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12 Salesforce Pros and Cons

Saleforce provides organizations with on-demand customer relationship management solutions. A well-designed CRM allows a business to find better leads, save time during the discovery process, and begin to automate internal sales processes to make life easier. Information access helps people to make smarter decisions and that’s ultimately what Salesforce is designed to provide. There are certain pros and cons to consider when transitioning to this CRM, so here are a few key points to consider.

What Are the Pros of Salesforce?

1. It is based in the Cloud.
Saleforce is the largest CRM provider in the world, but more important than that, they take a company’s CRM needs and place them in the Cloud. This allows companies to need fewer resources on the ground at their location in order to do business, making the information more secure. Employees can access the CRM from virtually anywhere as well, helping to enhance overall productivity. Collaboration is even possible thanks to this Cloud-based design.

2. They are the #1 ranked CRM in the marketplace.
There’s only one way to be ranked #1 in your industry and that is to provide a product that people love. Salesforce is consistently ranked at the top, proving that the customer experience with their CRM is consistent and beneficial. Part of this is due to the fact that they have the largest app marketplace for the CRM SaaS industry, allowing businesses to fully customize their experience with this solution in a meaningful way.

3. Salesforce supports all major browsers.
From Internet Explorer to Chrome to Opera, Salesforce has their CRM supported on all major browsers that companies use today. This makes it very easy to use products like Chatter, which is an online forum that can help businesses find collaboration when they have a need for it. It is setup in a format that is similar to Facebook’s 2015 format, making the transition to this component easy for most users.

4. Businesses can get started very quickly.
Salesforce requires no software to install. There are no hardware requirements either. Instead of spending months acquiring assets and then setting up an internal network, you can be up and running with this CRM in just a couple of days. Because it is based in the Cloud, all of the data comes to the business and can be accesses in real time. This lets a business get into their marketplace more effectively and start building up their share of it.

5. It is a complete CRM package.
Salesforce provides businesses with a SaaS product that reaches every stage and point of the customer life cycle. It focuses on closing deals, but also tracks sales activities in real time so there is never a surprise waiting for a representative who is about to meet with a potential prospect. It is flexible, mobile, and fully customizable. This means that Salesforce integrates with the exact needs a business may have instead of forcing the business to adapt to the CRM product.

6. It reduces training costs.
Salesforce is a system that is complete and easy to manage. It’s also easy to learn, which often saves training costs for a business because incoming users are already familiar with the system or may have used Salesforce in the past. This reduction in cost can help to offset the increase costs of using this CRM.

What Are the Cons of Salesforce?

1. It can be too expensive for small businesses to use.
The full version of Salesforce that has all of the CRM tools that a small business needs has an average price point of about $125 per month. That is a cost that not all small businesses can handle, even if they do benefit from the software as a service, which means a less attractive CRM solution is looked at instead. Microsoft, for example, has a CRM that is 3x cheaper.

2. The competition of Salesforce can make many of the sales claims.
Salesforce says that it should be used as a CRM solution because many of their customers love the product and have proven that it is effective. Sugar and Microsoft can say the same thing about their own CRM solutions as well. If you need to have an on-premise hosting solution for your CRM, then the bottom line is this: it isn’t offered, which means Salesforce may not be right for you.

3. The pricing structures are not streamlined.
So here’s the issue: the $125 per month price that is quoted for the complete CRM package is per user, not per business. This means a business will need to pay $500 per month for Salesforce if they want 4 of their employees to be able to have access to it. There is a smaller version at $65 per user per month that is available, but it only provides a limited number of web-to-lead forms that can be used. There are also limits on API calls and if those limits are hit for the month, the business either upgrades their plan or they lose Salesforce until the limits reset.

4. Unlimited really isn’t unlimited with Salesforce.
For companies that send out a lot of emails every day, Salesforce seems like a great solution to track the information that comes from those messages. Many times it is, but not for companies that send out more than 1,000 emails per day. The unlimited version of Salesforce is capped at the 1,000 mark, which means it really isn’t unlimited. The entry level plans are capped at 250 emails per day, however, so there is some benefit to upgrading.

5. There are numerous limits in place for each information product.
Salesforce has over 40 pages of limits that are included with their CRM plans that dictate how many times each feature or component of its SaaS product can be utilized. Overages and other caps are all addressed, but the extensive documentation can quickly make people believe that Salesforce is trying to nickel and dime their business to death with the added fees.

6. It’s a single tenant system.
Every business that signs on with Salesforce is going to have their information accessible through the Cloud, but it is a single tenant system. That means the same mainframe is used for all clients. This means that forced updates occur when using this CRM because all clients are receiving the update simultaneously.

These Salesforce pros and cons show that it may be too expensive for some businesses, but it could help others save money by creating more efficiencies. Is Salesforce the right CRM for you? It is ranked #1 because it is very effective at what it does. There are competitors that are good as well, but if you can afford Salesforce, it should become one of your top considerations.

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