The accolades are staggering – Forbes’ most innovative company in the world, 4 years running.
- Gartner – World’s #1 CRM
- IDC – World’s #1 in Enterprise Cloud Computing
- Forrester – Groundswell Award
What’s even more staggering are the numbers that Salesforce customers report seeing, as they’re surveyed twice a year:
- +28% increase in sales revenues
- +32% increase in lead conversion
- +34% increase in customer satisfaction
- +56% faster deployment
It’s hard to argue with those numbers, especially those that customers come back and report.
But, as an Implementation Partner in the Salesforce community, I wanted to talk about the BEST reasons for choosing Salesforce.com as your company’s CRM.
1. It Completely Avoids Company Silos
The aim of Salesforce.com is to knock down company silos and barriers. At it’s core Salesforce ensures that your Sales, Marketing and Customer Service departments are completely integrated and sharing common customer information and interactions.
One of my favourite examples of the congruence between Sales and Customer Service is the ability for a sales person to see that there is an open case (customer service issue) with a contact that they were planning on making a sales call to. This stops them from stepping on a landmine by trying to make a sale to unhappy customer. They might even be able to do one better, by using Chatter and notifying the Customer Service rep about some helpful information to help resolve that case even faster. On the flipside, a Customer Service agent is able to see that there is a massive sales opportunity open with a contact that has a case in their queue. With this information, they can ensure that, that case receives utmost attention, and using Chatter again, can instantly notify one of your company executives to make a courtesy call to that customer, thus providing an extremely premium experience.
Another major barrier and silo that I’ve seen in my sales career is the barrier between Sales and Marketing. It’s such a classic scenario for a company to embark on a sales effort revolving around a marketing event, then several months later, whether it goes well or not, finds it next to impossible to understand what took place. Sales were made and lost, and it’s completely unclear as to Marketing’s impact. If things go poorly, Marketing says it’s Sales’ fault, and Sales blames Marketing. With Salesforce Campaigns, it’s easy to track all your company’s marketing efforts, including any leads that come from those efforts, and exactly what happened when they reached Sales. Using this information, at the end of the year your Marketing leadership can look at all their department’s efforts that took place – whether it was 5 trade shows, 3 ad campaigns and 7 email blasts, you’re able to look at the precise ROI on all these efforts. Then next year choose only those Campaigns that provided a tangible return, and re-think some new choices for next year.
2. It’s a Platform
Salesforce takes this idea of removing barriers to the next level. As we build a customer-centric customer success platform, Salesforce takes it a huge step forward. By using the Salesforce App Exchange you can bring aboard every other aspect of your business onto your system and share that single source of customer data truth that you’ve created, and extend it to every other part of your business.
The App Exchange is a website that houses a gateway into an eco-system of business applications that that have already had their API’s built (communication pathways) into Salesforce, so all you have to do is find the one that fits, download the app and it’s ready to use for your company. It’s the definition of plug and play. Now with your customer at the center of your business, you build around them like never before with other parts of your business like ERP, Project Management, Accounting or Recruiting.
Not only that, but you can also build any custom app that you could need for your business as well. If your company wanted to build its own Mobile App, build products, or its own Project Management application – it’s all available using Salesforce’s native Force.com platform.
There is one more thing… Using Salesforce Enterprise Edition’s access to API’s, absolutely ANY application can be integrated into your CRM system. We have worked with a variety API development projects, including ERP Integrations to ensure that your business runs seamlessly from end to end and all around your customer, no matter applications are important to you.
3. Cloud-Based and allows for Nearly Limitless Customizations
Being the Cloud Technology evangelist, Salesforce led the way with Cloud technology back in 1999 and bet big that it would lead the way for enterprise business – as they ‘democratized software.’ Through this, not only do customers gain access to a fully secure platform for all their business requirements, but also a multi-tenanted environment that receives 3 releases each year.
The term, multi-tenanted means that whether you’re a 2 person company, all the way up to Bank of America, you receive the same features, benefits, security and updates. No matter whether you’re on the penthouse or ground floor, every tenant receives the benefit of the new gym and pool that has been updated, same with this multi-tenanted experience.
Lastly, being Cloud-Based also lends itself to almost endless level of customization. Obviously, that’s where companies like App Solve and the Partner Community comes into play. You don’t need to bend to the system’s rules, as a user the options are nearly endless. Your business is your business – and as you choose a CRM to help you run your business better, it must to mould to your business and improve it within itself.
For more information or tips on selecting the best Salesforce license for you, or for optimizing the platform if you’re already a customer, please fill in the information below and we’ll be happy to connect.
