Salesforce Platform Reviews

We use Salesforce to interact with our customers and resolve their queries. It helps you connect employees, engage customers, integrate, and connect everything and everyone.

The solution is easy to use. The platform is very integrated with a lot of features. You can call customers directly from the platform. You can also directly do your email marketing. Salesforce is intuitive to work with and the overall fundamental of the platform is very strong. I can even build an accounting platform using Salesforce. It's easy to train users and in general it's a very strong solution. 

Some business functionalities could be improved.

I've been using this solution for four years.

The solution is stable, we've had one issue in four years when the application slowed down. 

The solution is scalable, we currently have 50 users. 

The support is very prompt. They do charge for it. 

Every process is difficult to set up although Salesforce is easier than some other solutions. It's not a difficult solution to maintain. 

They have a range of licensing modules and charge anywhere between $80 - $100, depending on how many licenses you buy. The more you buy, the less the cost per unit.

If your processes align with the tool, then I recommend it. If not, then it's not worth it. The process is more important than any technology or platform. I rate this solution seven out of 10.

We primarily use the solution for our sales processes, services, and customer communities. We also use it to complete other processes. 

The platform capabilities are very good.

It has a good CRM. You can enhance and extend it easily. It's easy to handle different processes. 

They are already beginning to implement generative AI.

The solution is stable.

It can scale well.

The technical support offers good SLAs.

They have some limitations as a cloud solution. They need to open it up a bit and remove some restrictions.

It's a bit expensive. 

We are looking forward to seeing more AI in the future. 

I've been working with the solution for 13 years.

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

We did not have any issues with scalability. It can extend easily.

We have 7,000 users on the product right now. 

We have occasionally reached out to technical support. They have been helpful. They are good. They can take a bit of time to respond, however. We have a premium account with them, and we have a decent SLA.

Positive

I've used Microsoft Dynamics CRM in the past. I moved to a new organization and here they use Salesforce. 

The initial setup has a moderate level of difficulty. It can be a bit complex. It's not overly easy.

We are going through a CI/CD process using metadata.

We didn't need too many resources involved in the setup. One developer can handle the implementation. 

The maintenance is pretty straightforward. Once it is completely set up, there isn't too much to do. 

We handled the initial setup in-house. 

The solution is just a little bit too expensive. I can't speak to the exact cost as I am not involved in the licensing. 

I'm using the latest version of the solution. 

If a new user wants to start with Salesforce, they should look at some documentation to begin to understand the product. There are lots of articles available online. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

The use cases are highly dependent on client engagement, so we're practically implementing solutions on various clouds, primarily Salesforce Service Cloud, but also on Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Salesforce Sales Cloud. Our implementations are generally OOTB solutions for clients. Sometimes, we also customize it.

I don't have a specific preference, but I like that it's practically with better customization. One can do almost everything using Salesforce's OOTB functionality without much investment. Also, there are a lot of codeless solutions. So the development effort is way less than trying to build something without this framework or this platform from scratch.

The solution's UI is horrible. It looks like it is from the 90s, and that should change.

The only area that I would speak against Salesforce is over the fact that there are a lot of new releases, and if you as a user or a client or an enterprise are not aware of the schedule of the releases, then they may face disruptions in the services provided by the solution.

At work, I'm doing everything related to Salesforce. I have been using the solution for a year now. I'm quite new to managing such projects. We're getting projects from Salesforce. We are one of the ten approved recommended vendors or platinum-level partners that Salesforce currently works with. We also develop for Salesforce AppExchange.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

The scalability of the solution is quite good. Scability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Our clients range from small and medium companies to those companies which fall under Fortune 500.

Since they are our partners, I cannot comment on my experience with their technical support. I rate the solution's technical support a seven out of ten.

Neutral

One of our clients wants to implement Oscar in their organization, but it is still in a phase of an idea.

I rate the solution's initial setup a seven out of ten.

The deployment process takes around the day in a normal case scenario.

For deployment, we had two members from the DevOps team who worked with a technical architect. So, overall, three people were involved in the deployment process.

The solution is fairly priced. One also needs to have a good architecture team that can help choose the right solution. Comparing its pricing with other solutions is quite different because I don't think there is a CRM tool as complete, so well-known, and so enterprise-ready as Salesforce in the market. So it's kind of impossible to compare with another solution's pricing.

In my opinion, it is a complete tool with a very bad UI.

I would recommend technical personnel to just start from zero with the solution because they have a great self-explanatory platform. I think that one can climb up the ranks from being just an administrator to becoming a developer or a solution architect quite fast if one takes advantage of the learning materials that are mostly free on the solution. For a manager, I would say it's good for an entry-level manager. Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

Use cases include sales interactions, sales management, and marketing. This is for the internal customer or internal user. For external offerings, we have field service management and CPQ, along with most of the other models of Salesforce.

The valuable features of the solution are mainly the solution's sales modules and CPQ.

Salesforce mostly offers a modular-based solution that may not be integrated. Therefore, a mini version of the overall CRM would be helpful for most customers. An application for small to medium-sized enterprises would benefit many tier-two and tier-three customers. In short, there is a need for a consolidated application rather than a bigger individual modular-based application.

An improved UX may be helpful in the solution's next release. However, I cannot elaborate explicitly on the features that should be included in the next release.

I have experience with the Salesforce Platform, as my organization has been using it for the past six to eight years as both a customer and a SI partner. The solution has no specific version, as it may automatically update to the latest version, such as Salesforce Spring '23.

It is a stable solution.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. In general, my company's clients have enterprise-sized clients.

I rate Salesforce Platform's technical support a ten out of ten.

Positive

After considering many instances, I can say that the solution's initial setup is easy. I rate the initial setup of the solution around eight or nine out of ten. The deployment process takes place on the cloud. The deployment process for a small project may take three to six months, while that of a medium-scale project typically takes around nine months on average, and larger implementations can take up to twelve months.

The deployment process includes solution discovery in the initial phases, followed by the build and testing phase. After that, there is the launch phase and post-launch live support.

I rate this solution a six out of ten for pricing. Though the solution is on the pricier side, it still offers good value for money.

My recommendation for those planning to use this solution is first to plan out what they hope to achieve with the platform and ensure that they can access most of the out-of-the-box features with a certain level of customization. This is definitely possible. Additionally, try to leverage the platform's capabilities as much as possible instead of relying on customizations, as many features are already available in its out-of-the-box feature. Most of the implementation may take time or may face failure, but if they adapt to in-house or inbuilt features, then it can be done. Though my only concern is the solution's pricing, overall, I rate this solution a ten out of ten.

I used the Salesforce Platform as a CRM, or for customer relationship management.

What I like about the Salesforce Platform, in particular, its enterprise edition is that apart from its many features, you can have a wider view of the customers, a 360-degree view. I also enjoy managing opportunities in the Salesforce Platform a lot because it's easier and gives you a wider view, compared to HubSpot.

What could be improved in the Salesforce Platform is the price. The platform is too expensive. The implementation time for the platform is also longer than expected, so that's another area for improvement.

I used the Salesforce Platform for nine years, and the last time I used it was about twelve months ago. I'm currently using HubSpot, and it's a platform I've used for a year.

The Salesforce Platform is a stable solution.

The Salesforce Platform is a scalable solution.

The technical support for the Salesforce Platform is pretty good.

Setting up the Salesforce Platform requires a consulting partner who will implement the solution. If I compare the setup of HubSpot with how you set up the Salesforce Platform, HubSpot is easier to set up.

Pricing for the Salesforce Platform is too expensive.

I used the Salesforce Platform in my previous company, then in my current company, I've been using HubSpot, and I prefer Salesforce over HubSpot because the Salesforce Platform gives you more control. It's easier to manage opportunities with the Salesforce Platform, even if you have a holding company with multiple companies, especially in the enterprise version as it gives you a more economic group view.

I have experience with the enterprise edition of the Salesforce Platform. I also have experience with HubSpot.

I'm not aware of which version of the Salesforce Platform I used because I'm just a user, not a developer.

The advice I'd give to people who want to implement the Salesforce Platform is to look deeply and very carefully at the cost of implementation because it could be very high sometimes. On the other hand, the platform brings tremendous value proposition.

There's no additional feature I'd like added to the Salesforce Platform because at the moment it has all features that are important to me and the company. For example, it has the Marketing Cloud which helps align marketing and sales pretty easily and more globally. Salesforce has also acquired a lot of other platforms to make different processes easier, for example, it acquired Tableau, Slack, and other companies, so now the company has a larger portfolio than other CRMs. I firmly believe that Salesforce has a tremendous portfolio for enterprise companies, but for medium and small companies, I do not recommend the Salesforce Platform because it's too expensive.

My rating for the Salesforce Platform is nine out of ten.

My company has no partnership with Salesforce.

We use the solution for our outbound and marketing activities.

We've built some custom dashboards which are quite nice.

The reporting tools are very solid.

It is absolutely stable. 

I don't have any huge love for it. I don't have any huge love for most of the tech solutions I use. Working in software sales could be better.

The tasks, the reminders, and keeping myself on point, for example, in that sense, the forecasting could all be better. 

It could be maybe a bit more user-intuitive. I've been using the Lightning version for the last couple of years. There were a couple of features that were lost from Salesforce Classic to Lightning, though I recognize some of the improvements. 

Better UI and UX would be great. They should offer more help built into the platform itself. It would be really useful if, for example, in the reporting tab, I could have a little wizard or something which says, "Hey, this is your first time visiting the reports tab. Here are details and Youtube videos," et cetera. 

We've used the solution for 20 years. 

The solution is stable and reliable. The level of performance we get is great. I cannot remember the last time there was a Salesforce outage or anything like that. It is very, very, very reliable in that regard.

I use it to manage a team of eight, which is very usable from that point of view. I've never used it for anything beyond that. The largest team I managed would've been 13 or 14 people. I couldn't really speak to scalability. It may very well be fantastic for a team of 50 or 100, however, I couldn't speak to that. That's not been my experience historically.

I don't deal with pricing or licensing. In my last company, the pricing was about $1,100 a month or $1,400 a month. This would've been years ago. We were very much a small company then. Now, I  work for an organization with 1,000 employees. Pricing is not something I deal with in terms of how much Salesforce costs or how much the user license is.

We are just customers and end-users.

There are features in there that I'd like to see improved, however, in terms of it being a business tool I'd rate the solution an eight out of ten. As a business tool, I find it extremely usable and very solid.

We primarily use the product for many things related to customer tracking. 

We like that everything is in it. It's a very robust product that can be used for many things. 

The solution is easy to use. 

The initial setup is very easy.

It's stable. 

We'd like to combine customers together. In Salesforce, every customer is unique and it's not possible to bundle them together effectively if they are from the same company or move companies, et cetera. 

I've been using the solution for five or six years at this point. It's been quite a while now. 

The solution has been quite stable and very reliable. I can't recall dealing with bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is scalable.

I've changed positions, and in my area, 50 people are using it. However, in the past, I've been in a company where 1,000 people were on it. 

I've never used technical support. I can't speak to how they are with clients who need help.

The initial setup is not complex. It's quite simple, quite straightforward. 

I'm just a customer and an end-user. My company does not have a business relationship with or sell Salesforce products. 

I'd recommend the solution to others and advise they give it a try.

I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We deployed Salesforce for global shared services, for global business services, where we consolidated and standardized on case management software. It's a marketing cloud. We used Einstein as well. We had a pretty large Salesforce deployment. If it was for all internal customers around our global shared services and business services, which was connected with the contact centers. We built contact centers in Manila, Prague, Bogota, and Tampa, among others. Salesforce was the platform that we consolidated all our processes on. We brought it together with Genesis and Interactive Intelligence around the call centers so that we brought everything together.

When we first did the assessment, it was global and it was for putting in a standardized software platform for all the corporate functions of HR, finance, procurement, payroll, and compliance. We standardized all their processes on Salesforce, and then we did that around case management and knowledge management as well. We did that across all those call centers, and that was our Salesforce deployment. We had to EBOM that with ServiceNow and Workday and all the financial systems, SAP, et cetera. We use Salesforce as one of our enterprise platforms.

The flexibility around the deployment is the most valuable aspect of the solution.

The user-friendliness and the interactiveness of Salesforce are great. The tools that came built with it are useful. Between Genesis and Salesforce, there were some schemas that were prebuilt. In terms of the implementation around the popups on the Genesis system and the Interactive Intelligence, they had some pre-built Salesforce schemas which made it very simple. 

With AI for Einstein, the bot capabilities, self-service capabilities, were great. We built a global portal that was Einstein, and the bots were key for the self-service capabilities that we were trying to deploy as part of this transformation to digital, and we basically put all of our documents and we digitized just about all the processes. There was a lot of our documentation as well and we put everything online. Einstein helped in the evaluation of these products. It helped navigate for the users, the end-users, which were all internal. We had some external too, as we ended up providing that service for third parties around invoicing and procurement. That said, Einstein helped in the user effectiveness and efficiencies around the interactions.

The biggest challenge we had was the cost and the licensing, and we ended up getting an ELA, so enterprise licensing agreement. That took a lot of negotiations and a lot of pressure, however, we were able to get good pricing, the community licensing, and they bundled in Einstein. They bundled a lot of capabilities for us with the ELA.

I've used the solution for the last two years, although it was deployed in 2017 or 2019.

The stability is very strong. We haven't had any issues. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

The product is scalable. 

We ended up getting premium support. Due to the fact that it was a critical environment, the call centers, we ended up getting the premium support that was built into the package that we provided. We did get the higher level, higher SLAs, to make sure that there was business-critical support.

We had a large Salesforce deployment in our pharma and medical device organizations. Therefore, we ended up getting enterprise licensing. We ended up having a good set of knowledge. We ultimately used Deloitte to do our development, and Deloitte had some very, very strong capabilities in Salesforce, specifically around case management. That got us going pretty quick. We had a very successful deployment in Salesforce.

From a capability standpoint, Salesforce has really met our needs. It was pretty easy to deploy. We kind of stuck to the basic versions and tried not to customize. We did configurations, however, we tried to stay native for most of Salesforce.

You really have to work hard with the licensing. they are open to negotiating, however, it takes a while to get there. 

We evaluated Salesforce, Appian, Pega, ServiceNow, Remedy, and we ended up selecting ServiceNow and Salesforce.

We selected Salesforce over Pega as we were able to consolidate everything on it. Then we selected ServiceNow for the IT side of it.

I'd advise to definitely not customize. As they rolled out the new versions, which were every six months, there had to be some significant testing and verification that happened. New companies need to have a good, strong third-party provider that is very experienced to assist. We used Deloitte. We did investigations. We evaluated Accenture, KPMG, and some others - even IBM - however, basically, we decided on Deloitte and that was a good decision for us.

You need to have a really good partner who has a center of excellence, or experts, that could give you a lot of insights into what they've learned that could jumpstart your deployment. I'd advise new users to just stay standard and really focus on the licensing. Otherwise, it could get really costly. 

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We are quite satisfied with Salesforce. 

We are using Salesforce Platform to manage our leads, proposals, and POs.

Salesforce helps manage our leads and the conversion of leads, perform analytics, generate sales reports, track what is converted, what is in the proposal phase, etc. It is also being used to manage discussions with clients by connecting with emails.

The most valuable features of Salesforce Platform are its analytics capabilities. The automation and connection with emails allow us to track discussions with clients. Its dashboards are also very useful and provide detailed insights.

One area that could use improvement is the approval mechanism in the authenticator, which is unstable. It often stops working after two or three times and requires the use of codes.

We have been using Salesforce Platform for five years now.

Salesforce Platform is stable. Apart from the issue with the authenticator, everything else works fine.

We are using it for a couple of users, so I cannot comment on the scalability aspect.

We were using Odoo as an ERP before switching to Salesforce Platform. Odoo has a CRM module, but it is not as professional as Salesforce. Odoo requires more customization and coding.

The initial setup involves some customization and working on parameters. It normally takes one week to ten days to configure.

We are integrating Salesforce with Jira, and we have experts to handle this, so there were no issues on our end.

We evaluated Odoo. However, it is not as professional as the Salesforce Platform.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

The platform allows you to plug into all Salesforce capabilities.

The platform allows you to do so many things. It could be easy for people to customize it outside of business models. So, some patterns could be more generally available so that it guides the team to not customize the system on the outside itself.

Salesforce could add cognitive functionality. It's still a way to go. There are some particular cognitive functionalities that I've been set up in the market that Salesforce can do in implementing.

It could introduce more templates and industry-specific package solutions, particularly emphasizing energy implementation within those industries. This level of granularity within sub-industries would enhance Salesforce's ability to offer plug-and-play solutions rather than solely focusing on customization options.

I have been using Salesforce Platform as a partner for three years.

I have worked with SAP and Oracle with a lot of customization. Most specific customizations with platforms are less defined in Salesforce regarding the focus on CRM and its market. E-commerce platforms support Aruba SAP.

The initial setup is not complex. It allows you flexibility to reach the point where you can break the function. So there could be some controls around. A configuration manager helps you even though you want to customize to reduce the customization so you don't break the system.

Salesforce products take a long to realize their benefits. It's organizational-wise. So, from a technology perspective, it has not been processed immediately, but we are looking forward to reducing the multiple points of cost in the coming years. Maybe we will see Salesforce have a positive impact.

We encounter the challenge of exchange rate fluctuations. While the platform may not be inherently expensive, its pricing is based on US dollars, which can pose unpredictability for users in different regions. For instance, if you plan a project with a certain budget, a slight change in the dollar exchange rate can impact your budgetary constraints. 

Once you customize Salesforce to outside, it doesn't scale. When upgrades happen, they fail a lot because now you've taken a lot of customizations, and they're not necessarily within Salesforce.

I've been using predictive analysis capabilities and capabilities around consuming basic information like email.

I recommend the solution, but the price point is a crucial consideration. The challenge is that only large companies in my region, those with substantial budgets, could afford it. It's more suitable for established businesses; startups might struggle with the cost. Salesforce might not be attractive for small and medium enterprises due to its higher price than other solutions available.

The solution is technically a good platform but needs investment and commitment. The investment required to make it worth it.

With the introduction of NetFlow Logistics processes, one aspect of the Salesforce Platform that stands out is its industry-based insights. Consider, for instance, a smaller financial services brokerage. Within such organizations, a wealth of knowledge is dispersed across various departments. This knowledge can be harnessed by effectively implementing Salesforce alongside compatible tools to facilitate smoother transactions and enhance organizational efficiency. I'm eagerly anticipating further developments in this direction, particularly in terms of NLP learning and the integration of voice assistants. These advancements can potentially empower agents within companies to engage with customers more effectively, leveraging internal insights. Such innovations will likely be deployed through a shared-site model, offering a novel approach to customer interaction and service delivery.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.