Salesforce Service Cloud Reviews

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.