Salesforce Service Cloud Reviews

I would say that Omni Channel, which was launched with the Spring ’15 release, is the most valuable feature for me. It’s a way of distributing workload coming in from different channels, cases, leads, chats, and calls.

First of all, it distributes them, saving our end-users on several clicks and searches to get a new record to work on. It’s great for departments used to working with queues and as an administrator, you can also leverage the power of Omni Channel to eliminate the picking of easy work records.

As you may or may not know, when you have cases waiting in a queue, end-users have to accept the records one-by-one to work on them and, sadly, there are users who look at some details first to determine if it’s going to be an easy case or a complex case before taking them out of the queue, leaving the difficult case which take a lot of time to resolve in the queue.

Distributing them automatically and evenly between users through Omni Channel ensures that everybody performs at their best and improves their productivity!

Because we can give a specific weight on records like cases or leads, we can ensure that every end-user receives an even amount of work to digest per day. You can even assign skills to your users so that nobody receives something they would not be able to solve because they are too new to our company or because they just haven’t learned about a product or service yet.

Another skill you could add is language. As we are an international company, our customers can reach us in three languages (Dutch, French and German), so making sure that customer questions are routed to a user with the correct language skill automatically eliminates endless dispatching from user to another user because they don't know the language.

It would be nice if there were several components to download from the app-exchange, like building blocks that we would just plug into the console. As previously stated, the out-of-the-box console looks nice and has some powerful standard functionality, but is nothing like you see in demos. It would be great If there was a package containing some custom console components to put in the sidebars or to tweak it more easily.

To give a simple example: the standard related lists components that you put in the sidebar contain a first column called action with an edit/delete link. In a sidebar, this takes up a lot of valuable space and for me. Those links were not necessary in the sidebar, so I would have liked to be able to disable those or something (but not by taking the edit/delete rights away of the user profile). So we had to build some Visualforce custom component to replicate the exact same functionality but without that first column.

It seems something small, but one of the great powers of the Service Cloud console is to have a lot of information in one screen, so screen space is valuable.

We started implementing the Salesforce Service Cloud and Console for our telesales department about six months ago because we needed a way to streamline the workload for outbound calling and handling incoming web requests and wanted to also implement the Salesforce Live Agent on our webshop. Since Salesforce just launched Omni Channel, we decided this would be a great way to do all these things.

Not really, as it’s really easy to follow the implementation guide and watch some tutorials to get it up in running on your sandbox and it’s really flexible so you can model the console to your needs (although you’ll need a developer to create some custom components to get it just the way you want it).

There were no stability issues.

There have been no issues scaling it.

If you’ve worked with Salesforce products for a couple of years, as I have, you just know that Salesforce provides top-notch customer service! They want to be the best and as a customer you can feel that.

On top of lots of helpful resources like workbooks, implementation guides and instructional videos, you also have access to Salesforce Success Community. It’s full of peers and has groups focused on specific features and products like the Service Cloud. I would recommend to everybody when implementing a new feature and is getting stuck on something to post his/her question in the Success Community. It’s most likely somebody had that same question or problem before and the community is so active that you are likely to be getting an answer to your problem within a few minutes/hours.

If that fails, you can always submit a case with Salesforce support and grant them access to your organization so they can help you in a timely fashion.

All our users have had a Sales Cloud license and we already worked with queues, but converting the Sales Cloud license to a Service Cloud license for that specific department so that we could integrate Omni Channel and Live Agent was a good choice.

The biggest driver to do the switch was because of the fact we used another Chat provider on our website and the business came with the requirement to implement the chat transcripts in Salesforce. We had two choices: create an integration with Salesforce (which would have required some developers and custom development), or replace the chat function to Live Agent which is automatically integrated in Salesforce and the Service Cloud. It would eliminate the cost of an extra provider, save us money on custom development for integration, and has much more flexibility and scalability towards the future.

The choice was easily made.

I would say that for a beginning administrator it could seem somewhat complex, but there are a lot of resources to help you with initial setup, like the implementation guide and the Service Cloud workbook. Of course everything about every feature in Salesforce is described in great detail on their help and training portal.

For a more experienced administrator, it’s pretty straightforward, although working with custom components can seem overwhelming. You’ll need some programmatic knowledge to get the look and feel just the way you want. Certainly now you’ll need the Lightning Design System to make you Visualforce Components look like native components in the console.

But, hey, that’s why we love working with Salesforce I guess. It would get a bit boring for an administrator if you already knew everything and had nothing new to learn, isn’t it? ;-)

With Salesforce you never stop learning. There is always some new feature or functionality that provides a solution to your use case that you didn’t know about.

We planned and designed the functionality we needed ourselves. We also did most of the configuration and implementation ourselves, but we worked with a consulting partner to create some customized components for the console and to modify the Live Agent Customer Facing chat window style.

I can’t talk a lot about pricing because that depends on your contract negotiation with Salesforce, number of licenses/users you have, and what features your organization uses.

But in our case the price of a Service Cloud license wasn't a lot different as the Sales Cloud license, and as all our users had a Salesforce Sales Cloud license we just swapped some licenses for a Service Cloud license. But by doing that, we eliminated the extra cost and need of a secondary provider for the live chat function, we could use the Omni Channel feature to automatically manage and distribute the workload saving our agents time and making them more productive.

I would say it was well worth the change!

We are still in the beginning of using some of the features provided through the Salesforce Service Cloud. But from what I can see and the ease and speed with which we have implemented the features that we are using at this time, I guess it loses a point because the demos we see on world tours have a lot of customization in them and are not at all out-of-the-box. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a really nice product with lots of out-of-the-box functionality, but to create a console like you see in demos you have to customize lots of stuff too.

Before you begin to sit down with your users to see how they work today, determine which information they consult from other records because when developing the Console View this is where you can make a difference! Creating some custom components with just that information from other records that they would normally click through links to get is the information you’ll want to create a component for. They will have all that information on the same screen when opening a record and they will save time not having to click and navigate to get the info. Creating an optimal view for your users is where one of the powers of the Service Cloud lays!

Consider investing in a consulting firm to create some custom components to get this done if you don’t have the in-house expertise. It’s really worth it. When using Omni Channel, think about the different skills you would create and give your agents so you can distribute the workload correctly.

The two most valuable features for us are the customizable consoles and the ability to use custom objects.

We deployed the Live Agent function and the Social Sites feed connection which improved the response time for customer issues/feedbacks. The integrated Knowledge Base function also improved the speed.

The prices for storing files - like example attachments - are really high per GB. We have an alternative to-do task which has one purpose, to find an alternative file storage service that we can later on connect with Salesforce. 

Nowadays, we are lucky because the customers would like to connect on-premise Sharepoint with Salesforce and there is a solution that we can easily apply to them.

I started to use it two months ago and absolutely love it. Currently, I’m part of an implementation project where we earned high satisfaction from our client.

We haven't had any issues with deployment so far. 

All the limits of the Salesforce platform are well documented. I’ve seen poor documentation and bad implementation, but Salesforce is not like that. 

Looks like they are hiring the best developers.

There have been no issues with the stability.

There has been no issue with scaling it.

I’ve used much of the legacy solutions previously within various enterprises, and found none of them to be as good as the Salesforce product.

We kept the initial setup simple and straightforward. Then we continuously improve it because the product is new for our everyday customers.

I'm working for a consultancy that implements Salesforce products.

Always consult with a partner company around your area. Partners can provide different licensing constructions.

• Case Management
• Service Cloud Console
• Workflow Rules
• Territory Management

Logging activities and creating opportunities are easier than before, and it provides visibility of the sales pipeline.

Reporting needs improvement as sometimes we need to export data and work with it in Excel.

I've used it for three years.

Once set up, we've had no issues with deployment.

We've only had one stability issue in three years.

No issues with scalability.

9/10 - Sometimes cases need to be escalated more quickly.

No other CRM product was used before.

I did not participate in the initial setup.

We implemented it through a vendor team.

If you want to use Enterprise Edition or above and use a complex architecture, look for an experienced consultancy/in-house consultant to set up your organization initially.

• Reporting
• Forecasting
• Adding document templates
• Email tracking
• Integration with Marketo

Salesforce provides a really good overview of the pipeline and the stages of each sale. This allows management to make accurate forecasts in terms of what will come in by the end of the month/quarter/year.

They need to improve the email integration with Outlook. At the moment the plugin is very unstable, and crashes from time to time. The only other option is to include a Salesforce email address into BCC, which isn't convenient.

Also, I’ve not checked for a while, but for a long time Salesforce didn’t have a very good mobile app, at least not for Android. If they could build a proper one with the same functions as the desktop version, that would be really cool!

I've used it for four years in total.

No, but I wasn’t the one conducting the deployment.

Other than the occasional slow response, which was probably caused by bandwidth problems on our end, the system was always robust and stable.

Not really. As our organization grew, we were able to add more users to the system without any issues.

I’ve never had to use it, so I couldn’t tell you.

It’s pretty good. I’ve not had to use tech support as such, as I’ve found all of the answers to my questions on the Salesforce community forum.

Previously we used a very old CRM system called Goldmine. We switched because Goldmine offered no reporting tools whatsoever. The managers, to get an overview of the deals that were due to close that month, had to have a daily check with every member of the sales team, and then compile a list of deals closing that month. Also, the interface of Goldmine wasn’t really that great. The entire system was becoming too primitive for our organization as it grew.

No, nothing complex about the initial setup. I registered the account, and started using it.

We had an in-house consultant who did all of the implementation, and customization of Salesforce for us.

It's hard to tell, as the biggest ROI was the time saved in terms of reporting, ease of creating views and reports, generating quotes, and monitoring the progress of every sales cycle.

We had an enterprise site license, so it covered all of the users.

No, not really. We had known about Salesforce for while, so when the question was raised that we needed a new CRM system, Salesforce was chosen by default.

It’s a great product, highly customizable and flexible. My advice is do it, but make sure there is someone either from Salesforce or one of your own IT guys, who can customize the system for you.

There are several good features, but the most valuable to us are the integrated email, entitlements, and the overall powerfulness of the platform.

• I would like better tracking of cases with SLA overdue (including "soon overdue").
• Emailing from the product has its limitations.
• In the web view, the editing window is too narrow, and it's difficult for complex cases with many details (logs, etc.), so I would like to adjust the middle column size. See below:

• No ability to paste pictures from clipboard.
• Adding in-line comments is not easy.
• I would like them to add a button such as "Send email and mark case as pending customer info".
• No embedded management of out of office auto-replies.

I've used it for one year.

There were no issues with the deployment.

There have been no issues with the stability.

There have been no issues with scaling it.

8/10

8/10

The complexity of the setup was in-between. There was some complexity.

It was done mostly in-house.

You should use a vendor for best practices and to stay in the spirit of Salesforce, as opposed to distorting the product.

1. Pipeline management
2. Reporting and dashboard
3. Custom objects

A custom community helped us to build a T2 channel partner community, which has bidding and price approval features. It also improved our productivity compared to our competitors. It doesn't require too much coding.

In the marketing part, I want to see a more powerful campaign function with BI integration.

I've used it for eight years.

The governor limits are a headache sometimes. We have to either find a workaround or ask Salesforce to improve the limits.

7/10.

7/10.

It depends. If the business role, process, security rule are already there and quite complex, or volume of data need to be migrated are quite high, it will be complex. Lots of things need to be considered.

With the vendor. If you start from scratch, you'd better work with a vendor team. Then you can either develop your in-house expertise during the project implementation, or hire someone in marketing who has the skills.

Our users are satisfied with the product, and they spend less time on this tool, but create more opportunity and other data.

Have a discussion with a sales consultant from Salesforce and they will give you proposal regarding your requirement/company size, etc.

With the consideration of cost, platform extendability, and performance, Salesforce was finally chosen.

It is a quite a good product. If you are going to replace your existing on-premise CRM with a new cloud solution, don't hesitate to call them. But it has limitations as well. Work with a consulting partner, they will help you to boost your productivity.

• Case creation and tracking
• Workflow automation
• Notifications with templates
• Technician scheduling (using CalendarAnything)

All cases were tracked in Excel by individual service coordinators and, therefore, they were unable to share workload or centralize services. We used a custom program for technician scheduling that could not be easily expanded to multiple service branches, where only central office had this functionality. All communications (emails) were with individual service coordinators, resulting in inconsistent communications. Service Cloud changed all that.

There's an issue where creating a repetitive appointment creates two appointments on the first occurrence.

We've used it for more than a year.

We have no issues with deploying it.

We've had no stability issues.

We're able to scale it for our needs.

Customer service is excellent.

Technical support is excellent.

We considered purchasing an app for service management, so we evaluated Service Max and JBB Mobile. We did not proceed with either as our company is in the process of implementing SAP.

Setup was straightforward from a data standpoint since we were already using Salesforce Sales Cloud and, therefore, customers and products were already loaded into Salesforce. The main focus of this project was to define new service management processes and configure Salesforce to match the processes.

We used a certified Salesforce systems integrator. I highly recommend using a systems integrator for the initial implementation, ensuring there is sufficient knowledge transfer so that the internal team can support after Go Live.

Head count in service management was reduced, department moved into a profitable position, and we increased service business by 30%.

My advice would be to ensure that the business process owners fully understand and support the solution. Don’t let them skip design meetings, or they will question every decision that was made later in the process, causing rework of the configurations.

• Service Console
• Knowledge 1
• CTI Integration

It's increased our contact centre agent efficiency.

There is no control over the appearance of Visual Flow pages, giving the appearance of an amateur web application within the Salesforce interface.

It would also be good if there were a workforce management component to balance call distribution in a contact centre based on agent skills and experience.

I've been using it on and off for 12 years.

The solution is very stable.

It's very scalable. Being cloud-based, the application easily scales to high user and transaction counts.

Tech support is responsive, but they often suggest the solutions that one has already read by doing a Google search. I usually have to escalate to tier two to get the answer I need.

But to be fair, being a certified Salesforce consultant, my questions are usually more complex than a regular end user’s questions.

I migrated my tech support team off of BMC Remedy and have migrated many clients off of Siebel and other systems.

Salesforce is much more easily configured so it can change as your business processes change; it’s extremely scalable so it can grow as your business grows, and it’s API is extensive so you can integrate with back office systems in a relatively straightforward way.

It's straightforward. For a small- to medium-sized business, the system can usually be set up with no custom development. Enterprise organisations will usually require some code to be written along with data migration and data integration.

However, when I migrated my team from BMC Remedy to Salesforce, I did so with no previous training and was able to customize the system to my requirements using the declarative interface. I migrated the data myself using the salesforce Apex Data Loader, which is available for free.

I implemented it myself as described above. However, I would recommend using an integrator. They know the system really well and can ensure your system is implemented following best practices and taking advantage of all the latest features.

While my original implementation was satisfactory, it could have been much better. One example is, I lost all of my record creation dates from the legacy system because I didn’t know that Salesforce could make the Created By and Created Date fields editable when creating records as part of a migration.

My recommendation on pricing is: “negotiate”. The Salesforce account executives can be flexible on price at times so don’t be afraid to negotiate a better price. You may have to commit to a longer contract but you won’t regret it.

Also, if you’re going to do an implementation project, only purchase enough licenses for the implementation team and arrange to start paying for your other user licenses when you go live.

If you’re doing a three month implementation, there’s no need to pay the subscription fees for users who won’t log into the system until you go live.

Use a Salesforce partner and make sure their consultants are certified. Talk to three different firms, and don’t let price be the only driving factor. Rather, look at the firm that seems to best understand your requirements, has good answers on why particular parts of the implementation will cost what they’re proposing, and has a solid methodology that they can easily explain to you.

Simply choosing the least expensive option often costs more in the end with either delays, change requests or worst case, failure.