Starting with Salesforce

We have always tried to record all kinds of information, sometimes to immortalize it, other times to show it, but most importantly, to not forget this information.

Let’s start with the main question – what is CRM? Its software, named after the acronym derived from customer relationship management, helps companies manage customer interactions. Every business needs a database where it can record the data of its contractors and their history, transactions, and price lists. This used to be recorded in notebooks and notepads, later in Excel spreadsheets (some companies still use them as their main customer database), and now, one of the leading CRMs in the world is Salesforce.

Is Salesforce like a crystal ball that will boost sales, and phone calls and emails will make themselves? No! (Although emails can be sent automatically.) But thanks to CRM, businesses will be able to do the following significantly:

• Serve the customer better: Automation will do all the necessary tasks for us, remind us of a forgotten customer, and free employees from repetitive actions that always take up precious time and divert attention from the key elements of the business – such as relationships.
• Understand the customer better: The system enables understanding and anticipating the needs of customers, generating sales trends, and most importantly, taking care of them and the business’s relationship with them.
• Increase customer engagement: With tools that allow tracking of customers and their interactions with the business, personalizing content directed to them, and knowing their preferences and tastes, businesses are able to get to know their customers. Consequently, businesses can direct and adjust their business strategies to the style of their customers.
• Achieve better sales results: As we have already pointed out, Salesforce is not a crystal ball predicting the future, but if we know our customers, then those customers know us and our product. And that is already another step toward achieving excellent sales results.

“Well, give me a CD with this system and let’s install it,” some customers might say. But Salesforce is not software that we install on a server or local disk; it is a cloud solution. Thanks to this, everyone can have access to their data.

Salespeople can check their customers during business trips, the marketing team can check the results of their campaign during an event, and the service technicians can make necessary notes from anywhere in the world. The system is a multi-layered ecosystem that is scalable and meets the needs of the customer. What does this mean? This means that customers who want to use sales support elements do not have to purchase the entire solution along with marketing and service desk support.

The available system functions are included in individual licenses. Purchasing a Salesforce license is a subscription model. The customer purchases a specific type of license that offers a certain range of functionality for a period of 12 months.

The prices of the license at the time of writing for the Sales Cloud range from $25 to $300.

Salesforce servers are located in many parts of the world such as the United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Australia.

Is customer data safe? Of course; Salesforce is certified for compliance with many security standards, including ISO 27001, SOC 2, and FedRAMP.

The Salesforce solution is directed to customers of different sizes. From greenfield-type customers who have no previous experience with the system, to huge corporations that expand their systems to enormous sizes, whose administration and maintenance are handled by large, specialist IT teams. Currently, this cloud solution is used by over 150,000 customers in 190 countries. Among the customers using Salesforce, we will find companies such as Spotify, Amazon, Canon, Toyota, Walmart, Uber, and many others.

Salesforce is a multi-module tool. This means that it has many different modules dedicated to specific needs, which will now be described briefly, and in the following chapters, you will learn much more about them:

• Sales Cloud is a solution tailored to the needs of commerce. With it, you can manage the sales cycle from acquiring a lead to winning an opportunity and selling products/services and much more. This module, thanks to its built-in tools, enables the use of forecasting and numerous reporting tools.
• Service Cloud is a tool dedicated to every service/help desk. Everyone has had to call a hotline to get help with a particular matter of life at some point. It’s highly likely that your data has been recorded in Service Cloud. Thanks to its structure, it stores your data and your query in cases.
• Marketing Cloud and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement is a marketing pair that will manage marketing aimed at B2B or B2C. Automated emails and marketing paths are just a fraction of what you can achieve in the software of the marketing duo.
• Commerce Cloud is nothing more than a booster for your online store. It helps manage online stores, both for B2B and B2C. It personalizes product recommendations and facilitates promotion management, and can do much, much more.
• Experience Cloud, formerly known as Community Cloud (for many, this name will forever remain in their hearts), allows you to create pages, portals, forums, help pages, and others for customers, partners, or users. The drag-and-drop editor facilitates page management for administrators.

Are these all the clouds? No. There are many solutions that facilitate work in various business sectors. Thanks to this, Salesforce easily adapts to even the most complex tasks and needs.

Tip

Get a basic understanding of every Salesforce Cloud, its core features, and how it is helping the business to fulfill its goals, as questions related to this topic may appear on the Salesforce Certified Associate exam.

You already know that there is a Salesforce, how powerful it is, and how much it can bring to the life of any business. However, it is worth remembering that every system needs its own custodian, someone to look after how the system works and make changes to it. You will find out about this person in a moment – the Salesforce Admin.