Salesforce

"Salesforce CRM Review - Daily user"

Comments: My overall experience using Salesforce has been good. I've used the application for 19 months and I'd say it took at least 3 months to get familiar with the tool. I work for an organisation of +180k and the tool is used widely across the business, which is a testament to its reliability and scalability. For smaller organisations, there is likely to be less complexity involved, as there will be less integration required with other applications - which Salesforce does incredibly well. To summarise, I'd say to prospective adopters of Salesforce, expect to invest some time in training new users of the tool but its remarkable functionality and capabilities far outweigh this ramp-up period.

Pros: -Highly customisable with deep and wide integration with my organisations SaaS or natively developed applications.
-Allows you to produce very detailed reports to track my own activity and history. Which can also be used by management to track team progress and activity.
-A customisable dashboard that allows frequently uses tabs to be populated to a "bookmarks bar" which allows for faster navigation.
-Great search feature that allows for search across the entire CRM database.

Cons: -Due to its high functionality and range of options it can be overbearing to use at times.
-Requires internet connection which means there is occasional latency and is not accessible at all times.
-Visually, it's not the most appealing tool that I've ever used.
-Steep learning curve for those that have not used it before, but then that goes for most CRM tools.

"May the SalesFORCE be with you!"

Comments: Salesforce is a game-changer for our organization. We've reported out on items that previously we hadn't in years. There's very little manual effort now as we have so many triggers setup for automation.

Pros: Without Salesforce our organization simply would not be able to function as quickly as we do now. We have so many automation processes and workflows setup that has saved us a lot of time. We use this platform across 15 departments in our organization, and it continues to grow. Everyone who sees the benefits of this great CRM... asks for User licenses... it's that good. We love the Contact Management, Lead-> Opportunity tracking and most importantly the Reports and Dashboards!

Cons: Salesforce can be pricey especially as it grows within an organization, so that would be the one setup. However, they do offer a Non-Profit Starter pack that I'd recommend small non-profit organizations to look into.

"Salesforce: Helps Improve Internal Communications/External Customer X"

Pros: I have been using, recommending and adopting salesforce.com for my sales teams for ten years in several different digital technology, media and advertising organizations. I can say unequivocally that the CRM software has evolved from being a supplement and "nice to have" to a must buy and necessary and vital tool for doing business. The key to any business solutions and software product is getting the team to adopt and use it. Training and practice is essential. Its like your golf game, the more you practice the better your score or working out, no pain, no gain. I like the social media and conversational abilities you can have with sales team; the app is excellent for quick reviews and checking on status of pending, pitches and prospects; the flexibility and customization options based o salesperson, account, deal size, industry vertical. In one organization we adopted it for internal sales data use and tracking and also incorporated product data about our partners, customers, audience metrics and analytics and distribution platform.

Cons: Depending on the level of subscription, will also vary with the amount of personalized training you receive. I would also say there needs to be more attention and customization devoted to industry verticals that contain many nuances regarding customer segments and rev streams. This includes the advertising and digital sales industries where there are multiple customer touchpoints and rev streams including agencies, direct to client, programmatic, 3rd party vendors, ad tech partners etc. I also think saleforce.com needs to develop more compatible software and training that integrates salesforce,com into other software linked to finance, accounting etc.

"Salesforce NPSP - Pricey, but will give you room to grow"

Comments: Great! If possible, I recommend ensuring you have someone in-house with at least 3 years experience before deployment. We contract a Salesforce Developer who aids non-profits specifically to aid in back-end matters.

Pros: I love that it has given our non-profit a space to grow into. Too often, non-profits find themselves barred by limits placed on the number of Contacts being retained. Most pricing is based around this figure which is tiresome when you are looking to gain momentum without having to have constant upgrades. Salesforce is massive and delivers in what it says it will do.

Cons: It is challenging to learn. I would have appreciated options for non-profit teams to have discount pricing on trainings with use. This would have provided for shared trust in the CRM, rather than knowledge given to a few who then became internal advocates for the system.

"Excellent Features, Wide-Ranging, Enterprise-Level CRM"

Comments: As I always say, you get what you pay for and that's certainly true with Salesforce. Adding Salesforce to your tech stack is a big investment, but one that will almost certainly pay for itself.

Pros: Salesforce is incredibly robust for automation and capturing data if you have a knowledgeable administrator at the helm of your business. Being able to create different sections (objects), fields, reports and rules in a matter of minutes makes it the best CRM I have ever used.

Cons: In Salesforce, everything is connected, which can often times cause errors or minor issues when making a simple change/addition. The software is getting better at educating users and administrators, but it lacks the full ability to debug easily.