What is Salesforce? All Popular Questions related to Salesforce Answered

Through our vast experience in Salesforce consulting services, the experts at A3logics answer the most popular questions searched by people over the internet related to Salesforce without in-depth technical details. This QnA guide will tell you about the benefits of Salesforce CRM, industries it serves and why it is preferred by global businesses for sales, marketing and customer service operations.

Salesforce Basics

What is Salesforce?

Salesforce is a cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform that is designed and developed by Salesforce.com, also known as SDFC or Salesforce dot.com. The company deals with cloud computing services and Salesforce CRM is a part of its cloud services, connecting global business and helping them manage their customers better.

What is Salesforce used for?

Salesforce CRM is primarily used by companies to manage their sales, marketing and customer service operations. Besides this, building enterprise-grade apps and integrating with other IT systems can also be done using Salesforce CRM. Any company looking to save time without wasting a lot of money on customer service and software development can use Salesforce. Some of the core Salesforce products include:

Sales Cloud – This tool enables sales process automation, design and management; sales reporting and forecasting; contact, lead, & opportunity management for businesses.

Service Cloud – Through this software, managing and automating things like omnichannel customer service & analytics, case management, and field service management becomes brisk for companies.

Marketing Cloud – This powerful product makes management and automation of marketing campaigns, social media advertising, customer segmentation, and customer communication scenarios creation extremely easy for companies. Companies can easily monitor and engage with global customers. Some of the popular sales & marketing automation tools include Salesforce Pardot and Einstein AI.

Salesforce also provides industry-targeted products like Health Cloud, Financial Services Cloud, Government Cloud, Nonprofit Cloud, etc.. These products cover the business needs of organizations operating in these respective sectors.

Is there Any Salesforce ERP available?

No Proprietary Salesforce ERP is present in the market. However, a number of cloud-powered ERPs are built by third-party businesses using the Salesforce platform or infrastructure (e.g. FinancialForce and Rootstock ). These ERPs can be integrated with Salesforce CRM freely. Although integration charges are included in the total cost of your purchased ERP tool.

What are the different types of Salesforce Services?

The six most popular Salesforce services include:

 Implementation: For successful integration of Salesforce CRM into your business operations to improve your customer service and sales strategy, avail services from a Salesforce implementation expert.

 Automation: You can automate business tasks related to sales management, sales forecasting and sales team performance analysis through salesforce automation (SFA) services or software.

Salesforce App Development: Get powerful, feature-rich sales and marketing apps build on the Salesforce platform to improve your business outcomes.

Integration: Transform your business by integrating the most popular business applications (e.g. Jira, Dropbox, etc.) that you already use with Salesforce CRM using this service.

Salesforce Support: Avail support from a team of certified Salesforce experts to get a solution for your problems related to Salesforce administration and development.

Consulting: Improve your sales, marketing and customer service function to boost company revenues and sales by availing top-notch consulting services.

Salesforce Cost

How much does it Cost to Implement Salesforce CRM in my Business?

Well, the exact cost to use depends upon the number of products you are using under the Salesforce portfolio, their edition, and the user licences purchased by you.

Do we have a free version of Salesforce Available?

No, currently Salesforce does not offer its free CRM version. Although you can opt for a free trial of 30 days to its Service and Sales Cloud. A popular alternative to Salesforce CRM includes Hubspot CRM, Zoho, etc.

Can nonprofits use Salesforce for Free?

Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) isn’t free for any organization. However, under the “The Power of Us” Program, non-profit organizations are eligible to receive 10 free user licenses of the Lightning Enterprise edition of NPSP. They can also get more discounts on the purchase of additional licenses.

Is monthly subscription available for Salesforce products?

No, currently Salesforce sells all its products on a per-user basis with annual billing. If you have any issue related to billing, connect with Salesforce sales executives for possible billing options.

Benefits of Salesforce

Why should I Use Salesforce for My Business?

The benefits of some of the major Salesforce products, including Sales, Marketing and Service Clouds are given below:

The benefits of using the marketing cloud are:

27% Increase in the lead volume

30% increase in the lead conversion

25% increase in marketing ROI

The benefits of using Sales cloud are:

38% increase in forecast accuracy

38% increase in sales productivity

32% increase in the lead conversion rate

28% increase in sales revenue

26% increase in the opportunity win rate.

The benefits of using service cloud are:

45% increase in customer retention.

47% increase in agent productivity.

31% increase in the speed of case resolution.

Is Salesforce the best CRM available in the market currently?

As of 2020, Salesforce is among the top three CRM platforms in the market. Salesforce has also been recognised as a leader under its Magic Quadrant by Gartner, Inc. for the 11th consecutive year in 2019.

Why is Salesforce so popular?

Salesforce is immensely popular among businesses for its rich default functionality, multi-tenant architecture, scalability, customizability and ample integration capabilities.

Below are some other reasons for Salesforce massive popularity:

• A wide range of products for sales, marketing and customer service functions for companies of all sizes and from different domains.
• Large third-party software vendor and application support ( 5,000+ applications listed on Salesforce AppExchange).
• Robust customer support 24/7
• Self-service capabilities (online resources likeTrailhead and product documentation are available for user training).

Which companies use Salesforce most actively?

Some of the most renowned Salesforce clients include Adidas, Spotify, U.S Bank, Aldo, AWS, Schneider Electric, Canon, Philips, Toyota, Marriott, etc.

How many customers does Salesforce have?

As of 2020, Salesforce is actively used by more than 150,000 companies worldwide, ranging from kickass startups to Fortune 500 companies.  These companies utilize Salesforce to manage their customer relationships, increase sales revenue and boost employee productivity.

Salesforce Technology Aspects

How Salesforce CRM works?

Salesforce has a simple goal – improve customer relationships for businesses. It also helps companies streamline their internal business processes and improve portability. Understanding customer needs and data, and improving customer satisfaction level, all can be done seamlessly via this CRM tool by businesses.

What are the key features of Salesforce CRM?

Key Salesforce CRM features include:

A 360-degree customer profile – This feature enables businesses to get all comprehensive customer information under one roof, including account owner information (e.g company name, phone, address, etc.), account ID and data related to sales, marketing, and commerce activities.

Sales automation – features like workflow rules, approvals and the Process Builder allow no-code automation of sales-related processes.

Marketing Campaign Management– Manage every aspect of marketing campaigns seamlessly with this function,  Under campaign management features you can segment customers, deliver personalized messages, send emails and track leads across all channels and track their results.

Analytics and Forecasting: Salesforce analytics and forecasting tools like Pardot and Einstein AI enable customers to get detailed analytics reports of their sales, marketing activities. Business planning, estimating sales revenue, lead scoring, etc.are built into these tools.

What programming language does Salesforce Use?

Apex code – a proprietary, object-oriented programming language, which has a syntax similar to Java is used by Salesforce developers. Automating the internal business process like revenue calculation, predicting sales, etc. is possible for developers through Apex.

What database does Salesforce use?

Salesforce uses different properties of the Oracle database. To a large extent, Salesforce also used PostgreSQL to run its different platforms.

What are predictive analytics and sales forecasting in Salesforce CRM?

Salesforce Sales forecasting tools available under Sales cloud enable you to track and predict the sales cycle and manage sales expectations of your company.

Still, Having Doubts Related to Salesforce?

Hope the above-given answers will improve your general understanding of Salesforce. To get a turnkey solution for your CRM-related business problems, turn to A3logics Salesforce consultants. We are Ready to Help!