Salesforce CRM
(The Definitive Review and Ratings 2019)

Salesforce endorses quick start-ups and does not require any hardware for users to begin using it. No download and installation needed either, yay!!.  After the initial set up and customizations, you can immediately begin to start running your business.  Your access to real-time sales data will help you to be more efficient with a much lesser response time when dealing with your customers.

In this section, we will look at how to navigate around Salesforce together with what help and support are available.

Are you ready? Good, then let’s dive straight in…

You don’t have to be a tech guru to manage the automation of your businesses.  Salesforce has a super useful user-friendly navigation bar that makes it extremely easy to find your way around…you don’t have to waste time locating folders and tabs for specific aspects of the business.  There are specific tabs for the Home, Leads, Accounts, Campaigns, Contacts, Forecast Files, and Opportunities.

You don’t even have to spend time training your staff how to use it because the UI is very intuitive in nature!!

Because Salesforce is able to track everything for you, managing a business is made simpler and stress-free. It tracks the completed tasks, any calls made, or emails sent together with the status of the sales.  

But how easy is to use?

Well, what needs to be considered is how much time are you prepared to spend learning a new CRM before you make the decision to purchase it. 

Generally, medium to large size companies that do have sufficient in-house tech support usually describes Salesforces CRM as being nice and easy to use.  They do outline the long implementation process – which is to be expected when dealing with such a highly customizable and sophisticated system.  The learning curve, however, can get a little steep when it comes down to users understanding how the CRM actually works.

This general assessment does mirror some of the aspects that I experienced when using Salesforce.  I mean, was impressed with the intuitive design that it offered, geotherm with its clean layout of tabs and menus. 

But, it must be remembered, that a reviewer, I suppose you could say that my knowledge of CRM systems is above average, so in order to get a better overall view of how easy it really was to use, it was important to look at responses from a wide range of sources. 

As a result of my research, what was noted was that small organizations (who weren’t very ‘techie’ did report that Salesforce was both confusing and difficult to use and implement.  They described their frustration in trying to figure out how to set up basic user permissions as well as manage the admin of the implementation process.  Many had to eventually resort to Salesforces support services – which were both costly and time-consuming.

Setting up and the user experience…

To begin with, Salesforce does offer a 30-day trial – which I think should be the industry standard.  I always think that it’s great when companies allow you the time to make your way through all the different phases of their software before you commit yourself.

Once you have signed up for the free trial, a prompt will display asking what your specific role is within the organization, for example, company owner, sales representative, sales manager, information-technology professional, etc. What this does, helps Salesforce to customize the product tour to you and only show relevant features.

On the left side of the screen, you will see a tray marked ‘Walkthrough,’ this will list tasks that you need to perform, such as creating a bespoke dashboard, managing your pipeline and integrating with other apps.   

If you click on the ‘getting started’ tab which is located on the top of the screen, this will direct you to a video tutorial with which includes a PDF of the user guide.