What is our primary use case?
My current use for the solution is in implementing it for a company that sells services. The aim is to use the Sales Cloud to track all the existing accounts of my customer.
How has it helped my organization?
I'm a consultant, so I don't implement Salesforce for myself, but for my customers. I need Salesforce to be valuable for my customers. Because if not, the project will not be a success. In every project, it's very important to define the KPIs. But if you define well the KPIs with your customers, Sales Cloud will improve the organization.
For one customer, Sales Cloud helped him to save two FTE. I don't know the English word for that, but it's like two times of 2% a year. So you save two-incomes per year using Salesforce because your employees are going faster.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Salesforce is that it's a system where you can use declarative development. Just using point and click, you can configure it in very nice ways. For small customers, you can use it for 80% of their business. Then we will have to use the custom development using a code, JavaScript, HTML only for really complex business processes of your customer. It's a nice feature because developers and development are expensive, and long to payment. So it's good that you can do a lot with point and click.
What needs improvement?
One area that needs improvement is that it can be difficult to understand for customers of Salesforce. If you are subscribing to Sales Cloud, we will have an out-of-the-box solution that is good and easy to use. But if you are not keen on system language and things that, you will need a consultant. You will need me to implement it to answer your needs. Because it can be difficult to understand, customers have to pay for the system, and then they have to pay a consultant to implement it. So that is expensive. But in the end, you will win money if the project is well defined, and the design has been done in a good way. Then the system is designed for the customer.
An advantage of Salesforce is that they upgrade their system every time they have a new release. We have a community where we can ask for additional features, and then Salesforce implements the new features in the new release.
For how long have I used the solution?
I'm currently working on a Sales Cloud project. I'm working on a CPQ project, but while you work with CPQ, you have to work with Sales Cloud at the same time because both products are linked.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is reliable. Salesforce use is like renting an office in a building. You share the water and things with all the users of the building. So you have to be aware that you can use too much, or you can use the water of your neighbors. It's the same way for Salesforce. So as long as you spend time to find the solution the best way, the only concern you will have is the data you're using and the storage of files. But you can have best practices for your people in the company, and buy extra data from Salesforce if you are using too much. So it can be a concern, but you will always have a solution.
The solution can require some maintenance as there can be bugs, and the customer doesn't always understand why. Sometimes, the customer is allocating one of their employees to be the admin of the solution, so they do not require a consultant.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is really easy to scale. One of my projects was to deploy Salesforce for a multinational company, we started with one country, and then deploy it to all the countries of the company.
The risk there is about the right & access and to cover all countries requirements.
But Salesforce gives a lot of tools to answer to customer needs.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service for the solution is good. You can log cases, but the one thing you have with Salesforce, you will not have the same maintenance quality. If you pay a lot, you will have the best support. If you pay less, your support will be maybe not that efficient as another customer. But overall, it's nice.
Salesforce will give you an answer. The time for the answer will depend on how much you paid to Salesforce.
How was the initial setup?
To build and deploy the initial setup takes about one month for big needs, half a month for medium needs.
First is the design parts where you have all your customer needs, we build it in what we call a sandbox. In this sandbox, you have all the custom fields and the custom features that you build for your customer. You deploy this in a user acceptance testing environment. Then your customer, the company, will subscribe to Salesforce, will test those features. Once it is tested you will have to deploy it to the production environment, where the customer has all his data. It takes some time, and you have to wipe down everything you've built, to not miss anything. Because if you do, the deployment can be long and difficult. But there are tools that can help you to easily deploy the Sales Cloud solution.
It's very rare that your customer is only subscribing to Sales Cloud. Sometimes he has Sales Cloud and Service Cloud and things like that. And all your clouds are linked. But it's easy. You don't have to independently deploy the Service Cloud and the Sales Cloud. You can deploy it together.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation team depends if you have declarative development or custom development using Apex and things like that. As Salesforce is using the cloud, you are using shared resource. Salesforce asks you to test your development, to not use too much data. If you have custom development, you will need to test it, and you will need a developer to deploy this. If it is only custom fields and declarative, depending on the size of the project, you only need one person. But then you need someone to follow the test, that the customer tested the solution, is it accepted by the customer. That is the longest part.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is expensive, but you don't have to install it. You can access it from any computer, and it's the only solution on the market allowing that many features. So it's expensive, but you know why that is. It's not surprising.
What other advice do I have?
Salesforce is good for all sizes of customers because you can adapt Salesforce for all customer needs. My suggestion to anyone considering Salesforce would be to spend a lot of time in the designing phase. For me, that's the most important.
I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner