Every small or emerging business faces the challenge of trying to scale and gain market share without the resources available to larger corporations. So what makes Salesforce a good investment, and how can those small businesses with limited budgets make the most of everything that it offers?
What is Salesforce?
Salesforce is the world’s number one CRM (customer relationship management) platform. In a nutshell, it brings companies closer to their customers, helping your marketing, sales, service and IT teams work as one from anywhere. With a number of different products and features, Salesforce enables automation, data analysis, customer insights, system integration, and more.
Is Salesforce Affordable for Small Businesses?
Salesforce’s flexible pricing structure makes it accessible to virtually any size business in any sector. Salesforce specifically offers a small business edition, with pricing starting from as little as USD$25/month per user.
Is Salesforce Difficult to Learn?
Salesforce is extensive, but on the whole it is not difficult to learn. However, it does require training; without this the platform can seem daunting. Short of the actual implementation of Salesforce, training sessions are probably the single most important thing you can do, greatly reducing adoption time and the learning curve.
What Coding Requirements Does Salesforce Need?
While Salesforce uses its own coding language, you don’t need to have any prior knowledge of code to use the Salesforce platform. Many requirements can be achieved using built-in declarative tools.
Although it is not essential, if you are interested in learning more about Apex (the coding language used), Salesforce makes this as easy as possible by providing study guides and lessons.
The Benefits of Salesforce for Small Businesses
Over and above the affordability and ease of use of Salesforce, it offers small business numerous benefits, including:
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Unlimited Scalability
No matter how quickly or extensively your company grows, Salesforce will be able to keep up. By implementing Salesforce early on, you future-proof your business against outgrowing the systems you use.
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Personalised Integration
Salesforce’s ability to integrate with third-party apps and software makes it easy to implement. Build smoother, quicker interactions with your customers by automating the processes that you can, and giving your teams the tools they need to offer the best service possible.
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Cloud-Based, Mobile-Friendly Software
Being cloud-based, Salesforce does not require any costly server capabilities for implementation. Added to this, the Salesforce app enables anyone to work from anywhere using a phone or tablet – a game-changer for those employees that work from the field.
Salesforce Products
Salesforce has a number of different products (or clouds) used for different functions. A snapshot of six of the major Salesforce clouds are:
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Sales Cloud is a cloud-based application designed to help your salespeople sell smarter and faster by centralising customer information, logging their interactions with your company, and automating many of the tasks salespeople do every day.
Salesforce Service Cloud
Service Cloud enables users to automate service processes, streamline workflows and find key articles, topics and experts to support customer service agents.
Salesforce Experience Cloud
The Experience Cloud platform (which used to be known as Salesforce Community Cloud) allows businesses to connect employees, customers and external stakeholders. The interaction and collaboration this builds, serves to enhance the customer experience and increase networking capabilities.
Salesforce Health Cloud
Health Cloud looks to revolutionise the way healthcare businesses run. Forge stronger patient relationships, enhance the quality of care available, and empower your healthcare professionals by giving them the tools needed to offer and maintain excellent service.
Salesforce Field Service Lightning
For employees on the go, Field Service Lightning is the perfect on-site solution. Seamlessly uniting all moving parts, Field Service Lightning makes it a breeze to manage a schedule, communicate across departments, and consistently deliver effective, efficient service.
Pardot
Now known as Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, this Salesforce cloud enables B2B marketers to deliver on leads, improve existing conversion rates, and automate much of their sales and marketing processes.
Getting the Most Out of Salesforce
If you’d like to implement Salesforce, but have any questions, concerns or hesitations, consider partnering with a Salesforce consultant. At Purus, we are dedicated to helping you get the most out of Salesforce for your business needs.
Our Salesforce consulting services include:
To find out more about Salesforce, reach out to a Purus Salesforce consultant today. Get in Touch.