We have always tried to record all kinds of information, sometimes to immortalize it, other times to show it, but most importantly, to not forget this information.
Let’s start with the main question – what is CRM? Its software, named after the acronym derived from customer relationship management, helps companies manage customer interactions. Every business needs a database where it can record the data of its contractors and their history, transactions, and price lists. This used to be recorded in notebooks and notepads, later in Excel spreadsheets (some companies still use them as their main customer database), and now, one of the leading CRMs in the world is Salesforce.
Is Salesforce like a crystal ball that will boost sales, and phone calls and emails will make themselves? No! (Although emails can be sent automatically.) But thanks to CRM, businesses will be able to do the following significantly:
- Serve the customer better: Automation will do all the necessary tasks for us, remind us of a forgotten customer, and free employees from repetitive actions that always take up precious time and divert attention from the key elements of the business – such as relationships.
- Understand the customer better: The system enables understanding and anticipating the needs of customers, generating sales trends, and most importantly, taking care of them and the business’s relationship with them.
- Increase customer engagement: With tools that allow tracking of customers and their interactions with the business, personalizing content directed to them, and knowing their preferences and tastes, businesses are able to get to know their customers. Consequently, businesses can direct and adjust their business strategies to the style of their customers.
- Achieve better sales results: As we have already pointed out, Salesforce is not a crystal ball predicting the future, but if we know our customers, then those customers know us and our product. And that is already another step toward achieving excellent sales results.
“Well, give me a CD with this system and let’s install it,” some customers might say. But Salesforce is not software that we install on a server or local disk; it is a cloud solution. Thanks to this, everyone can have access to their data.
Salespeople can check their customers during business trips, the marketing team can check the results of their campaign during an event, and the service technicians can make necessary notes from anywhere in the world. The system is a multi-layered ecosystem that is scalable and meets the needs of the customer. What does this mean? This means that customers who want to use sales support elements do not have to purchase the entire solution along with marketing and service desk support.
The available system functions are included in individual licenses. Purchasing a Salesforce license is a subscription model. The customer purchases a specific type of license that offers a certain range of functionality for a period of 12 months.
The prices of the license at the time of writing for the Sales Cloud range from $25 to $300.
Salesforce servers are located in many parts of the world such as the United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Australia.
Is customer data safe? Of course; Salesforce is certified for compliance with many security standards, including ISO 27001, SOC 2, and FedRAMP.