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CRM Reviews : SalesForce CRM Review

SalesForce, the leading web based CRM software company is synonymous to Software as a Service. This customer relationship management vendor stands at the cradle of online business solutions and is mainly known for its sales force automation solution. In this CRM reviews article, we will check how strong SalesForce is going in the highly competitive SaaS market which, according to recent analyst reports, is demonstrating strong market potential.

Company

SalesForce.com, with more than one million subscribers, stays at the top of the software as a service market. It is gaining subscribers faster than its competitors such as RightNow and NetSuite. However, it will be interesting to watch the evolution of the business software giants such as Oracle, Microsoft and SAP, who are ramping up their CRM On Demand offerings.

Especially because those leaders of on premise software have a proven track record of selling to large corporate clients, a market which SalesForce is targeting fiercely. SalesForce.com has been particularly successful in serving the small or mid size businesses (SMB), its initial target market. The sales cycles with large corporate clients are typically a lot longer and are more intensive from a presales perspective. However, recent success stories with large-scale online CRM software implementations demonstrate that SalesForce is successfully executing its strategy.

Products and Services

The largest part of SalesForce’s business comes from their web based Sales Force Automation solution (SFA) which comprises account, contact, opportunity and activity management. Additional modules from this CRM capability are forecasting, contract and renewal management, product catalog, revenue schedule management, account and opportunity team selling, client lifecycle management and territory management. The SFA solution also contains a document management solution, workflow capabilities (including support for approval steps) and analytic snapshots.

The other online CRM software capabilities are Partner Relationship Management, Marketing Automation, Customer Service and Support, Content Management, Innovation Management and Real-Time and Historical Analytics.

The extensive Marketing Automation solution contains modules such as Web site lead capturing and tracking (integration with the Google Adwords advertizing platform), Lead Management, Email marketing, Campaign Management and List Management. SalesForce’s Customer Service and Support solution supports the following processes: Case Management, Case Queues and Auto-assignment, Advanced case escalation and notification, Knowledge Base and Suggested Solutions, Call Center, Asset Management and a Customer Portal.

Finally, the product also offers ways to access the CRM capabilities from the desktop and mobile platforms. It allows integration with Outlook, Office and Lotus Notes. Be advised however that Mobile Access requires additional licenses (except for Unlimited Edition subscribers).

In addition to the core solutions of the web based CRM software platform, a whole range of third party applications are offered through the Appexchange on demand market place. This ecosystem of third-party developers is actively supported by SalesForce that is fully grasping the importance of a strong ecosystem for the continues success of its web based SaaS platform. We also observe a stronger support from the top tier professional services firms such as Accenture who will undoubtedly spur the adoption of the SalesForce SaaS solution at corporate customers.

The standard web CRM software already offers some degree of configuration and customization (e.g. adding additional user fields to the data model). Customers who desire to customize their standard web based  solution even further can do so on the so called Force.com platform. This technology platform offers a design time and run time for building service enabled business applications that can integrate with the standard CRM solution from Salesforce. The platform supports model-driven development (rapid application development) as well as code-driven development. Customers should be advised however that this platform is proprietary

Support

SalesForce offers 4 levels of customer support: standard, silver, gold and platinum. The standard level offers support 5 days per week and 12 hours per day with a response time of of two days. The other levels are priced up to $25 and provide 24/7 support, faster response times (4 hours), and dedicated administrator and engineering support (depending on the level).

The company has a professional services unit which can be called upon to support online CRM deployments. As was discussed earlier, some Tier 1 IT consultancy firms such as Accenture and Deloitte are stepping up their service offerings related to SalesForce implementations. Finally, customers can also turn to specialized integrators such as Astadia, Bluewolf and Saaspoint which are focused on Salesforce.com implementations.

Pricing

The Salesforce pricing model for its web based CRM software features 4 license types: Group Edition, Professional Edition, Enterprise Edition and Unlimited Edition, priced at resp. $99, $780, $1500 and $3000 per user/year. The main differentiators between the licenses are the number of users, features (both functional and technical) and access to administration and development resources. A detailed datasheet comparing the different editions is available at Salesforce’s web site.

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