works: With Einstein Studio, companies can leverage their proprietary, real-time customer data from Data Cloud to train AI models that solve specific business needs. And with Einstein Studio’s BYOM solution, companies can train their preferred AI model with Data Cloud, which connects all customer data from any source, and automatically harmonizes that data into a single customer profile that adapts to each customer’s activity in real time for use across any department.
- Einstein Studio makes it faster to train AI models by providing pre-built, zero-ETL integration, which reduces the complexity of moving data between platforms. Einstein Studio allows technical teams to simply “point and click” to access their data in Data Cloud, then build and train their custom AI models for use across Salesforce applications. This process provides current and relevant customer data to inform AI predictions and auto-generate content.
- Einstein Studio provides a control panel for managing the use of AI models, empowering data scientists and engineers to govern how their data is exposed to AI platforms for training.
- Einstein Studio’s zero-ETL framework allows companies to power their custom AI models without the need for time-consuming data integration across systems. This means Data Cloud can connect to other AI tools without the extract, transform, and load (ETL) process, saving customers time and money while accelerating AI implementation.
The solution: Einstein Studio makes it faster and easier to run and deploy enterprise-ready AI across every part of the business, bringing trusted, open, and real-time AI experiences to every application and workflow.
How it works: With Einstein Studio, companies can leverage their proprietary, real-time customer data from Data Cloud to train AI models that solve specific business needs. And with Einstein Studio’s BYOM solution, companies can train their preferred AI model with Data Cloud, which connects all customer data from any source, and automatically harmonizes that data into a single customer profile that adapts to each customer’s activity in real time for use across any department.
- Einstein Studio makes it faster to train AI models by providing pre-built, zero-ETL integration, which reduces the complexity of moving data between platforms. Einstein Studio allows technical teams to simply “point and click” to access their data in Data Cloud, then build and train their custom AI models for use across Salesforce applications. This process provides current and relevant customer data to inform AI predictions and auto-generate content.
- Einstein Studio provides a control panel for managing the use of AI models, empowering data scientists and engineers to govern how their data is exposed to AI platforms for training.
- Einstein Studio’s zero-ETL framework allows companies to power their custom AI models without the need for time-consuming data integration across systems. This means Data Cloud can connect to other AI tools without the extract, transform, and load (ETL) process, saving customers time and money while accelerating AI implementation.
What people are saying:
- “Companies need quick, ROI-driven AI investments that deliver value through actionable business insights and personalized customer experiences. Einstein Studio offers a faster, easier way to create and implement custom AI models, including a BYOM approach that allows customers to use the most relevant AI models – all while bypassing expensive ETL data pipeline processes. Now, Salesforce customers can harness their own proprietary data to power predictive and generative AI across every part of their organization.” – Rahul Auradkar, EVP & GM, Unified Data Services & Einstein, Salesforce
- “Salesforce and Google Cloud share a commitment to helping businesses create real-world value with generative AI. Expanding access to Google’s powerful models for Salesforce customers through Einstein Studio means businesses can train AI models on Salesforce data, and then use the models throughout Salesforce’s business applications. In the future, this will allow customers to more easily deploy Google Cloud’s diverse models to address particular use cases, including Google’s foundation models, highly specialized models developed for specific industries, and a variety of open source models and those from our ecosystem of partners.” – Kevin Ichhpurani, Corporate VP, Global Ecosystem and Channels at Google Cloud
- “Tens of thousands of customers have tapped Amazon SageMaker to train models with billions of parameters and generate more than a trillion monthly predictions. That is why Amazon SageMaker has become the tool of choice for numerous customers since launching in 2017, but to make the most of their investment in machine learning, customers need access to data, which can be siloed and difficult to use. Working together with Salesforce, we are making it even easier for customers to bring together their Salesforce data with Amazon SageMaker, so they can take advantage of the breadth and depth of SageMaker features to fuel machine learning-powered insights and quickly take action on what they uncover.” – Swami Sivasubramanian, VP of Database, Analytics, and Machine Learning at AWS
- “Through Salesforce’s Data Cloud and Einstein Studio, customers will now have the ability to bring their own Amazon SageMaker models, providing them greater choice in how they utilize AI and customer data. The democratization of such a capability is key to the success of our clients. Deloitte is excited to be a part of this journey and has developed a series of ‘bring your own models’ that our clients can leverage as part of the Salesforce ecosystem.” – David Geisinger, Global Alliance Lead, Deloitte Digital
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Gartner Press Release, Gartner Survey Reveals 80% of Executives Think Automation Can Be Applied to Any Business Decision, August 22, 2022, https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-08-22-gartner-survey-reveals-80-percent-of-executives-think-automation-can-be-applied-to-any-business-decision#:~:text=On%20average%2C%2054%25%20of%20AI,the%20AI%20talent%20they%20need. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved
About Salesforce
Salesforce, the global CRM leader, empowers companies of every size and industry to digitally transform and create a 360° view of their customers.
For more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit: www.salesforce.com
Media Contacts:
Michelle Oribello
Wallis
salesforce@wallispr.com
On the 12th of June 2023, Coberg and Salesforce joined forces to host their first event in Doha, Qatar at the W Hotel. The event focused on equipping attendees with the knowledge to prioritize their customers and drive business growth through the utilization of the Salesforce Customer 360 platform. Esteemed experts in various fields, including marketing and engagement, sales, service teams, APIs and data integration, and customer journey and strategy, shared their insights, making it a valuable opportunity for business leaders.
The day kicked off with a warm welcome and a light breakfast service. Russell Daley, the Regional Vice President of Commercial Sales at Salesforce, set the tone for the day, emphasizing the importance of customer-centric business strategies and the potential of the Customer 360 platform. Bassem Kharrat (Salesforce Enterprise Account Executive) took the stage to deliver a keynote speech that further underscored these themes and provided guidance on leveraging the platform effectively.
During the morning session, Othman Katim (Salesforce enterprise Account Executive) delved into the realm of smarter marketing and engagement in the era of digital data-first approaches. Subsequently, Jesse Kingston (Country Manager for Qatar at Salesforce) and Noura Oughanem (Lead Solution engineer) shared invaluable insights on unifying the customer experience and centralizing data inputs, enlightening attendees on unlocking the full potential of their sales and service teams.
Our special guest, Mr. Hamad Al Hajri, the CEO & founder of Snoonu, took the stage alongside Mohamed Abdelsalam, Coberg’s Managing Partner, to discuss the challenges of running a business and how they were overcome through the customer-centric approach of Salesforce eco – system and Coberg’s expertise as a Platinum Salesforce Partner.
Attendees then had a chance to network and exchange experiences during a brief coffee break.
The event resumed with Roddy Aletawi (from the Enterprise Solutions Sales team at Salesforce) shedding light on the power of APIs with MuleSoft, highlighting the benefits of streamlined integration for driving business transformation.
Finally, Mr. Matthew Clark, the Strategy and Business Development Director, and Mr. Baburaj Parakkal, the CIO of Jaidah Group, shared their success story of utilizing Salesforce and customer journey strategy in a session centered around the voice of the customer. This session equipped attendees with practical approaches to implementing customer-centric thinking within their own organizations. The event continued with networking opportunities and a closing lunch.
Coberg and Salesforce effectively showcased their expertise and offerings throughout the event. Attendees left with valuable insights on leveraging customer data and insights to foster business growth. The collaboration between Coberg and Salesforce proved to be a great success, providing attendees with practical takeaways that can be applied to their own business operations.
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