Salesforce is a popular CRM choice, offering comprehensive features designed to help businesses manage their interactions with customers and prospects. But is it the right CRM for your business? This review will delve into Salesforce’s features, pricing, strengths, weaknesses, and ideal use cases to help you make an informed decision.

Salesforce CRM Features

Salesforce offers a potentially overwhelming array of features, categorised into “Clouds” tailored to specific business needs:

• Sales Cloud: Automates sales processes, manages leads and opportunities, forecasts sales, and tracks sales performance.
• Service Cloud: Provides tools for customer support, including case management, knowledge bases, and live chat.
• Marketing Cloud: Enables marketers to create and manage email campaigns, social media marketing, and personalised customer journeys.
• Commerce Cloud: Facilitates online commerce, including product management, order processing, and customer engagement.
• Experience Cloud (formerly Community Cloud): Allows businesses to build online communities for customers, partners, and employees.
• Analytics Cloud: Provides powerful reporting and analytics tools to track key performance indicators (KPIs) and gain insights into customer behavior.

Beyond these core clouds, Salesforce offers a vast ecosystem of apps and integrations through its AppExchange marketplace, extending its functionality even further.

Let’s break down the key features you’ll find within Salesforce Sales Cloud. It’s designed to streamline and automate sales processes, helping your team close deals faster and more efficiently.

1. Lead Management

Lead Capture: Capture leads from various sources (website forms, events, etc.) and automatically route them to the right sales reps.
Lead Qualification: Score and prioritise leads based on their potential value.
Lead Conversion: Seamlessly convert qualified leads into opportunities.

2. Opportunity Management

Deal Tracking: Track the progress of deals through different sales stages.
Sales Forecasting: Forecast future revenue based on current opportunities.
Deal Collaboration: Enable sales teams to collaborate on deals.

3. Contact and Account Management

Centralised Contact Database: Store all customer information in one place.
Account Management: Manage information about your customer accounts, including their interactions and purchase history.
Relationship Tracking: Visualise relationships between contacts and accounts.

4. Workflow Automation

Automated Tasks: Automate repetitive tasks like sending follow-up emails.
Approval Processes: Streamline approval processes for quotes and deals.
Process Builder: Create custom workflows to automate complex sales processes.

5. Sales Collaboration

Chatter: A social collaboration tool within Salesforce that allows sales teams to communicate and share information.
File Sharing: Share sales documents and presentations with colleagues and customers.

6. Reporting & Analytics

Dashboards: Visualise key sales metrics and performance indicators.
Customisable Reports: Create custom reports to track specific sales activities.
Sales Forecasting: Generate accurate sales forecasts based on historical data and current opportunities.

7. Mobile Access

Salesforce Mobile App: Access and manage your sales data from anywhere with the Salesforce mobile app.

Advanced Sales Cloud Features (Often in Higher Editions)

Salesforce Einstein: Integrates AI into sales processes, offering insights and recommendations.
CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote): Automates the creation of complex quotes.
Territory Management: Assign sales reps to specific territories.
Gamification: Motivate sales teams with gamification features.

Read our analysis and comparison of the features of the top ten CRM platforms.

How Much Does Salesforce Cost? (And Is It Worth It?)

Salesforce’s pricing is subscription-based and varies significantly depending on the chosen edition and the number of users. They offer tiered pricing plans, with each tier unlocking more features and capabilities. While basic plans can start relatively affordably, costs can quickly escalate as you add more users and features. We recommend contacting Salesforce directly for a personalised quote, but have included approximate pricing for the Sales Cloud below.

Essentials: Starting at £20/user/month (limited to 10 users)
Professional: Starting at £60/user/month
Enterprise: Starting at £120/user/month
Unlimited: Starting at £240/user/month

Why Is It So Complicated?

Editions: Each “Cloud” has different editions (like those listed for Sales Cloud), each with more features.
Users: The number of users impacts the price per user, and sometimes there are minimum user requirements.
Features: Add-ons and specific features you choose will increase costs.
Customisation: Salesforce is highly customisable, but that often comes at a cost.

Salesforce can be a powerful tool, but it’s not always the best value for every business. For small businesses with basic CRM needs, the cost might be prohibitive. There are more affordable alternatives available. However, for larger businesses with complex sales processes, extensive customer support needs, and a desire for deep analytics, Salesforce’s robust features and scalability can justify the investment. The key is to carefully assess your specific requirements and choose the edition that aligns with your needs and budget. Don’t pay for features you won’t use.

Take a look at where Salesforce sits on our ranking of the most cost-effective CRMs.

Salesforce: Strengths and Weaknesses

To give you a clearer picture, here’s a quick rundown of Salesforce’s key strengths and weaknesses:

Strengths	Weaknesses
Comprehensive Feature Set: Offers a wide range of functionalities, including sales automation, marketing automation, customer service, analytics, and partner management. This breadth allows businesses to manage nearly all customer-facing operations within a single platform.	Complexity & Customisation: The sheer number of features and customisation options can be overwhelming for some users, especially smaller businesses with limited technical expertise. Implementation and ongoing maintenance can require significant effort and resources.
Cloud-Based & Accessible: Being cloud-based allows for easy access from anywhere with an internet connection. This enhances collaboration and flexibility for remote teams. Automatic updates ensure you’re always on the latest version.	Cost: Salesforce can be expensive, especially for larger organisations or those requiring extensive customisation. Pricing is tiered and can quickly escalate as you add users, features, and support levels. Hidden costs related to implementation, training, and ongoing support can also be significant.
Strong Ecosystem & Integrations: A vast network of partners, developers, and third-party applications allows for seamless integrations with other business tools. This extensibility enables businesses to tailor Salesforce to their specific needs.	Steep Learning Curve: The platform’s complexity often translates to a steep learning curve for users. Proper training and ongoing support are crucial for maximising its potential. Lack of user adoption can hinder ROI.
Scalability & Flexibility: Salesforce can scale to accommodate businesses of all sizes, from small start-ups to large enterprises. Its flexible architecture allows for customisation and adaptation to changing business requirements.	Performance Issues: While generally reliable, Salesforce can experience occasional performance issues, such as slow loading times or downtime. These can disrupt business operations and impact productivity.
Robust Security & Compliance: Salesforce invests heavily in security measures to protect customer data. It complies with various industry regulations and certifications, ensuring data privacy and security.	Customer Support: While Salesforce offers various support options, some users have reported challenges in getting timely and effective assistance, particularly with complex issues. The tiered support system can also be costly.
Powerful Reporting & Analytics: Provides comprehensive reporting and analytics tools to track key performance indicators, gain insights into customer behaviour, and make data-driven decisions. Dashboards and visualisations offer real-time insights.	Customisation Limitations: While highly customisable, there are limitations to how much you can truly customise the platform. Certain core functionalities cannot be altered, and complex customisations may require significant development effort.
AppExchange Marketplace: Offers a vast marketplace of pre-built apps and components that can extend the functionality of Salesforce and address specific business needs. This accelerates development and reduces the need for custom coding.	Vendor Lock-in: Implementing Salesforce can create a significant vendor lock-in. Migrating to another CRM platform can be complex and costly.

Our Analysis: What type of business is Salesforce best suited for?

Salesforce is best suited for businesses that:

• Have complex sales processes and require robust sales automation.
• Need a comprehensive CRM solution that integrates sales, service, and marketing.
• Require advanced reporting and analytics capabilities.
• Are experiencing rapid growth and need a scalable platform.
• Have the budget and resources to invest in training and implementation.

While Salesforce can be used by small businesses, it’s often a better fit for medium to large enterprises with significant customer interaction and a need for powerful CRM functionality. Smaller businesses might consider simpler, more affordable alternatives until their needs grow.

Conclusion

Salesforce is a powerful and versatile CRM platform that offers a wealth of features and capabilities. Its flexibility and scalability make it a popular choice for businesses of all sizes. However, its complexity and cost can be significant drawbacks.

Before investing in Salesforce, carefully evaluate your business needs and budget. If you require a comprehensive, customisable, and scalable CRM solution and are willing to invest the time and resources for implementation and training, Salesforce can be a valuable asset. However, if your needs are simpler, there are likely more affordable and easier-to-use alternatives available. A thorough trial and assessment of your specific requirements are crucial before committing to Salesforce.

Salesforce CRM Competitors

• HubSpot
• Zoho CRM
• ClickUp
• EngageBay
• Monday CRM
• Agile CRM
• Insightly
• Pipedrive
• Capsule

Check out our comparison of the best CRMs, and see where Salesforce sits in the top ten.