Salesforce CRM

Pros:

• A searchable/sortable database which provides a wealth of behavioral data when integrated with marketing automation.

• Visibility at the systemic and the individual level.

• The ability to create our own information architecture that assigns value/priority/process to each prospect.

• A great deal of customization is possible: data you collect, behaviors tracked, integrations with other systems.

Cons:

At IdeaScale, we often want information external to append to our Salesforce info which our time doesn't have the time to research, but would help our automation. Some solutions will work for you out there, but they are either time consuming or expensive. Once Salesforce productizes this, it would make a huge difference regarding time saved in outreach. There is still enough value that it is at the center of what we do.

Overall Experience:

Salesforce is the tool that is most central to our business - almost all of us from marketing to sales to accounts to accounting use it every day throughout the day and we couldn't do our jobs without it. And it has made some of our jobs easier. We've also integrated into our technology environment so that certain activities post to Slack, certain reports are automated and it works with our SaaS Optics tech, as well.

The platform has helped me build my niche at two companies, one of them being - VirtualHealth. It has earned me respect because of how much use I get from the platform.

Pros:

Salesforce is intuitive, expandable with automation and with custom code, and has an entire ecosystem of support ranging from other users, an online interactive tutorial platform, and great support by calling them. If you can't do something you'd like to do in Salesforce, you can just build it out with an easy-to-learn coding language, Apex. Also, the number of integrations that exist mean that the platform always has an app or product on the market that likely fills any existing niche gaps.

Cons:

It's expensive, and there's no doubt about that, but you get a product worth the cost. They also nickel and dime you for different pieces, but considering if you just got everything, you'd be paying a lot more and wouldn't be gaining nearly as much that you could use in proportion, I think the cost is still the best pricing structure they could give.