Salesforce is widely adopted for its comprehensive CRM capabilities, cloud-based accessibility, extensive customization, and strong integration with other systems.
However, companies face challenges such as complexity, high costs, user adoption, data management, integration issues, technical challenges, and dependency issues.
To get the most out of Salesforce, businesses should define clear objectives, ensure data quality, establish consistent naming conventions, customize fields and objects to fit business processes, and control data access through role hierarchies and permission sets. Automating workflows, conducting regular data audits, and leveraging reports and dashboards enhance efficiency and insights.
Alternatives like Microsoft Dynamics 365, HubSpot CRM, Zoho CRM, SugarCRM, and Pipedrive offer various strengths but also have significant drawbacks.
1
Why Everyone Uses Salesforce
Salesforce is a leading CRM platform, widely adopted by companies across various industries.
I’ve heard it said that “all roads lead to Salesforce,” and once companies begin to significantly scale, I’ve found that to be mostly true.
Many people don’t love Salesforce, but they use it anyway. Here are some of the main reasons why.
Features
Salesforce offers a robust set of features that cover all aspects of customer relationship management, including sales, service, marketing, and commerce. Not only that, but the platform can also be customized extensively to meet specific business needs and is scalable to grow with any company.
Integrations
Integrations are often top of mind when implementing a CRM platform, and Salesforce integrates well with a wide range of third-party applications and systems, allowing businesses to create a cohesive ecosystem of tools and services.
Salesforce’s AppExchange marketplace offers thousands of apps and integrations that extend the platform’s functionality.
Reliability & Scalability
Salesforce has a strong track record of uptime and reliability, which is critical for businesses that depend on CRM for daily operations. Beyond that, many of the largest companies in the world use Salesforce. That combined with nearly infinite customizations means it’s very unlikely you’ll ever “outgrow” the platform.
Analytics and Reporting
Salesforce provides powerful analytics and reporting tools that help businesses gain actionable insights from their data. Einstein AI offers predictive analytics, recommendations, and automation features that enhance decision-making and operational efficiency.
Security
The platform also offers advanced security features that help to protect sensitive customer data and ensure compliance with a wide variety of regulatory standards.
2
Why Switching To Salesforce Can Be Hard
Using Salesforce, while highly beneficial for many companies, can present several challenges.
Complexity and Customization
Salesforce is highly customizable, which can make it complex to set up and configure according to specific business needs. Also, many companies may over-customize Salesforce, leading to a convoluted system that is hard to manage and update.
Cost
The cost of Salesforce licenses, along with the expense of initial setup and customization, can be relatively high. Addons, continued maintenance, support, and upgrades contribute to ongoing costs.
Data Management
Moving data from legacy systems to Salesforce can be complex and may result in data loss or corruption if not handled correctly. Maintaining high data quality and ensuring data consistency across the platform can be challenging without expert help.
This is not a problem unique to Salesforce, but it often comes up in discussions when companies realize their existing CRM can’t handle their needs.
Integration Issues
While integrations are one of Salesforce’s best features, the actual process of integrating with other business systems (ERP, marketing automation, etc.) can be complex and may require significant technical expertise.
Updating and Upgrading:
Salesforce frequently updates its platform, which can be both a benefit and a challenge. Keeping up with these updates requires ongoing attention and can sometimes disrupt customized functionalities. Updates sometimes cause compatibility issues with existing customizations or integrations that can be difficult to sniff out.
Vendor Dependency
Companies may become heavily reliant on Salesforce, making it difficult to switch to other platforms if needed. Dependence on Salesforce support for resolving issues can sometimes lead to delays if the support team is not responsive.
To mitigate these difficulties, companies often invest in thorough planning, involve experienced Salesforce consultants, ensure comprehensive training programs, and maintain robust data management practices.
3
Setting Up Salesforce Properly
Setting up Salesforce properly is crucial for maximizing its benefits and ensuring it aligns with your business processes.
While not a comprehensive list, here are some of the essential elements to consider for a successful Salesforce setup:
- Define Clear Objectives and Goals:
- Identify Business Needs: Understand the specific needs and goals of your business that Salesforce will address, such as improving sales efficiency, enhancing customer service, or automating marketing efforts.
- Set Measurable Goals: Establish clear, measurable objectives to track the success of your Salesforce implementation.
- Gather and Cleanse Data:
- Data Migration: Plan the migration of data from existing systems to Salesforce, ensuring data quality and integrity.
- Data Cleansing: Cleanse and de-duplicate data to avoid redundancies and inaccuracies.
- Customize Salesforce to Fit Business Processes:
- Custom Fields and Objects: Create custom fields and objects tailored to your business processes and data requirements.
- Page Layouts and Record Types: Customize page layouts and record types to improve user experience and efficiency.
- Configure User Roles and Permissions:
- Role Hierarchy: Define a role hierarchy that reflects your organization’s structure and ensures appropriate data access.
- Profiles and Permission Sets: Set up profiles and permission sets to control access to data and functionality based on user roles.
- Integrate with Other Systems:
- Identify Integrations: Determine which external systems (ERP, marketing automation, customer support tools, etc.) need to be integrated with Salesforce.
- Use APIs and Middleware: Utilize Salesforce APIs and middleware solutions to facilitate seamless integration and data flow between systems.
- Automate Workflows and Processes:
- Workflow Rules and Process Builder: Create workflow rules and use Process Builder to automate routine tasks and business processes.
- Approval Processes: Implement approval processes to streamline decision-making and ensure compliance.
- Implement Reporting and Dashboards:
- Standard and Custom Reports: Develop standard and custom reports to track KPIs and gain insights into business performance.
- Dashboards: Create dashboards to provide real-time visibility into critical metrics and trends.
- Leverage Salesforce Einstein AI:
- AI Features: Utilize Einstein AI (if available) for predictive analytics, personalized recommendations, and automated insights to enhance decision-making and efficiency.
- Training and User Adoption:
- Training Programs: Develop comprehensive training programs for users to ensure they understand how to use Salesforce effectively.
- User Adoption Strategies: Implement strategies to drive user adoption, such as gamification, incentives, and continuous support.
- Regular Maintenance and Optimization:
- Periodic Reviews: Conduct regular reviews of your Salesforce setup to identify areas for improvement and optimization.
- Updates and Upgrades: Stay updated with new Salesforce features and updates, and incorporate them into your system where beneficial.
- Data Security and Compliance:
- Security Settings: Configure security settings, such as field-level security, two-factor authentication, and IP restrictions, to protect sensitive data.
- Compliance: Ensure your Salesforce setup complies with relevant data protection regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA).
- Use AppExchange:
- Third-Party Apps: Explore and integrate third-party apps from the Salesforce AppExchange to extend the functionality of your CRM and meet specific business needs.
By focusing on these essential elements, you can set up Salesforce in a way that maximizes its utility, aligns with your business processes, and supports your strategic objectives.
4
Best Practices For Salesforce Record Management
Maintaining organized and efficient records in Salesforce is crucial for leveraging the platform’s full potential.
The following are a few best practices for keeping, organizing, and using records in Salesforce and making sure you are utilizing your instance effectively:
Data Quality Management:
- Regularly clean and de-duplicate records to ensure data accuracy and consistency.
- Implement validation rules to enforce data integrity and ensure mandatory fields are filled correctly.
Consistent Naming Conventions
- Establish and adhere to standardized naming conventions for records, fields, and objects to improve searchability and understanding.
- Use clear and descriptive names for custom fields and objects to ensure they are easily identifiable.
Effective Use of Fields and Objects
- Create custom fields tailored to your business processes while avoiding unnecessary fields that can clutter records.
- Use record types to manage different types of information within the same object, ensuring relevant fields and layouts are displayed.
Segmentation and Categorization
- Utilize picklists for fields that have a predefined set of values to maintain consistency and ease of reporting.
- Use tags or custom fields to categorize records, making it easier to segment and filter data.
Data Security and Access Control
- Define a role hierarchy that reflects your organization’s structure to manage data access appropriately.
- Use profiles and permission sets to control user access to records and fields based on their roles.
Automation and Workflow Management
- Automate routine tasks and processes using workflow rules and Process Builder to ensure data is updated consistently and timely.
- Implement approval processes for records that require oversight to ensure compliance and proper review.
Regular Data Audits and Reviews
- Conduct regular data audits to identify and rectify inconsistencies, duplicates, and outdated records.
- Utilize Salesforce’s audit trail features to track changes and ensure accountability.
Documentation and Training
- Maintain detailed documentation of data management processes, field definitions, and business rules.
- Provide ongoing training to users to ensure they understand how to input, update, and utilize records correctly.
Data Backup and Recovery
- Schedule regular data backups to prevent data loss and ensure you can recover information if needed.
- Have a disaster recovery plan in place to address potential data loss scenarios.
Use of Salesforce Best Practices
- Use Salesforce Data Loader for bulk data imports and updates to ensure data integrity.
- Leverage the Lightning Experience for a more intuitive and efficient user interface.
5
Other CRM Options
While Salesforce is the undeniable industry standard, there are a variety of other options available. Depending on the complexity of your use cases, most can be made to work equally well.
That being said, once a company hits $10MM in ARR, it’s very common that they consider switching to Salesforce. Don’t shoot the messenger.
Here are a few others to consider with some thoughts on what they do well (and not so well).
Microsoft Dynamics 365
Dynamics 365 has strong integration capabilities with other Microsoft products (like Office 365 and Azure), comprehensive CRM and ERP capabilities, and is easily customizable and scalable.
On the negative side, Dynamics can be complex to set up and manage, especially for smaller businesses. The cost can be expensive, particularly when including add-ons and integrations. Additionally, many users find the interface less intuitive compared to other CRMs.
HubSpot CRM
HubSpot has a very user-friendly interface, a free tier available, strong marketing automation tools, and seamless integration with other HubSpot products.
The free version lacks advanced features needed by larger enterprises, and costs can escalate quickly with necessary addons and more extensive user licenses. As use cases grow more complex, HubSpot tends to be far less customizable when compared to Salesforce.
Zoho CRM
Zoho is among the more affordable CRMs. It has an extensive suite of applications, and good customization options. They’ve also invested in several interesting AI-driven features.
Integrating Zoho with other third-party applications can sometimes be challenging. Also, initial setup and customization can have a steep learning curve. They’ve received some pretty mixed reviews on customer support responsiveness and effectiveness.
SugarCRM
SugarCRM is highly customizable, has good reporting capabilities, and a strong focus on automation.
Many users find the interface outdated and less user-friendly (though this could be said of Salesforce too). SugarCRM can be complex and time-consuming to implement and customize, and finding experts to help can be more difficult too. There have been reports that support can be expensive and lacking in quality.
Pipedrive
Pipedrive has an intuitive and user-friendly interface. There is a heavy focus on sales pipeline management. Pricing tends to be affordable for smaller organizations.
Pipedrive lacks some advanced features needed by larger enterprises (e.g., comprehensive marketing automation, in-depth analytics). This CRM is far less customizable than Salesforce, which can be limiting for some businesses. Also, it may not scale as well for very large organizations with complex needs.
