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Exam Code: DEV-450 Practice test 2023 by Killexams.com team
DEV-450 Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I
ABOUT THE EXAM

The Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I test has the following characteristics:

 Content: 60 multiple-choice/multiple-select questions

 Time allotted to complete the exam: 110 minutes

 Passing Score: 65%



The Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I test is intended for an individual who has
experience developing and deploying basic business logic and user interfaces using the
programmatic capabilities of the Lightning Platform, including practical application of the
skills and concepts noted in the test objectives below.

The Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I generally has one to two years of experience as
a developer and at least six months of experience on the Lightning Platform.
The Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I candidate has the experience, skills, and
knowledge outlined below:

 Can use the fundamental programmatic capabilities of the Lightning Platform to
develop custom interfaces to extend Salesforce capabilities and develop custom
business logic.

 Can extend the Lightning Platform using Apex and Visualforce, and understands
Lightning Components.

 Is familiar with, and able to leverage relevant declarative capabilities of the platform,
where appropriate.

 Knows when to use declarative vs. programmatic methods.

 Is familiar with the development lifecycle from development to testing, and has
knowledge of the available environments.

 Is familiar with the Salesforce Mobile app capabilities and the basics of the Lightning
framework.

 Knows when to use the Lightning Process Builder vs. an Apex trigger.

 Has experience with object-oriented languages such as Java, JavaScript, C#, Ruby,
and .NET.

 Has experience with data-driven applications and relational databases.

 Has experience with Model View Controller (MVC) architecture and componentbased architecture.

 Has invested time in studying the resources listed in this test guide and the
additional required study materials provided by Salesforce.



EXAM OUTLINE

The Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I test measures a candidates knowledge and
skills related to the following objectives. A candidate should have hands-on experience
developing custom applications on the Lightning Platform and have demonstrated the
application of each of the features/functions below.



SALESFORCE FUNDAMENTALS

 Describe the considerations when developing in a multi-tenant environment.

 Describe how the Salesforce platform features map to the MVC pattern.

 Describe the capabilities of the core CRM objects in the Salesforce schema.

 Identify the common scenarios for extending an application's capabilities using
the AppExchange.

 Identify common use cases for declarative customization of the Lightning
Platform, and customization and features of the Heroku platform.



DATA MODELING AND MANAGEMENT

 Given a set of requirements, determine the appropriate data model.

 Describe the capabilities of the various relationship types and the implications
of each on record access, user interface (UI), and object-oriented
programming.

 Describe the impact of schema design and modifications on Apex
Development.

 Describe how to visualize and create entity relationships.

 Describe the options for and considerations when importing and exporting
data into development environments.



LOGIC AND PROCESS AUTOMATION

 Describe how to programmatically access and utilize the object schema.

 Describe the capabilities and use cases for formula fields.

 Describe the capabilities and use cases for roll-up summary fields.

 Describe the capabilities of the declarative process automation features.

 Describe when to use declarative automation features vs. Apex classes and
triggers.

 Describe how to declare variables and constants in Apex and how to assign
values using expressions.

 Describe the primitive and complex Apex data types and when to use them.

 Describe how to use and apply Apex control flow statements.

 Describe how to write and when to use Apex classes and interfaces.

 Describe how to use basic SOSL, SOQL, and DML statements when working
with objects in Apex.

 Describe the basic patterns used in triggers and classes to process data
efficiently.

 Describe when to use and how to write triggers.

 Describe the implications of governor limits on Apex transactions.

 Describe the relationship between Apex transactions, the save order of
execution, and the potential for recursion and/or cascading.

 Describe how to implement exception handling in Apex.

 Describe how to write Visualforce controllers.

 Describe when and how to use standard Visualforce controllers vs. Apex
custom controllers and controller extensions.

 Describe the programmatic techniques to prevent security vulnerabilities in
Apex and Visualforce.

 Describe how Apex impacts the ability to make declarative changes.



USER INTERFACE

 Describe how to display Salesforce data using a Visualforce page.

 Describe the types of web content that can be incorporated into Visualforce
pages.

 Describe how to incorporate Visualforce pages into Lightning Platform
applications.

 Describe the benefits of the Lightning Component framework.

 Describe the resources that can be contained in a Lightning Component.



TESTING

 Describe the testing framework and requirements for deployment.

 Describe how to write unit tests for triggers, controllers, and classes.

 Describe when and how to use various sources of test data.

 Describe how to execute one or multiple test classes.

 Describe the differences between invoking Apex in execute anonymous vs. unit
tests.



DEBUG AND DEPLOYMENT TOOLS

 Describe how to monitor and access various types of debug logs.

 Describe the capabilities and security implications of the Developer Console,
Workbench, and Force.com IDE.

 Describe the different processes for deploying metadata and business data.

 Describe how the different environments are used in the development and
deployment process.
Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I
Salesforce Salesforce Study Guide
Killexams : Salesforce Salesforce Study Guide - BingNews https://killexams.com/pass4sure/exam-detail/DEV-450 Search results Killexams : Salesforce Salesforce Study Guide - BingNews https://killexams.com/pass4sure/exam-detail/DEV-450 https://killexams.com/exam_list/Salesforce Killexams : Salesforce Pricing 2023: Everything You Need To Know

While Salesforce has many different products with pricing structures that often require a quote from the company, we’ve compiled the basic pricing for their sales CRM only.

It should be noted that the pricing is the same no matter how large your business is, but Salesforce markets a small business plan for each of its three main products of Sales, Service and Pardot. The prices are listed by Salesforce as being the same as they are listed for larger businesses. Their small business offering is more of a summary of what they recommend for businesses with smaller teams and less-needed accounts.

As you can see in the table above, as you scale up your pricing plan you’ll be able to get access to more rich features meant for larger or scaling businesses. The Essentials plan should be great for most small businesses with fewer than five sales team members, unless you are looking for something with accurate sales forecasting.

Features of Salesforce CRM

As you grow your business, you’ll be able to take advantage of the more advanced features like workflow automation. All businesses will have sales team members with a lot to juggle who can benefit from this. But more importantly, the larger your team is, the more automation you’ll need to make sure all processes are the same and tie back into your analytics correctly.

Your team will get access to the Salesforce mobile app no matter what plan you choose, which allows you to input data on any lead right from your phone. You’ll also be able to check any information you need as you’re on the go attempting to sell in person. It’s a great time-saver to help your sales team take their customer relationships to the next level.

If you’re looking for advanced developer tools, such as a sandbox or the ability to add custom applications, then you’ll want to check with your dev team for their specific needs. Some of these tools are unlocked with the Professional plan but most do not become available until you pay for Enterprise.

Finally, no matter what plan you choose, you can use Salesforce with any major email provider as you’ll be able to integrate your Gmail or Outlook service directly into the platform. This is a huge time-saver as you’re communicating either via cold reach out or a back-and-forth with your leads.

 Wed, 02 Feb 2022 02:52:00 -0600 Jeff White en-US text/html https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/salesforce-pricing-guide/ Killexams : Salesforce Pricing: How Much Does Salesforce Cost in 2023?

Salesforce pricing starts at $25 per user, per month for its Sales Cloud and Service Cloud platforms, with more expensive plans getting as high as $330 per user, per month. These monthly fees will vary depending on the needs and scale of your business. The difference between the above two figures is startling, so the smartest move you can make is to get a direct price quote from Salesforce for how much Salesforce will cost for your exact business needs.

You can also use our CRM quote comparison tool to receive quotes from a range of CRM providers, in addition to Salesforce. It's worth noting that, in August 2023, Salesforce changed its pricing across most of its prominent plans, increasing most plans by an average of 9% each. Luckily, the $25 per user, per month plan was unchanged, but more expensive plans did see an increase.

The most popular Salesforce platform is the Sales Cloud, which is why we've outlined this in the table below. Scroll down for all of Salesforce's plans and pricing information, including Sales and Marketing solutions.

File storage: 1GB
Data storage: 10GB + 20MB per license

File storage: 10GB + 2GB per license
Data storage: 10GB + 20MB per license

File storage: 10GB + 2GB per license
Data storage: 10GB + 20MB per license

File storage: 10GB + 2GB per license
Data storage: 10GB + 20MB per license

$15/user/month

Salesforce's most expensive solutions are its robust marketing automation platforms. Prices for this come in at between $1,250 per month and $15,000 per month, so you can see the price tag can vary wildly depending on exactly what you're looking for.

Worried about how much Salesforce will cost your business? Compare price plans in a few simple steps with our custom quote tool.

Salesforce CRM Pricing

When it comes to determining the best price your business can get for Salesforce, or any software, the most important thing is to understand which pricing plan is sufficient for your exact business needs so you're not overpaying for features you won't use.

That’s why we’ve created our unique quote matching tool – it takes seconds to fill out but can save your business time and money. Last year, we helped thousands of businesses like yourself find the right services and products. Fill in a few quick questions about your business and we'll match you to the best solution.

Keep scrolling to work out for yourself which Salesforce price plan might best meet your needs. We'll look at Salesforce's costs for each tier and product. Plus, help you decide if this Salesforce is the right CRM system for your company, or if an alternative might offer you better value.

Since our last update...

For the first time in more than seven years, Salesforce has increased its prices on the majority of its popular plans, with the changes effective from August 2023. The Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited plans all saw an average increase of around 9%, while the Starter plan fortunately stayed at the competitive $25 per user, per month.

What's the reason for the increase? According to the official Salesforce press release, it's because the company has substantially increased its generative AI offerings, including AI Cloud, Einstein GPT, and Sales GPT and Service GPT. As a result, the platform has increased prices to make up for the increased functionality of Salesforce as a whole.

Salesforce Pricing Plans

Salesforce divides its various services into what it calls “clouds.” Unsure about what service your business might need? Tired of the ambiguous pricing models of business software? We get it – comparing the different pricing plans is confusing and it can be extremely costly should you get it wrong. If you want to save time, you can join the dozens of other businesses who have used our quote-finding form and get matched to a pricing plan much quicker this way.

  • Sales Cloud Costs – from $25 per month, is the company's basic CRM system; it includes all the basics you need for client management, including client records, lead tracking, deals, notes, and more.
  • Service Cloud Costs – from $25 per month, allows for online customer service on any device, and the ability to integrate customer service data with client records in other Salesforce clouds.
  • Marketing Cloud Engagement Costs– from $1,250 per month, allows you to create one-to-one marketing campaigns.
  • Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Costs (Formerly Pardot)– from $1,250 per month, this marketing automation platform can streamline a lot of your marketing.
  • Salesforce Quip Pricing – from $100 per month, this collaboration platform helps ease the transition to remote work.

Sales, Marketing, and Service are the primary clouds Salesforce offers. Beyond that, the company has a variety of other services, including a development platform for building Salesforce-powered apps, online forums connected to CRM data, and more.

For those just starting out, however, Sales Cloud is the place to start.

For pricing, Salesforce offers a wide variety of pricing levels. Essentials is for teams of five or less and applies only to the Sales and Service clouds. As you go up in pricing tiers, Salesforce becomes more customizable and adds higher levels of support.

There's also Lightning Professional, Lightning Enterprise, and Lightning Unlimited. The Lightning suite of services all use a different user interface than the classic versions of these plan tiers but offer the basically same features (albeit with a few new productivity tools).

You can read more about the Lightning services here. Ultimately, while the “Lightning” name can be a little confusing, the services it offers are just a mildly revamped version of the services we discuss here and come with the same benefits and price tags.
Marketing Cloud - Engagement
Marketing Cloud - Engagement
Marketing Cloud - Engagement
Marketing Cloud - Account Engagement
Marketing Cloud - Account Engagement
Marketing Cloud - Account Engagement
Marketing Cloud - Account Engagement

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Formerly Pardot)

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Formerly Pardot)

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Formerly Pardot)

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Formerly Pardot)

Salesforce Sales Cloud Costs

The Sales Cloud is the standard Salesforce software. The main features will allow every employee in a company to easily manage their accounts, contacts, leads, and opportunities, all from a single interface. It's also one of the few CRM options that allows for sales forecasting functionality across all its pricing plans. AI-powered tools and customizable templates can further streamline and automate daily chores, cutting down on costs and helping agents focus on what matters.

Each of the four tiers offers more features and functionality than the last. Sales Essentials costs $25 per user, per month; Lightning Professional is $80 per user, per month; Lightning Enterprise is $165 per user, per month; and Lightning Unlimited is $330 per user, per month.

It's worth noting that the Unlimited plan is where you can unlock the built-in AI features, which provide in-depth lead and opportunity scoring, as well as insights into customer interactions and deal health at your business.

As is often the case, the closest competitor to Salesforce Sales Cloud is the HubSpot Sales Hub, which offers many of the same features at a slightly lower price (starting at $23 per user per month). You are required to have at least two users though, so starting price is actually a minimum of $45 per month.

Salesforce is a good option, but it isn't the best CRM for sales, according to our research. That honor goes to Zoho CRM, which offers lots of features but at a reasonable price point that won't scare off smaller businesses. Salesforce does, however, offer some of the most robust sales dashboards on the market.

File storage: 1GB
Data storage: 10GB + 20MB per license

File storage: 10GB + 2GB per license
Data storage: 10GB + 20MB per license

File storage: 10GB + 2GB per license
Data storage: 10GB + 20MB per license

File storage: 10GB + 2GB per license
Data storage: 10GB + 20MB per license

$15/user/month

Salesforce Service Cloud Costs

Service Cloud is a key part of Salesforce's products. It's a fully functional customer service platform that integrates seamlessly with Salesforce, putting your customer data at the fingertips of all those in your company that need it.

The Community 360 feature, for example, allows customer service agents to see if your clients have looked for help already on your website or filed any support tickets. This helps the agents get a better picture of what's going on with any given client.

With Service Cloud, Salesforce says you can reach any customer on any device to meet their needs as they arise.

The costs for Service Cloud are the same as for the Sales Cloud. Essentials is $25 per user, per month, Lightning Professional starts at $80 per user, per month, Lightning Enterprise costs $165 per user, per month, and Lightning Unlimited starts at $330 per user, per month.

The availability of Einstein AI features is relegated to the Enterprise plan and Unlimited plan only. Additionally, the functionality will cost extra, running businesses an additional $50 per month for advanced analytics and smart service features.

While Salesforce Service Cloud is a respectable option when it comes to customer support platforms, our research showed that Zendesk is actually the better option, depending on your needs. It's more affordable, easier to use, and allows support across virtually every channel you can imagine, whereas Salesforce is missing some, like phone support.

Read our full Salesforce vs Zendesk comparison here.

Website Live Chat Comms Channel

Requires Telephony Integration

Requires Telephony integration

Requires Telephony Integration or Service Cloud Voice Add-on

Yes – but limited to 1 license

Additional cost

Yes (Maximum of 2).

Yes (maximum of 2)

Yes (maxium of 2)

Yes (maximum of 2)
  • Internal knowledge base
  • Agent monitoring
  • Unified Case Queue
  • Task Dashboard
  • Team Comms
  • Manual Ticket Routing
  • User hierarchy
  • Int. knowledge base
  • Team SLAs
  • Agent monitoring
  • Ind. Targets
  • Unif. Case Queue
  • Calendar
  • Task Dashboard
  • Team Comms
  • Manual Ticket Routing
  • User hierarchy
  • Int. knowledge base
  • Team SLAs
  • Agent monitoring
  • Ind. Targets
  • Unif. Case Queue
  • Calendar
  • Task Dashboard
  • Team Comms
  • Manual Ticket Routing
  • User hierarchy
  • Int. knowledge base
  • Team SLAs
  • Agent monitoring
  • Ind. Targets
  • Unif. Case Queue
  • Calendar
  • Task Dashboard
  • Team Comms
  • Manual Ticket Routing

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Salesforce also offers a Marketing Cloud, which is made up of a wide range of different platforms, each with their own set of pricing plans. For the average business, there are two platforms that our research shows are the best fit for you: the Marketing Cloud Engagement platform and the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement platform.

As for the difference between the two platforms, Marketing Cloud Engagement is intended for B2C businesses whereas Marketing Cloud Account Engagement is intended for B2B businesses. The difference in the max number of contacts per plan is the key indicator here because Marketing Cloud Account Engagement has a lot less contacts allocated to customers as B2B businesses have less need for a huge library of customer details.

Read on for the pricing information about each of these two Marketing Cloud platforms.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement Costs

The Marketing Cloud Engagement platform is Salesforce's one-to-one marketing platform, which integrates with other Salesforce “clouds” for a more complete understanding of your customers' history.

The idea with Marketing Cloud Engagement is to meet your customers wherever they are. You can use Salesforce's platform to send out marketing emails, advertise to them online, send them mobile alerts, and encourage them to land on your e-commerce pages.

Salesforce says this can all happen at scale, giving your customers a more personalized experience without handcrafting every single message that goes out the proverbial door.

Marketing Cloud Engagement's pricing is a little more expensive than the Sales and Service Clouds. It offers three distinct plans: Pro, Corporate, and Enterprise. The Pro plan costs $1,250 per month, and the Corporate plan rounds it out at $3,750 per month. The Enterprise plan requires you to contact Salesforce to get a quote.

For the best AI-powered results, you'll need to subscribe to the Corporate or Enterprise plans, as the Pro plan does not have AI functionality built in. With these features, you can supercharge your marketing campaign with smart insights to reach and convert customers.

In our research, we found that Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement platform isn't the best CRM for marketing, particularly if you're thinking about price. It's very expensive and outside of extensive data visualizations, doesn't offer as much as our top pick, HubSpot Marketing Hub. With this robust option, you'll be able to take care of all your marketing needs from a single hub, including email, social, content, and paid. It's also quite expensive, but at least you're getting a lot of bang for your buck.

Custom automation builder

30 days

30 days

30 days

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Costs (Formerly Pardot)

Salesforce acquired the marketing automation service Pardot in 2012, and now offers it as an add-on for Salesforce users. Formerly known as Salesforce Pardot and now referred to as the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement platform, the service streamlines a marketing team's daily and long-term tasks, from automating all the simple chores to sending custom alerts that can jog agents' memories to ensure they follow up on all of their clients' needs.

Marketing Cloud Account Engagement offers an impressive range of features in four main marketing categories: lead generation, thanks to tools covering lead tracking, email, social media, landing pages, and A/B testing; lead management, due to custom-designed engagement and nurturing programs; sales alignment, with tools including customer activity tracking, campaigns, and CRM integration; and, finally, ROI reporting, with metrics tracking tools that cover the whole sales funnel.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement comes in four plans — Growth, starting at $1,250 per month; Plus, starting at $2,500 per month; Advanced, starting at $4,000 per month; and Premium, starting at $15,000 per month. All four plans cover up to 10,000 contacts at this base price — except for Premium which allows for 75,000 and are differentiated mainly by the features each offers.

You'll need to grab the Advanced or Premium plans if you're interested in using artificial intelligence to Boost your business. These plans come with Einstein AI built in, so you can reach out to your leads at the perfect moment to ensure a sale is as likely as possible.

If Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement sounds right for you, or you just want to check out whether it will work for your specific business needs, then you can join the thousands other businesses we helped to get set up with the platform. Save time and money by taking a minute to fill out our free, no-commitment form right now.

You can check out the pricing table below to see a few main differences, though you'll need to head over to our dedicated Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement pricing and benefits page to get the full breakdown.

Salesforce Quip Pricing

If your team has gone remote during the pandemic, you might be in need of some kind of collaboration platform. With Salesforce Quip, you can connect with your team in a meaningful way alongside your Sales, Marketing and Customer Service tasks, while keeping within the Salesforce suite.

Salesforce Quip costs $100 per user, per month on top of other Salesforce plans, and allows for activities including document and spreadsheet sharing, real time updates on team progress, mobile optimization for business on the go, and team messaging to stay in touch easily and effectively.

Does Salesforce Have a Free Plan?

No, Salesforce does not offer a free plan. The cheapest basic plan is the Sales or Service cloud, either one of which starts at $25/user/month.

A few big names in CRM – Apptivo, HubSpot, and Zoho CRM – do offer free plans, although all of them come with one big caveat: a limited feature set. Apptivo's free plan only supports a maximum of three users, for instance, compared to Salesforce's minimum of five.

Cost is not the only issue to consider, of course: You also have to decide whether the CRM platform you pick has the right features, integrations, and storage capacity for your needs. Not all CRM systems are the same, and any free option is unlikely to have all the features you'll need, particularly if you plan to expand your operation in the future.

What you'll notice from the pricing table above is that Salesforce – like pretty much all CRM platforms – charges on a per user, per month basis. Salesforce Essentials for Sales Cloud, for example, charges $25 per user, per month. There's a set minimum of five users, but no maximum.

If, however, you need help with marketing, we'd recommend the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement platform. This option is just a simply monthly fee, but prices can up from there depending on your needs — it starts at $1,250 per month and goes all the way to $15,000 per month.

Annoyed by complicated pricing models? Compare the cost of Salesforce plans in a minute or two with our free quotes tool.

Per-user pricing schemes are typical for business software. It ensures the pricing structure is scalable, so it won't break the bank for the smallest companies that only need Sales Cloud for a few users, while still charging a fair price for larger companies.

If you need a CRM system for a full five users, you'll be paying around $1,500 per year for Salesforce. If you're a small company of 10 users moving up to the Lightning Professional tier, then you'll be paying about $9,000 per year.

When you're considering which clouds to pay for, keep in mind the number of current employees as well as how quickly you plan to expand. Keeping the per-user pricing in mind means you'll always know how much you'll be paying for Salesforce at any given time, which you can evaluate with our price comparison form.

New Salesforce Pricing: August 2023 Price Increase Explained

Salesforce recently announced in August 2023 that the platform would be undergoing a price increase across the majority of its Clouds and pricing plans. The move is a rare one from Salesforce, as the company hasn't seen a price increase to its popular CRM platform in more than seven years. Still, it can be a bit jarring for those familiar with Salesforce, which is why we wanted to explain it as effectively as possible.

For starters, it's not a massive increase, which is always good to hear. Pricing plans are getting on average a 9% increase, which certainly won't break the bank. The Professional plan has gone from $75 to $80 per user, per month, the Enterprise plan has gone from $150 to $165 per user, per month, and the Unlimited plan has gone from $300 to $330 per user, per month.

As for the reason behind the price increase, the development and rollout of generative AI technology to the platform is the main driver – at least according to the company itself.

“Salesforce is leading the way on delivering trusted generative AI for the enterprise and helping customers in all industries adopt and deploy AI.” – Salesforce

Salesforce has been hard to work to bring generative AI functionality to its wide variety of platforms. More specifically, Salesforce recently launched an Einstein GPT tool that can Boost sales, service, and marketing efforts at your business. On top of that, it has rolled out AI Cloud and Sales GPT and Service GPT, so it's safe to say that the slight price increase is more than worth it.

Alternatives to Salesforce CRM Prices

While Salesforce is an undeniably popular choice when it comes to CRM, it's not ideal for everyone. In fact, given the higher price and the robust nature of the platform, Salesforce can be a bit intimidating for certain businesses. Fortunately, the CRM market is riddled with amazing platforms that can get the job done.

Here are some of our top picks for CRM alternatives to Salesforce that can handle marketing, sales, customer service, and small businesses:

HubSpot pricing vs Salesforce pricing

Salesforce Marketing Hub is a competitive, albeit very expensive option when it comes to CRM, but our research found that HubSpot is your best bet in that regard. Both are quite expensive, with the HubSpot Marketing Hub starting at $45 per month, but HubSpot offers a great free plan, whereas Salesforce merely has a 30-day free trial. Simply put, HubSpot is just more accessible to users than Salesforce, particularly when it comes to marketing.

Zendesk pricing vs Salesforce pricing

For customer service, we highly recommend Zendesk for your business as a low-cost alternative to Salesforce. This platform offers a whole bunch of pricing plans and options — starting at $19 per user per month — so you can cater the cost to your particular needs. Zendesk offers the most built-in communication channels on the market, as well as some great perks like offline customer service options and ticketing functionality.

Zoho CRM pricing vs Salesforce pricing

Obviously, Salesforce is known for its sales platform, and if you can afford the cost and have a bigger team, we definitely recommend going with Salesforce. Still, Zoho CRM provides a great sales platform that can handle your needs at a lower price, starting at $14 per user per month and offering free plan to try, too. In fact, we found that Zoho CRM is the best option for small businesses, thanks to low prices and still plenty of features.

Verdict: Is Salesforce Worth the Cost?

As you can tell, Salesforce pricing varies dramatically from plan to plan, with options starting at $25 per user, per month for basic sales and service software, all the way to $15,000 per month for more robust marketing tools.

As you can imagine, smaller teams won't need to pay that much for a comprehensive platform that can get work done. Small businesses should stick to the lower priced Sales Cloud and Service Cloud options, as costs are low and competitive with other platforms. For marketing, Salesforce gets pretty complicated and expensive, and there are better options out there, like HubSpot.

Still unsure about Salesforce pricing? For a quick price comparison, use our free CRM price comparison tool and receive exact prices matched to your business requirements. It only takes a minute but can save you a lot!

No, all Salesforce plans are billed annually, despite Salesforce prices being broken down on a monthly basis. So, you'll have to sign up for at least a full year of service when it comes time to pay.

Unfortunately, Salesforce does not offer a free plan. However, if you're wary about purchasing the software for a full year without having a chance to try it out first, have no fear. Salesforce does offer a free trial of 30 days, so you can decide whether or not it's the right CRM software for you and your business.

Salesforce pricing starts at $25 per user, per month for basic sales and service plans, with more expensive plans as high as $330 per user, per month. For more advanced tools like Marketing Cloud, you'll pay between $1,250 per month and as much as $15,000 per month. Simply put, an average Salesforce cost is hard to nail down, but we'd say you can expect to pay around $80 per user, per month for a standard plan as a small business.

The cheapest Salesforce licenses are the Sales Cloud and the Service Cloud, which individually cost $25 per user, per month.

Our research shows that Salesforce is not a great value for the money, due to its high price and somewhat limited feature offering for its less expensive plans. Larger businesses may be interested in its enterprise offerings, but smaller businesses should likely look elsewhere to save a few bucks.

Compared to other top CRM providers, Salesforce isn't expensive, but it isn't super cheap, either. With a price range of $25 per user per month to $330 per user per month depending on the plan, Salesforce comes in at about the average for the industry. To find out exactly how much Salesforce will cost for your business, check out our Salesforce quote tool.

As far as value for money is concerned though, Salesforce does offer a robust features package as well as impressive support options, so you're definitely getting some serious bang for your buck.

Salesforce is considered one of the best CRM software choices on the market today. Between the robust customer support options, the vast catalog of CRM features, and the frequently updated platform to keep up with changing trends, Salesforce offers a high quality, efficient platform across the board.

However, it's always important to consider exactly what you need CRM software for at your business before making a decision, and Salesforce may not always match those needs, which is why a little bit of research on other CRM providers can go a long way.

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 Fri, 21 Sep 2018 00:59:00 -0500 en-US text/html https://tech.co/crm-software/salesforce-pricing-how-much-does-salesforce-cost Killexams : Could UiPath Become the Next Salesforce?

Over the past two decades, Salesforce modernized the customer relationship management (CRM) business by replacing Rolodexes and desktop-based software with cloud-based services. That approach enabled companies to maintain consistent records, compartmentalize and analyze each customer, and scale their businesses more easily.

Between fiscal 2003 and fiscal 2023 (which ended this January), Salesforce's revenue soared from $51 million to $31.4 billion, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38%. Its stock has risen 5,200% over the past 20 years.

Robots working on laptops in an office.

Image source: Getty Images.

Salesforce's returns are astounding, but its growth is cooling off as it matures. So instead of sticking with its stock, many growth-oriented investors are already searching for the "next Salesforce," which can carve out a new niche in the software market. Could the robotic process automation (RPA) leader UiPath (PATH 0.72%) fit that bill?

What does UiPath do?

UiPath develops software robots that can be integrated into an organization's existing software applications to automate repetitive tasks like entering data, processing invoices, onboarding customers, and sending out mass emails. By installing those robots, companies can replace their human employees, streamline their operations, and cut costs.

UiPath's first-mover advantage made it the leader of this niche market. According to Gartner, it controlled 34% of the global RPA market in 2021, and it actually expanded its share that year as all of its smaller rivals lost ground.

Can UiPath scale up its business?

From fiscal 2020 to 2023 (which ended this January), UiPath's revenue had a CAGR of 47%, from $336 million to $1.06 billion. By comparison, Salesforce generated $1.08 billion in revenue in fiscal 2009. Salesforce subsequently grew its revenue at a compound annual rate of 27% from fiscal 2009 to 2023.

However, analysts only expect UiPath's revenue to show a CAGR of 19% from fiscal 2023 to 2026 as it faces tougher macro and competitive headwinds.

We should take those estimates with a grain of salt, but UiPath's growth has clearly decelerated over the past year. Even though the installation of its RPA tools might help companies reduce their long-term expenses, many of those potential customers have been reining in their software spending to cope with near-term macro headwinds. 

As the market's demand for RPA tools cools off, more competitors -- including Salesforce's MuleSoft RPA, Microsoft's Power Automate, and Appian RPA -- are all creeping into UiPath's backyard.

Salesforce and Microsoft could cause a lot of trouble because they can both bundle their RPA services into their market-leading cloud ecosystems. Both of those tech giants could also integrate more generative AI tools (like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Salesforce's Einstein GPT) to automate more processes and eliminate the need for third-party RPA services.

To make matters worse, UiPath isn't profitable yet, and analysts expect it to rack up between $100 million to $200 million in net losses annually through fiscal 2026. All of that red ink could make it tough to keep pace with the competition.

UiPath still has a lot to prove

Like Salesforce, UiPath carved out a niche in the software market with a platform that digitally transformed businesses. But unlike Salesforce, UiPath didn't have the luxury of expanding for years before bigger competitors entered the market.

Instead of creating a brand-new cloud-based platform like Salesforce, UiPath only created automation bots that can be integrated into a company's existing software. Tech giants like Microsoft and Salesforce might be eager to purge those third-party bots from their platforms, while their clients might prefer to use their first-party automation tools instead. 

Based on all these facts, I don't think UiPath will evolve into the next Salesforce. It might still have room to grow, since Fortune Business Insights estimates the global RPA market will still have a CAGR of 23% between 2022 and 2029. But it's far too early to declare that it can expand out of its niche and evolve into a tech giant.

Leo Sun has positions in Salesforce. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Appian, Microsoft, Salesforce, and UiPath. The Motley Fool recommends Gartner. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

 Wed, 26 Jul 2023 18:25:00 -0500 Leo Sun en text/html https://www.fool.com/investing/2023/07/27/could-uipath-become-the-next-salesforce/ Killexams : Hackers exploited Salesforce zero-day in Facebook phishing attack

Salesforce

Hackers exploited a zero-day vulnerability in Salesforce's email services and SMTP servers to launch a sophisticated phishing campaign targeting valuable Facebook accounts.

The attackers chained a flaw dubbed "PhishForce," to bypass Salesforce's sender verification safeguards and quirks in Facebook's web games platform to mass-send phishing emails.

The benefit of using a reputable email gateway like Salesforce to distribute phishing emails is the evasion of secure email gateways and filtering rules, ensuring that the malicious emails reach the target's inbox.

The campaign was discovered by Guardio Labs analysts Oleg Zaytsev and Nati Tal, who reported the unknown vulnerability to Salesforce and helped them with the remediation process.

However, the discovered issues in Facebook's game platform are outstanding, as Meta's engineers are still trying to figure out why the existing mitigations failed to stop the attacks.

PhishForce abused in attacks

The Salesforce CRM allows customers to send emails as their own brand using custom domains that the platform must first verify. This protects customers from sending out emails through Salesforce as other brands that they do not have permission to impersonate.

However, Guardio Labs says the attackers figured out a way to exploit Salesforce's "Email-to-Case" feature, which organizations use for converting incoming customer emails to actionable tickets for their support teams.

Specifically, the attackers set up a new "Email-to-Case" flow to gain control of a Salesforce-generated email address, then created a new inbound email address on the "salesforce.com" domain.

Next, they set that address as an "Organization-Wide Email Address," which Salesforce's Mass Mailer Gateway uses for outbound emails, and finally went through the verification process to confirm ownership of the domain.

This process allowed them to use their Salesforce email address to send out messages to anyone, bypassing both Salesforce's verification protections and any other email filters and anti-phishing systems in place.

Indeed, this is what Guardio Labs observed in the wild, with phishing emails that supposedly came from "Meta Platforms" using the "case.salesforce.com" domain.

Clicking on the embedded button takes the victim to a phishing page hosted and displayed as part of the Facebook gaming platform ("apps.facebook.com"), which adds further legitimacy to the attack and makes it even harder for the email recipients to realize the fraud.

The goal of the phishing kit employed in this campaign is to steal Facebook account credentials, even featuring two-factor authentication bypassing mechanisms.

Meta still investigating

After confirming the issues by replicating the creation of a Salesforce-branded address capable of disseminating phishing emails, Guardio Labs notified the vendor of their discovery on June 28, 2023

Salesforce reproduced the vulnerability and resolved the problem exactly a month later, on July 28, 2023.

Regarding the abuse of "apps.facebook.com," Guardio Labs notes that it should be impossible for the attackers to create the game canvass used as a landing page since Facebook retired this platform in July 2020.

However, legacy accounts that used the platform before its deprecation still have access, and threat actors might be paying a premium for those accounts on the dark web.

Meta removed the violating pages upon Guardio Labs' report; however, its engineers are still investigating why existing protections failed to stop the attacks.

As phishing actors continue to explore every potential abuse opportunity on legitimate service providers, novel security gaps constantly threaten to expose users to severe risks.

Thus, it is essential not to rely solely on email protection solutions, and also scrutinize every email that lands on your inbox, look for inconsistencies, and double-check all claims made in those messages.

 Wed, 02 Aug 2023 19:45:00 -0500 Bill Toulas en-us text/html https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-exploited-salesforce-zero-day-in-facebook-phishing-attack/ Killexams : Salesforce places guardrails around how customers can use its AI

Dive Brief:

  • Salesforce updated its AI acceptable use policy to place guardrails around its AI services, according to a document published Wednesday. The update comes amid increased industry scrutiny over generative AI data use.
  • Customers are not allowed to leverage the company's AI products — or any third-party services linked to Salesforce services — for purposes related to child abuse, deepfakes, prediction of protected categories or automating decisions with legal effects, among other use cases.
  • "These policy updates allow customers to use Salesforce products with confidence, knowing they and their end users are receiving a truly ethical AI experience from product development to deployment," said Paula Goldman, chief ethical and humane use officer at Salesforce, in a blog post Wednesday.

Dive Insight:

The policy update from Salesforce is the latest effort from the provider to address the risk concerns of would-be enterprise technology adopters. 

In June, the company rolled out Einstein GPT Trust Layer, a service designed to let customers access enterprise-ready data security and compliance safeguards while leveraging generative AI tools. 

"The GPT Trust Layer gives connected LLMs secure, real-time access to data without the need to move all of your data into the LLM itself," said Marc Benioff, Salesforce chairman and co-CEO, speaking in May during the company's Q1 2024 earnings call. "While they're using the LLMs, the data itself is not moving and being stored in the LLM. That is what our customers want."

As enterprise adoption of generative AI advances, more than half of IT leaders say inaccuracies and cybersecurity are associated risks of the emerging technology, according to a report from QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey. 

Salesforce, with its guidelines clearly stating usage limitations, is showing leadership among the provider ecosystem in terms of responsible AI, according to Juliette Powell and Art Kleiner, professors at New York University.

"On the surface, the new policy may look unenforceable, but it's an addition to Salesforce's Acceptable Use and External Facing Services Policy, which clearly states that violators could lose their Salesforce licenses," the professors said via email. "It will be really interesting to see which companies are targeted first." 

The new policy from Salesforce comes as another major provider updated its own terms of service in response to criticisms over data use. 

Zoom updated its terms and conditions to clarify the provider would be able to access customer content for safety and legal purposes, but not use any customer data to train third-party or its own AI models. 

 Wed, 23 Aug 2023 09:18:00 -0500 Roberto Torres en-US text/html https://www.ciodive.com/news/salesforce-generative-AI-acceptable-use/691694/ Killexams : Salesforce CRM Review and Pricing

Salesforce Editor’s Score: 9.5/10

Pricing/value

9.2

Features

9.7

Customization, add-ons and integrations

9.8

Ease of use

9.1

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 pipeline management

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 visual dashboard

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 Boost 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. 

Salesforce custom dashboard

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 Boost 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.

Salesforce CRM AppExchange

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 Einstein tool

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. 

 Wed, 16 Aug 2023 11:59:00 -0500 en text/html https://www.business.com/reviews/salesforce-crm-software/ Killexams : Salesforce State of IT study - IT leaders reckon that business stakeholders have a grasp of generative AI's organizational role

It’s probably the least surprising conclusion of our times that some 86% of IT leaders around the world say they believe that generative AI will “play a prominent role at their organizations in the near future”. Of more interest - and certainly deserving of more debate - is an accompanying claim that most of the said IT leaders believe business stakeholders have a firm grasp on how generative AI can be “effectively leveraged” within their organizations. 

What’s the context here? Some headline conclusions from Salesforce’s latest State of IT report, which polled 4,325 IT leaders around the globe to identify prevailing trends in their job function. Given that Salesforce has essentially re-defined itself as an AI firm in exact months, it’s fortunate that AI and automation are top of mind among those polled. 

The percentages vary by country inevitably. In India, 95% of respondents cite the prominent role claim; in Australia and Thailand, it’s 92%; in Ireland, it’s 91%; and in Brazil, it’s 87%. In the US, it’s 86%, while in the UK, it’s 84%. But in Japan, the figure drops to 78%.

It’s worth noting though that a separate survey with a smaller poll base of 500 respondents back in March found that 57% of those surveyed saw generative AI as “a game changer”. Since then the generative AI hype cycle has ramped up and every enterprise tech firm has pivoted to become - or to claim to have become - an AI vendor. 

Desired or deliverable? 

So how much of IT leaders views in this latest poll are influenced by theoretical benefits and how much by practical deliverables?  The State of IT report notes: 

AI is a rapidly evolving technology, but it’s no longer novel. As such, the majority of IT leaders can now articulate how AI can play a role in their organizations, even if they haven’t implemented it yet. 

That said, 78% of respondents insist that the role of AI in their organization is “well-defined”, and, as noted above, there’s a lot of confidence that everyone’s on top of what this means. Eighty-four percent of IT leaders believe they and their peers understand how AI can be applied, while 83% have similar faith in their staff. Meanwhile 81% reckon that their business colleagues have the necessary broad understanding. The report goes on to note:

While AI use cases are diverse, organizations are currently most likely to put it to work in customer service settings, such as chatbots. 

Breaking down use cases, the study found that among organizations currently using AI, service operations optimization leads the way (24%), followed by new AI-based products on 20%, then customer service analytics and customer segmentation, both on 19% a piece. 

Automation

In terms of organizational investment in automation as a whole, 87% of respondents reckon that this will increase over the next 18 months.  IT workflows around operations management, service management and asset management are already well established, but there’s work to be done around HR workflows and areas such as customer onboarding. In fact, only 42% of IT leaders say that they are completely satisfied with the state of the organization’s process automation. 

That said, automation is delivering clear ROI, according to poll respondents, with over half of IT leaders citing increased operational efficiency (56%) and improved employee productivity (52%) as the two leading benefits. It also helps to Boost customer satisfaction, cited by 49%, but employees aren’t yet seeing such gains, with 44% citing increased job satisfaction and only 39% able to point to the much-repeated pitch for automation of it allowing staff to offload mundane tasks and focus on higher-value work. 

My take

This is a good solid report that’s worth a read - download here (some registration data required). Other subjects of interest for IT leaders include sustainability; proliferation of data and consequent need for more integration; and the drive for more focus on operational efficiency. But inevitably it’s generative AI and the views around this that catch the eye. Given the way the entire tech industry has pivoted around this tech in the past few months, the level of interest expressed by respondents is only to be expected. 

What’s unclear from this report is where the dividing line is between excitement/hype around the enterprise potential of generative AI - hype which has largely stemmed from consumer adoption - and deliverable realities. I’m particularly intrigued at the idea that IT leaders appear to believe that their business stakeholder counterparts have a firm grasp and understanding of generative AI practicalities. As many vendors have acknowledged, including Salesforce itself, we’re at the very early stages in rolling out generative AI and while that potential is clearly there, so too are a lot of barriers to adoption that still need to be addressed, not least around areas such as trust and ethics, both subjects that Salesforce has identified as priorities. 

This is the third annual State of IT report. It will be interesting to see what the data around generative AI is by the time issue four comes around next year. By that time, there should be more real-world exemplars of both the benefits and the pitfalls/challenges of the tech. How much that changes IT leadership views will evolve over time. In the meantime, this exact article based on commentary from Patrick Stokes, Salesforce EVP of Product, provides interesting insight into the vendor view of generative AI from a technology, rather than line of business, perspective. 

 Tue, 25 Jul 2023 00:04:00 -0500 BRAINSUM en text/html https://diginomica.com/salesforce-state-it-study-it-leaders-reckon-business-stakeholders-have-grasp-generative-ais Killexams : Latest News Mentioning Salesforce

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 Wed, 09 Mar 2022 18:25:00 -0600 en-US text/html https://www.govconwire.com/s/company/salesforce/ Killexams : Salesforce Einstein Studio lets you bring your own model, starting with Amazon SageMaker

Salesforce introduced its AI layer, dubbed Einstein, in 2016. More recently, at the Salesforce World Tour event in NYC in May, all the company talked about was generative AI and Data Cloud, its in-house data lake. Today, it announced the next step in that journey with the release of Einstein Studio and the ability to bring your own model (BYOM).

“We are launching ‘bring your own model,’ which allows our customers to bring their proprietary data into Data Cloud to build and train their model,” Rahul Auradkar, EVP & GM of unified data services and Einstein, told TechCrunch. When you bring your external model and mix it with the Salesforce data in Data Cloud, Auradkar says that it’s a powerful combination.

The solution is really aimed at folks who have fairly sophisticated data teams and have been building models in other places like SageMaker. These companies want to put those models they’ve already built and made a significant investment in, to work in other contexts. That’s what Einstein Studio enables them to do.

Einstein Studio is a management console that lives in Data Cloud and enables customers to import an existing model with zero ETL. That means the customer should be able to import the data without having to go through the painful exercise of extracting, transforming and loading it. That’s a big deal for data teams and should make the solution more attractive because of that.

For starters, it will support Amazon SageMaker out of the box, but Salesforce is also working on a pilot with Google Vertex AI with plans in the works to support Databricks, Snowflake and others down the road.

Salesforce Einstein Studio page where you pick the model to use. The choices are creating a model from scratch, Amazon Sagemaker, Google Vertex AI or external model.

Image Credits: Salesforce

While Einstein comes with a number of predictive models like which customers are most likely to churn, this solution lets customers design customized predictive models to predict things like which products are most likely to need maintenance or making product recommendations based on a customer’s interest.

It can also work with LLMs to generate content like sending an automated email when the product is ready for maintenance before it breaks. Salesforce wants to reduce hallucinations, where the model makes stuff up when it doesn’t have a definitive answer, by connecting to a graph database based on data inside Salesforce. So the LLM can see all of the data related to a particular customer, giving the model the information it needs to write a more accurate email based on the information in the customer record.

Once you import the model, you can put it into workflows inside Salesforce and generate insights or trigger actions like creating an email, all while taking advantage of work your data team has already done.

Einstein Studio with the ability to connect to Amazon SageMaker and bring your own model is available in GA starting today.

 Fri, 04 Aug 2023 01:39:00 -0500 en-US text/html https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/04/salesforce-einstein-studio-lets-you-bring-your-own-model-starting-with-amazon-sagemaker/ Killexams : Salesforce slips as Morgan Stanley downgrades on lack of near-term catalysts
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