A Power Users Review of Salesforce.Com

Having been involved in the evolution of computer based Customer Relationship Management tools for more than 20 years I found that salesforce.com offers an excellent solution for companies seeking a fully functional data management system.

My experience began many years ago when I developed my own crude CRM using dBase II. It was a sequential database, and rudimentary but it was functional and far better than calendars and index card files.

Since then I have had extensive experience with the mainstream off the shelf CRM applications. TeleMagic, ACT, GoldMine, and others. Each had it's pro's and con's but were effective to a certain extent. The biggest complaint I had with any of these other applications was supporting them internally.

Since salesforce.com is a hosted service there is no longer a need to complain.

The Advantages of Hosted CRM

Anyone who has installed and customized CRM applications will tell you that it is confusing, time consuming and difficult at best. And that's just for a single user. If you are making a decision for an enterprise wide application the problems multiply.

The biggest challenge I faced when configuring a CRM for the whole sales team was synchronizing the primary data base with the local hard drives of my users. Initial synch was a brute and maintaining a reliable synch program was almost impossible.

Another problem that is an extension of the synch process is developing the discipline of your users to synch periodically let alone frequently. I heard every lame excuse in the book from sales people on why synching was a problem.

Effective synchronization from a remote location requires an additional piece of technology that requires support. An effective Virtual Private Network connection is not necessary but it is certainly desirable to effectively support the synch process.

I can't recall the number of times I was working from home or on the road and was unable to access my current data because the VPN was down or the home server was down.

Salesforce.com eliminates all these issues. Within 10 minutes of activating an account I had my five users registered, logged on, and importing data. The initialization process was simple and intuitive. Importing my initial data set was probably the easiest experience I had with that essential process.

All that is required to access data is an internet connection. Road warriors and other remote users will find this feature easy to use. There is no additional step of logging onto a VPN.

Managers and staff are able to collaborate on account information and make updates in real time. If I want to set an appointment and invite my manager it will appear on his screen immediately. There is never a concern that someone didn't synch or was unable to for technical reasons.

Data Security

Many companies take the short sighted view of infrastructure cost. They should consider the cost of acquiring, identifying and validating the data in their CRM. Losing two years worth of updates can run into millions of dollars in wasted efforts

Salesforce.com guarantees the integrity of your data storage. You never worry about back up or disaster recovery.

One of the biggest problems with locally run applications is hardware failure.

A server failure without backup is catastrophic but even a fully recovered server failure is inconvenient at best and could cause real revenue loss.

What's worse is a failure of a local user's device. A catastrophic failure of a laptop means time lost in reconfiguring a new device and synching the data. A repairable failure of a laptop is really a hassle. If my laptop is down for two weeks for repair how do I access my CRM data? Does the company reconfigure and synch a temporary device and then reconfigure my primary device when I get it back? What a waste of resources.

With salesforce.com just hop on any device with internet access and you are back in full business.

Scalability

Salesforce.com offers tremendous scalability from individual users to massive enterprise solutions. I have experienced both ends of the spectrum having used salesforce.com in a five user basic configuration to part of a 12,000 user implementation.

For the average small business enterprise the scalability of salesforce.com is a powerful tool. When supporting your own application expanding your user base means purchasing additional licenses, adding users to the system, setting up their individual security and rights, and establishing their synch cycle.

With salesforce.com all of this is done for you in a matter of moments. When additional seats are required just pay the fee and in seconds your new users are up and running.

Customization

Believe it or not I found salesforce.com to be far more flexible than in house applications. Most of the screens are customizable to suit a user's preference and the available reports can be changed to meet any data output requirements the average enterprise could ever want.

If you need more than the standard suite offers you can obtain developer kits or pay salesforce.com to customize the application for you.

I've been a user on massive customized salesforce.com suites that incorporated custom software like proprietary quote building and order management software.

On going customer relationship data and functionality can also be built into the system. Once you close your deal salesforce.com can help implement delivery, installation and service.

Collaboration

Salesforce.com has incredible team collaboration functionality. Any user has the ability to assign tasks, send invitations and share account data with any other user registered on the application.

This functionality is vital to team selling strategies. When you are coordinating management resources, systems engineers and applications specialists it is a big advantage to have everyone quite literally on the same page at the same time.

Central File Repository

One of the features that I enjoy most is the ability to attach files related to a specific account, contact or opportunity directly to that specific record.

I don't maintain a single slice of paper at my desk other than business cards. When I generate a proposal for an opportunity I simply attach the file to the opportunity and salesforce.com stores it out in the cloud.

The same goes for signed contracts or other source documents like service records or correspondence from other collaborators or customers. I just scan them and attach them to the appropriate record.

This feature gives me immediate access to critical documents from any location at any time. The bonus is that these documents are now fully backed up as they aren't stored locally. If any document is super critical I will keep it on my local hard drive as well as sending it to salesforce.com.

What I don't like

There really isn't much I don't like about salesforce.com but in order to be fair I thought I'd scrape something together.

The reports can get kind of crazy and I don't particularly care for the way they print out. While they are fully customizable they tend to provide more information rather than less so a report can get fairly cluttered.

The good news is you can export the reports directly to an Excel file and clean it up rather quickly.

There is also a "View" feature that is quickly customized for snap shot reports that works like a charm. So, no, there really isn't much I don't like about salesforce.com.

If you are looking for a quality CRM and have a staff of five to 50,000 salesforce.com is a solid solution. I've made a lot of money utilizing salesforce.com, if I had it 20 years ago I'd probably be retired by now.