What is Salesforce CRM?

For every business to succeed it should have solid workforce management and also a dynamic customer relationship management tool that will help the business to evaluate and address the immediate needs of the customers. So Salesforce has come up with this tool SFA, salesforce management systems which is a combination of Information Systems and Customer Relationship Management systems. Using these tools, businesses can focus on Marketing and sales activities. These activities are considered to be the core of any of the CRM systems.

What is Salesforce CRM - Table of Contents

• What is a CRM system?
• Cloud Computing and Salesforce
• CRM in Early Days
• Benefits of Salesforce CRM
• Products and Services
• Companies Using Salesforce
• CRM Software Market Trends & Growth
• Future of Salesforce CRM
• Salesforce CRM Certifications
• Salary Trends

What is a CRM System?

A CRM system is nothing but a tool that tracks all the stages in a sales process. Within this tool, all the customer-related information is stored and any sort of contacts or follow-ups done for the customer are tracked perfectly. All of the tasks are monitored and also the room for duplication is negligible while using these types of tools. 

If a CRM system is not in place within a company then there will be a lack of communication within the different departments and ultimately affects the customer relationship.

Cloud Computing and Salesforce

Cloud computing offers a lot of benefits and few of them are listed out below:

1. Cost Savings
2. Security
3. Flexibility
4. Mobility
5. Insight
6. Increased Collaboration
7. Quality Control
8. Disaster Recovery
9. Loss Prevention
10. Automatic Software Updates
11. Competitive Edge
12. Sustainability.

The era of cloud computing has a jump start and businesses started banking on the benefits of Cloud computing. First and foremost the cost associated to maintain or acquiring the Infrastructure has drastically reduced because Cloud computing provides all of the infrastructure as a package. This has made a tremendous availability of resources on demand and at the same time they are offered for a very less price. 

Salesforce is also in line with the same business model of providing on-demand services for its customers based on the requirement. As a base version, they provide an opportunity for businesses to leverage their CRM models and also provide a way for them to customize according to their needs.

CRM in Early Days

CRM tool or the process was not that concerned as we have today, it has gone through a lot of changes within the evolution phase. It has been in existence for the last 40 years where businesses have been using these type of tools to effectively manage their customers and their day-to-day operations.

It all started in the year 1980 when Robert and Kate Kestnbaum started analyzing the marketing database. Based on this study, the customers were communicated effectively. Thus the stand-alone CRM software got into the picture in the year 1986.

Later on, the demand and supply of Personal Computers and the server/client architecture got into the limelight. This has resulted in tremendous growth in terms of development. 

In the year 1990 to 1993, a lot of modifications has been done to the tool and the acronym got into the picture and the tool was brought together by combining the benefits of contact management, sales force automation and database marketing. 

Slowly CRM got wide acceptance and has seen tremendous growth. Most of the market competitors started building value-added suite services that can go along with the existing model, just to take the advantage of the platform. 

After the dot.com bubble disruption, most of the companies who were into CRM were either acquired by big companies or completely got dissolved. Later in the year, 2007 SalesForce has reintroduced the platform into the market with the brand name as Force.com where it has provided more tools and services than the traditional CRM system or tool will do.

With the help of Force.com, it has addressed all the criticism the cloud-based applications were not completely customizable. A lot of integration possibilities were observed during this transition, like:

• Social CRM
• Cloud-based customer services management etc.

The cloud-based and Saas-based CRM systems are completely available for very competitive prices where migration was easy.

[ Learn The Complete Salesforce Tutorial ]

Benefits of Using Salesforce CRM

The collection and organizing of customer data is a full-time tedious job where there is no scope for mistakes. So to avoid these types of manual errors or handling processes, there is definitely a need to have a high-quality Customer Relationship Management tool for every organization or business. This will help them to elevate their customer satisfaction barrier to the next level. 

With the help of this tool, it will assist you in identifying, understanding, and assisting your clients from time to time. This way you will be able to understand and approach your customers needs directly. The core benefits of using the Salesforce CRM tool are listed below:

1. Be organized and keep track of what has been done vs what needs to be done:

With the help of CRM tools, you will be able to understand the exact needs, all the follow-up conversations in one place. By understanding, this flow of information will help you stand out while answering any of the questions that are raised by the customers. This will help you to serve your customers above and beyond, which ultimately creates a positive experience. 

So everything you interact, intimate, and note all are tracked in a CRM tool. Accessing this information from any part of the world is another added advantage because all of the information is available in the cloud. This helps in reducing the time in terms of understanding the client and customer needs.

2. No need for a Single Point of Contact:

Usually, most of the time the customers like to have a single point of contact which helps them to describe their issue or concern. The practice has been in existence for quite a long time. This is because the customers are comfortable to talk the single point of contact only because they have known the entire history of the conversations and they can quickly relate to the problem or issue and work towards a resolution. The same concept has been implemented in the CRM system now, all of the customer support activity is tracked into the system it is easy for any new employee to pick up the case and work towards a resolution.

3. Response time is tracked and worked accordingly to resolve the task:

Being very active and aggressive in terms of solving customer issues is one of the crucial points where businesses are evaluated, by resolving the complaints quickly and effectively will increase the trust factor. This is possible with the help of a CRM system. From the time when the issue or problem is keyed into the system, the entire history for the customer can be accessed and possible resolution can be applied instantly. This will help to expedite the process and also at the same time increase the customer satisfaction levels. So having a CRM system is mandatory to have a happy customer or a client. 

4. Automation of Tasks:

For successful conversion of a potential lead to an actual sale takes a lot of time and effort. Tasks like filling out forms, reports that need to send across to the officials, legal issues, and administrative tasks. All of these activities should be completed. All of these tasks are completely automated and the load is taken off from the employee. The system will drive the entire process flow where the necessary inputs are provided by the customer on a timely basis. During this process, the steps involved in terms of closing a sale will be automated completely. 

5. Improvised data utilization:

With the use of a CRM system, all the customer-related information and follow-up-related information is available in one place. All of this data can be synthesized and analyzed accordingly. Further, the integration aspect into third-party tools will be possible. The data can be further analyzed and decisions can be derived which will help the organization to effectively handle the prospective customers.

[ Check out Top Reasons Why You Should Learn Salesforce and Get Certified ]

Different Products and Services Offered by Salesforce

The products and services that are offered by Salesforce are listed below:

• Salesforce Application
• Lighting Platform
• App Exchange
• Salesforce.com Community.

1. Salesforce Application

Within Salesforce Applications, predefined or pre-built apps are available, i.e. Customer relationship management where the sales executives can keep a track of their complete activity, i.e. from marketing, sales, and customer service or support.

2. Lightning Platform

This is part of the Platform as a Service (Paas) offering from Salesforce. Using this platform, customers can build any type of application without having any software installed or any infrastructure setup. All of the services are defined and provided within the Paas platform. The platform has the capability to integrate with third-party tools where customizations can be done to address the unique business requirements.

[ Related Article: Salesforce Lightning Tutorial ]

3. App Exchange

This is more sort of a community where a lot of applications are available that are built by independent vendors or partners. Most of these applications are free and can be tightly integrated with the Salesforce platform. 

4. Salesforce.com Community

Salesforce provides an active community for all individuals who are interested in the Salesforce platform. With ongoing training programs and consultation events, best practices sessions, and discussion boards, the entire community is active and already serving a lot of enthusiasts. 

Below are a few products that are built by salesforce which are offered to businesses based on their needs:

They are a lot of different products and services that are offered by salesforce to make sure the demand is acknowledged according to the need. The following are a few areas/ departments where they are various products/services are offered by salesforce. 

• Sales
• Service
• Marketing
• Commerce
• Productivity
• Analytics
• Platform.

The Products Offered by Salesforce for Sales Department

1. Sales Cloud:

This is a cloud-based solution where organizations can leverage this service and manage their contacts from anywhere with any device. This is one classified as the number 1 CRM system for businesses. 

2. Salesforce CPQ:

CPQ stands for Configure, Price, Quote.

Using this Salesforce CPQ tool, the executives can understand the customer requirements and configure the quote accordingly. So based on what is required, the customer will be billed accordingly. They will have a provision to apply any discounts so that they can configure the final price and send out the quote for the customers. This tool is very beneficial for sales executives to close their sales quickly and effectively. So by doing this, the billing and revenue recognition is streamlined.

The Products Offered by Salesforce for Service Department

Service Cloud:

With the help of the Service cloud, customer support activity can be taken to the next level. With instantaneous and personalized support service you can contact your customers via phone, email, and chat. Also you can take the advantage of AI functionality that is built-in within the Salesforce platform.

Visit here to Learn Salesforce Course in Hyderabad

The Products Offered by Salesforce For Marketing Department

1. Marketing cloud:

With the Salesforce Marketing Cloud service, you can build and manage any type of email campaign activity. This campaign can be helpful for your product marketing activities for an organization. The email campaign can be completely automated so that the relevant messages are sent across to the right person at the right time. 

With the help of this tool, you can build attractive landing pages where you can provide more information about the product that you are promoting and also increase the conversion rate from a potential buyer to an actual customer. 

Keep a track of the activity that your potential customers are doing with your email’s and based on the activity you can convert high-quality leads into actual customers. Using this tool will help you improve your overall business.

2. Salesforce DMP:

DMP stands for Data Management Platform

Using this tool, businesses can keep track of all their customer data in one place and can utilize this data based on different segmentation. All of this data can be accessed from anywhere as this is a cloud-based solution. 

3. Pardot:

This is a B2B marketing tool that has automation capabilities that will help you drive more sales and plan your marketing activity more effectively.

The Products Offered by Salesforce for Productivity Department

QUIP:

Using this tool the businesses will be able to create spreadsheets, documents, checklists where all of the team members can collaborate and work towards a common goal. 

They are a lot of unique products in Analytics and commerce platforms where businesses can leverage and enhance or streamline their processes. 

Companies Using Salesforce Currently in USA and India

They are lot of companies that are utilizing and benefiting by using the Salesforce CRM application. In addition to the standard options, a lot of plugins and customizations are done according to their business needs and have seen tremendous growth in terms of sales activities, marketing activities and forecasting. 

Below are a few Indian companies that use Salesforce:

Below are few USA companies that use Salesforce:

• American Express
• ADP
• Toyota
• Philips
• Financial Times
• Design with Reach
• TOMS
• Zero motorcycles
• Schneider.

Global CRM Software Market Trends & Growth