Salesforce

Comments: The non-profit organization that I work for, Interfaith Caregivers has been using Salesforce for a year. I'm so glad that we decided on this system because I have used it previously in other places of work. One of the reasons why we went with Salesforce was to manage a marketing/fundraiser campaign that we have every year. We were able to store our donor and board members and create a campaign just for them to use as a communication tool and to begin the fundraiser campaign for our annual gala. It was also very easy and much needed to track donor and fundraiser payments for the gala. We are able to store multiple templates which consist of donor thank you letters in the template field. This is a very helpful feature!

Pros: The non-profit organization that I work for, Interfaith Caregivers has been using Salesforce for a year. I'm so glad that we decided on this system because I have used it previously in other places of work. One of the reasons why we went with Salesforce was to manage a marketing/fundraiser campaign that we have every year. We were able to store our donor and board members and create a campaign just for them to use as a communication tool and to begin the fundraiser campaign for our annual gala. It was also very easy and much needed to track donor and fundraiser payments for the gala. We are able to store multiple templates which consist of donor thank you letters in the template field. This is a very helpful feature!

Cons: It is hard for me to dislike Salesforce. I appreciate the fact that we were able to get the nonprofit discount. Also we were able to use the 10 free licenses since we have 10 employees! I would say the only thing is that I look forward to seeing how Salesforce will continue to grow and evolve and offer other packages to improve the CRM experience. Currently I have not ran into any problems.

Comments: Once set up and you actually learn how to use it, this is great software and leads the CRM industry for a reason. We have been able to improve prospecting and customer retention by double digit percentages since implementing salesforce.com.

Pros: The integrations are truly outstanding. Simple integrations with almost every piece of software you can imagine. The fact that we can send out emails and see which of the current prospects in our pipeline read it is truly outstanding.

Cons: Steep learning curve! Salesforce is not easy to use immediately, nor set up. It's best to have somebody in your organization be the, "Salesforce Champion."

Comments: My overall experience with Salesforce is that initially it is difficult to learn how to use. The user's experience in learning how to implement and incorporate it is not pleasant. However, once you start playing around with it more and more, you get the hang of it and it does ease everyday tasks for members across all organizations within a company.

Pros: What I like most about this product is that my team and company was looking for a product in order to ease the customization of widgets and components, automate tasks for users that were tedious and time-consuming, and streamline the process of customer's feedback to the customer support team to the implementation and design team. Salesforce was able to offer solutions in order to solve all those problems, all while allowing us to customize various apps and dashboards in order to meet our customers' and business needs.

Cons: What I liked least about the software is the documentation and learning curve that came with incorporating and implementing using Salesforce. I was part of the team analyzing if Salesforce was right for my business, and documentation about customizing styling and allowing different users to have different roles within your corporate account were difficult things to find. After speaking with several people who work at Salesforce and swiping through pages and pages of online material, we were able to play around and find what works best for us. Definitely incorporate the learning curve into your business plan if you plan to use Salesforce.

Comments: I use it daily. I live in salesforce and I'm in marketing. I use it to keep up with my team and to try to use chatter to highlight what is working and showcase certain accounts. I also like to follow the wins and losses to try to get a feel for where we can improve.

Pros: Everything. I love salesforce. I love its ease of use, navigation, walk-me, training, integration, features, functionality, you name it. Chatter is my favorite feature and once adopted by organizations you see the whole organization migrate to making salesforce their homepage. I love the adaptation the teams have to it and that you can customize your dashboard so sales, marketing, integration, and other teams can all use it as they need to.

Cons: The cost, and sometimes Salesforce does not do a good job of showing the interoperability it has. There are so many features that make it a one-stop-shop for companies large and small, but it seems if the product is sold as a sales tool, it remains that way instead of showing the integration options for marketing and other teams.

Comments: Overall, i like the product. It is probably more than i need for my firm but I enjoy many of the features help me create greater efficiencies.

Pros: I like the user-face and intuitive nature of the product. I also like how i can customize it to meet my needs for my company. It is not an out of the box product.

Cons: I wish there was better customer support and initial orientation to the software. Service is overseas and it could take up to two days to get a question answered. I would prefer customer service to be held exclusively in the United States and within reach if i needed a quick question answered. I also wish there was a set up team that can provide simple customizations that do not necessarily require a third party vendor to charge several hundred, if not thousands of dollars to customize my CRM.