Are you considering using Salesforce CRM, but have no idea, where to start? We have prepared the below Frequently Asked Questions for you to explore.
What is Salesforce CRM?
Salesforce is a platform that offers solutions for managing customer relationships, designed to facilitate and optimize business processes in organizations. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is a system which stores all information relating to your customers in one place. It also archives the history of your relationships with customers to simplify and streamline your daily activities. The Salesforce platform helps facilitate the processes of selling products, services, marketing, analysing the data, and building strong and lasting relationships with your customers.
Salesforce acts as a link, where all important data and details of your customers and partners are securely kept on the most high-tech web cloud. It offers easy and secure access to the data from anywhere and on any device – all you need is to have access to the Internet.
As shown in the Salesforce report:
“In 2008, only 12% of the companies used CRM systems based on the cloud technology. Nowadays, this figure has reached 87%”.
“74% of the companies using a CRM system confirm that the availability of the essential information about their customers has significantly improved”.
What are the advantages of implementing a CRM system in your organization?
The implementation of the CRM system will allow you to:
- Keep all important information in one place
- Avoid losing important data
- Integrate with the tools and applications you use daily
- Keep the company records in order
- Ensure quality and efficiency of the system performance
- Automate your operations
- Delegate tasks
- Be mobile and work from anywhere, with access to important information
- Adapt the business to satisfy the needs of your employees, customers, and all processes within your organization.
Basic functions of Salesforce
Salesforce is a real-time data platform and a CRM system. Quick access to the data relating to all interactions with customers provides a new level of quality in terms of sales, customer service, marketing, and commerce. This new platform is based on the concept of harmonising customer data in order to create a central source of knowledge about the history of the customer relationship with the organization as well as the identified needs and preferences.
With Salesforce CRM you will:
- Win your customers with the help of digital marketing
- Sell more effectively – from anywhere in the world
- Launch e-commerce that satisfies the needs of your customers and boosts its growth
- Ensure excellent customer service
- Use digital technology to enhance the performance of your team
- Build good and lasting relationships with your customers
- The most important: you can grow your business from anywhere!
Salesforce – out-of-box solution
Salesforce’s package of services and functionalities supports the basic needs of most companies from various industries. But this is just the beginning! The platform is very flexible and allows you to customize the tools to fulfil the requirements of your customers, partners, employees, and above all: your business!
Salesforce was the first company to launch CRM in the cloud environment. The technology provides access to all information about customers from any device. No matter where you are, you will be able to access all the necessary data 24/7.
Over 150 thousand companies have trusted salesforce worldwide! The largest CRM provider puts great emphasis on developing its technology. Three upgrades annually guarantee that their solutions will satisfy your current needs. All processes take place in a secure cloud environment and don’t require installation. The provider focuses on the data security to ensure the compliance with all safety standards.
Moreover, in each Salesforce package you will get a mobile app to enable you to work from anywhere and on any device.
How to use Salesforce CRM? Out-of-box functions
There has been a lot of discussion about adapting CRM systems to the individual needs of businesses. Customizations are important and necessary, as they make the system tailored to your needs. The largest provider of CRM services worldwide has been continuously researching the market, offering ready-made solutions which can be accessed immediately once you have purchased a license. In general, the majority of these solutions fulfil the expectations of most companies.
The following are some of the basic functions commonly used by most companies after implementing the CRM.
Selling to potential and existing customers
Whether you sell products or provide services, the goal of every company is to make profit. Sale is the main driving force of the business. In the set of standard functionalities, Salesforce offers tools for managing sales. Let’s take a close look at two common functionalities that will help you manage your sales: Leads and Opportunities. They are the most popular tools used by the sales teams in most companies.
After-sales service
The importance of the work done by the customer service teams cannot be stressed enough. They are on the front line, fighting for customer loyalty. After-sales service and other forms of customer service are one of the key elements in running a business. How many times have you resigned from using a company, because they couldn’t understand your needs? Salesforce provides ready-to-use solutions for companies that want to improve the performance of their customer service teams. Moreover, it offers tools for increasing customer engagement! As above, let’s focus on two functions which are available right away after purchasing the license – Case and Community. The Case object allows you to store customer requests in one place and manage them effectively. The Case function helps monitor the workflow of processing requests. It is a powerful tool that enables you to manage and plan the work of you customer service teams.
Community Cloud is a tool designed to build communities around the company. It allows you to create communities consisting of suppliers, retailers, or potential employees. The platform supports external communication with the company.
Mobile office
The Salesforce Mobile App is available with any Salesforce license. It gives you access to all data stored in your CRM system, without needing to visit your office. Many people working as sales representatives or real estate agents seldom work from the office. They are usually busy with getting from one meeting to another. Equipping your employees with a mobile office will help improve their sales targets.
Internal communications
Chatter is another tool which you can use straight away after purchasing the license. It facilitates the internal communications within the organization. Chatter also helps simplify work processes, allowing the employees to work together on the common task and discuss specific cases. The history of chats can be accessed by all employees who have access to this information.
Marketing
Starting with the tools for sending bulk e-mails with personalized content, through creating marketing campaigns and reports, to Marketing Cloud. Campaigns are a standard object in Salesforce, the same as Reports. Marketing Cloud is an extension that will help take your marketing team to another level! As you can see, in this overview of the basic functions of Salesforce, which are available right away after purchasing the license, we have touched on many aspects of the business operations. And this is just the beginning! Imagine, what you will be able to achieve when you tailor the available tools to your own, unique needs! Ready-to-use extensions for the standard products will support your daily activities. By adding various automation options, you will save time so you that you can focus on the important tasks. Salesforce CRM is a comprehensive set of tools for managing the business.
Now you know what Salesforce CRM is, but who is it for?
In summary, Salesforce is the all-purpose platform to support all teams in your company. The ability to customize standard functions and build your own, dedicated non-standard functionalities makes Salesforce a flexible tool that can be used for a wide range of purposes. Customers who choose Salesforce CRM, represent various industries. In practice, it can be used in any large or medium-sized enterprise. Would you like to find out how Salesforce could work in your company? Call us to arrange a free demo, and we will present the advantages of this solution.
