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CRM Software ReviewAbout this ReviewThank you for requesting this executive summary of ISM’scomprehensive CRM Software Review for Salesforce. Since1989, ISM staff has tested dozens of software packagesannually from CRM vendors around the world. Each review iscurrently based on 179 criteria, drawn from input we’vereceived from senior executives and sales, marketing andcustomer service personnel. ISM receives no money from anyvendor it reviews, to ensure 100% objectivity. Vendors mustfully demonstrate their functionality for each criterion.About ISMSince 1985, ISM has created & implemented strategies to delight the customers of best-inclass organizations worldwide. ISM provides solutions that maximize user-adoption, ensureseamless collaboration between customer-facing functions and enhance customerengagement. We combine strategic vision with powerful technologies and tools to deliveractionable strategies that lead to an optimized customer experience, improved customerservice, better-calibrated marketing programs and ultimately, to increased customeracquisition, retention & growth. Let us review your current customer-facing technologyprograms and activities, and ready your organization for 2030 and beyond.Contact us for the full, detailed 20-page CRM Software Reviewfor Salesforce or any of 30 other major CRM applications.David Badner301-656-8448dbadner@ismguide.com6900 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 505 Bethesda, MD 20815(301) 656.8448 contact@ismguide.com www.ismguide.com
CRM Software ReviewSalesforce at a Glance:Business FunctionsContact ManagementAccount ManagementSales ManagementTime ManagementCustomer Contact CenterCustomer ServiceTelemarketing/TelesalesMarketingLead ManagementBusiness Analyticse-BusinessProject ManagementERMField ServiceMobile CRMSocial CRM FunctionalityReal Time FeaturesUser Friendliness/SupportEvaluation of Business Functions LIMITEDStrengths:Contact managementTime managementLead managementCustomer serviceKnowledge managementBusiness analyticsSocial CRM functionalityMiller-Heiman Blue SheetsScreen configurationSearch engine marketingAppExchange platformGOODWeaknesses:Limited ERMLimited customer contact centerLimited field serviceLimited of e-BusinessLimited telemarketing/telesalesLimited marketingLack of expense reportingP age 1STRONG
CRM Software ReviewExecutive SummarySalesforce is a SaaS CRM solution CRM solution that has integrated functionality in sales, customer support(referred to as supportforce.com) and marketing automation including contact management, accountmanagement, sales management, time management, lead management, customer service, PRM, businessanalytics, real time features, mobile CRM, social CRM functionality and knowledge management.An offline edition of Salesforce enables traveling reps to access information while out of the office. The offlineedition is XML based and does not require users to have their Salesforce database on their laptop or othercomputer.Salesforce is targeted towards organizations that need a CRM solution but do not have the desire to purchaseand maintain the equipment and infrastructure necessary for a client/server CRM system. Although Salesforceis primarily a horizontal CRM application, many of their customers are in the technology, manufacturing andbusiness services vertical markets.Implementation of the Salesforce software is available from the Salesforce professional services group.Business specific and user-defined fields can be added and customized via the Custom Field Wizard of theTranslation Workbench feature. The S-controls feature provides the System Administrator with the ability tocreate and display custom data forms. Forms can be designed through drag and drop actions via the PageLayout Properties option. Workflow can be set via Workflow Rules (trigger criteria or actions), Workflow Tasks(task settings) and Workflow Alerts (Email settings) available in the Administrator module. Records can beimported from multiple sources in the CSV file format via the Import Wizard. Dynamic field mapping is availablevia the Map Contact Field and Map Account Field steps offered in the Import Wizard. Relationships betweenrecords must be established in MS-Excel.Salesforce has implemented its CRM application for companies in a variety of industries, such as technologyand business consulting services. The implementation period has ranged from 30 days to 90 days. Costs ofimplementation to costs for the software license are dependent on the implementation needs. For one globaldeployment of 425 users, the total cost of implementation was around 200K. The software license costs rangefrom 65 - 125 per user, depending on the Salesforce version chosen (Professional Edition or EnterpriseEdition). Volume discounts are available in software license costs.The Salesforce application is increasingly being used by business as a platform to integrate with other ondemand applications. Salesforce provides the AppExchange, an Internet platform and directory in whichSalesforce customers can select and add additional functionality (offered by Salesforce partners) to theirSalesforce application. Salesforce has over 400 certified AppExchange partners, who can integrate theirapplication with the Salesforce CRM application on the AppExchange Internet platform. The AppExchangeapplications include diverse packages for areas such as finance, electronic signatures, document management,project management, credit collections, mobile workforce management, data cleansing, human resource andmany others.Salesforce has led the Open Source Software movement by making its Apex language and developmentplatform to users of its on-demand applications. Apex is a Java-like programming language and environmentthat is used by Salesforce developers to create the company’s hosted CRM application. With Apex, customerswill be able to customize any component in their existing Salesforce implementation or build their own Apexcode and replace existing Salesforce features with ones more suitable to their needs. In addition, Apexcomponents and applications can be shared via Salesforce’s AppExchange platform directory. Salesforce alsooffers ApexConnect, an integration tool to connect on-demand applications to back-end systems.P age 2
CRM Software ReviewKey FunctionalityContact ManagementContact management is enhanced by the ability to display contact information in a variety of views as well asthe ability to configure the screen to display tabs such as cases, activities, opportunities, leads, attachments,and others. A hierarchy of contact relationships can be developed based on the role of the contact anddisplayed in an organization tree structure. Social networking features are available on the contact profile suchas relevant news items concerning the contact set via RSS configuration, along with the Connections tabdisplaying photos or links to other contacts with a strong relationship to a contact. Users can import contactinformation from other contact management software using the import capability. Salesforce has a partnershipwith Miller Heiman and offers the Miller Heiman Strategic Selling Blue Sheets as an option for accountmanagement. De-duplication of contacts and accounts is available.Opportunity ManagementOpportunity management is solid with many pre-defined fields such as opportunity owner, account, lead source,expected revenue, close date, next step, stage, probability, Blue Sheet and modified by. There are also anumber of available opportunity reports such as opportunity pipeline, opportunities by type, opportunity sources,and opportunity history report. The user can access product profiles with product information such as productprice and description. Time management functions are strong and comprehensive with the ability for the user toview month, day and week calendars and easily print the printable version of the calendar. Calendar eventsand tasks can be synchronized with MS-Outlook bi-directionally using the Intellisync product. Task lists can bedisplayed by time frames (e.g., today, tomorrow) and/or by status (e.g., overdue, next 7 days-overdue).Outbound Email can be sent directly from the task view.Incident AssignmentIncident assignment of cases within the customer service functions is good. Incidents (cases) can be assignedbased upon skill requirements, product category, customer type, service levels, geography or any other criteriaa company defines. At the time of assigning a case, an automatic notification can also be sent. Cases can beescalated based on the ‘age’ of the case and escalated cases are visually flagged with a red arrow. Users havethe ability to search the knowledge base for solutions to problems in the Solution Center and the ability to editand save new solutions to the knowledge base. Campaign management functionality such as campaignprofiles, campaign activity history, campaign-related opportunities and campaign-related documents can beaccessed via the Campaign tab.Lead ManagementLead management capabilities are strong with users having the ability to append/enhance lead data withinformation such as demographic, credit ratings, etc. using the import wizard. Salesforce has partnerships withHoovers, InfoUSA, and Moreover and can be used to obtain lead enhancement information. Once leads arequalified, a user can manually convert and assign the leads to a particular user, notify the owner, create a newaccount or opportunity and schedule follow-up tasks with due date, priority, and other parameters.P age 3
CRM Software ReviewFunctionality (cont’d)Partner Relationship ManagementPartner relationship management is enhanced with the ability to access a Partner portal with direct links to partnerrelated information. A partner recruitment dashboard provides displays of partner recruitment statistics, along withcharts for partner recruitment by region, by program and partner recruitment segmentation analysis. Ability to viewand edit reports related to the company/partner relationship such as Sales by Partner and Opportunity PartnerReport. Also, users have the ability to create custom reports related to partner activities and opportunities withoptions to hide details, view in a printable format and export directly to MS-Excel with a click of a button. As part ofthe knowledge management functions, users have the ability to track a document by when it was created, whocreated it, and what it is associated to, who owns it, and when it was last modified.Business AnalyticsBusiness analytics capabilities are strong with reporting capability being the primary strength. Users can easilyconfigure reports using the reporting tool which steps a user through the intuitive process of selectingrows/columns, sort order, etc. Tabular reports can be exported directly to MS-Excel by selecting the "export toExcel" button in the display of every report. There are a number of opportunities and forecast related reportsincluding details of downgraded forecast, quarterly forecast summary, and forecast history report. Theconfiguration of screen elements is very comprehensive.Social CRMSalesforce offers strong Social CRM functionality. Users can access a Community Forum tab, which offers usersthe ability to post comments on certain topics. Other Salesforce users can use this Forum to view and comment onvarious topics. There is also a Blog Editor function in which users can enter Blog entries to appear on externalWebsites. Additionally, users can access the Salesforce Chatter, a platform designed to provide similarcollaboration capabilities for users within an organization to that of Facebook and Twitter. Users of Chatter cancreate and access profiles, status updates, content/file sharing and real-time feeds from other Chatter users in theorganization, along with setting up meetings with other members of an organization and setting up groups. Activityfeeds and microblogs pertaining to specific topics are available in the Chatter tab of an opportunity and variousgroups created within the Salesforce application.Salesforce has built-in links to Facebook, Twitter and Bebo in which relevant information on certain contacts willappear on a contact, account or opportunity profile if desired. Mashups and Widgets from external Websites canbe customized via Apex scripting. In addition, users can tag records for future searches. For example, if a userwants to view tagged Case Studies, the user can click on the Case Studies tag to access all accounts tagged as acase study. Salesforce can be integrated with the Social Studio module and users can access a Social Mediadashboard, set up the monitoring of external Social Websites and set up rules for Social Media post routing.LimitationsSalesforce’s pre-built functionality is limited in the areas of customer contact center, field service,telemarketing/telesales, project management, e-Business, ERM and marketing. The vendor claims that theseareas can be readily configured using the existing functionality.P age 4
CRM Software ReviewContactCOMPANYCONTACTTOLL FREEPHONEFAXSalesforce.comADDRESSThe Landmark@One Market StreetSan Francisco, CA 94105John Taschek(800) NO-SOFTWARE(415) www.Salesforce.com(415) 901-7090Company ProfilePRICE – MULTI-USERSERVERYEARS IN BUSINESSNUMBER OF EMPLOYEESLICENSED SEAT/USERSSOLD – LAST 12 MONTHS16TOTAL NUMBER OFCUSTOMERSLANGUAGES AVAILABLE55,400 companiesLIST OF RESELLERSNo resellers. Salesforce sells directly to the customer12,000 N/A90,000English (localized versions), Swedish, German, Japanese, Spanish,Italian, French, Korean, Traditional and Simplified ChinesePricingENTERPRISE EDITIONPROFESSIONAL EDITIONSee Pricing Section 125/user/month 65/user/monthP age 5
The Salesforce application is increasingly being used by business as a platform to integrate with other on-demand applications. Salesforce provides the AppExchange, an Internet platform and directory in which Salesforce customers can select and add additional functionality (offered by Salesforce partners) to their Salesforce application.
