In-Depth CRM Review

  Salesforce.com

 Salesforce.com
 The Landmark @ One Market Street
 San Francisco, CA 94105

 

 

About the Company:

Salesforce.com is the worldwide leader in on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) services. More companies trust their vital customer and sales data to salesforce.com than any other on-demand CRM company in the world.

Why? Perhaps it's because we deliver integrated, completely customizable enterprise applications for companies of all sizes. Or maybe it's because Salesforce CRM is so easy to learn and use, and thanks to the power of the on-demand Force.com platform, it can be up and running in weeks or days—not the months or years required by traditional client/server CRM software. Or it could be the unprecedented speed with which our customers see real, tangible ROI. Or maybe it's because of our 100-percent dedication to the success of our customers.

In fact, thousands of companies worldwide depend on Salesforce CRM to manage their sales, marketing, customer service, and other critical business functions. We are proud to be contributing to the success of companies of all sizes, in all industries, around the globe including:

• Corporate Express
• Daiwa Securities
• Egencia, an Expedia Inc. Company
• Dow Jones Newswires
• SunTrust Banks
• Kaiser Permanente

Salesforce.com was founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff, who pioneered the concept of delivering enterprise applications via a simple Web site. Salesforce.com is constantly building on that legacy by improving and expanding our award-winning suite of on-demand applications, our Force.com platform for extending Salesforce CRM, and our one-of-a-kind Force.com AppExchange directory of on-demand applications.

The growing list of global business partners dedicated to providing complementary products and services to salesforce.com customers includes Cisco, Accenture, Deloitte, and dozens more.

Salesforce.com is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol: CRM.  

About the Product:

To steer your company through these turbulent times, it's more important than ever to be on top of every lead, every opportunity, and every customer interaction. Without a big up-front software investment that's expensive to install and maintain.

With Salesforce CRM and our cloud computing model, you can mind your customers and your budget at the same time.

Get up and running in 30 days with the world's most proven and loved customer relationship management solution. With our pay-as-you-go model, the price of success is dramatically lower. And say goodbye to complexity, too: Salesforce.com handles the heavy lifting of maintenance and upgrades.

See what 55,400 companies have already discovered.

Comprehensive On-Demand Business Software as a Service

Sales

Salesforce CRM SFA enables companies to drive sales productivity, increase visibility, and expand revenues with an affordable, easy-to-deploy service that delivers success to companies of all sizes.

Service & Support

The Salesforce solution for customer service gets companies up and running in a matter of weeks with a call center application that is loved by agents and a customer self-service application— powered by Web 2.0—that generates new levels of customer loyalty.

Partner Relationship Management

Salesforce CRM Partner Networks makes it easy for partners to access leads, collaborate on deals, and locate all the information they need in order to be successful. The Salesforce CRM Partner Networks is seamlessly integrated with Salesforce CRM SFA to deliver unparalleled visibility to your company's entire sales pipeline for direct and indirect channels.

Marketing

Salesforce CRM Marketing enables closed-loop marketing to execute, manage, and analyze the results of multichannel campaigns. Marketing executives can measure the ROI of their budgets, tie revenue back to specific marketing programs, and make adjustments in real time.

Content

Salesforce CRM Content brings Web 2.0 usability to your business content so you can share it more effectively and enhance collaboration within your organization. Empower employees to find the exact documents they need, right from the business applications they use on a daily basis.

Ideas

Salesforce CRM Ideas makes it easy to unleash the power of community and create a dynamic dialogue with your customers, partners, and employees. With Salesforce CRM Ideas, you are clicks away from creating an online community where members can post, discuss and vote on ideas. The best ideas bubble up to the top, helping you prioritize and manage feedback in a scalable manner and instilling a sense of co-ownership with your most passionate evangelists.

Analytics

Force.com Analytics empowers business users at every level to gain relevant insight and analysis. With real-time reporting, calculations, and dashboards, businesses can optimize performance, decision making, and resource allocation.

Custom Applications

Build enterprise-class applications on salesforce.com's powerful on-demand platform. Deliver all your company's business applications in a single environment with one data model, one sharing model, and one user interface.

Industry Applications

Meet all of your industry-specific needs with salesforce.com's award-winning CRM, a broad variety of on-demand apps from the AppExchange, and the Force.com. Our industry applications are built on the successes of hundreds of companies in your industry. And because no two companies are exactly alike, all industry apps are fully and easily customizable.

• Financial Services
• High Tech
• Media & Communications
• Public Sector

AppExchange Applications

The AppExchange is your one-stop marketplace for on-demand business applications. The AppExchange makes it easy to find, sample, and select from hundreds of apps for your business, all preintegrated with Salesforce.

Salesforce CRM Editions

Salesforce CRM Unlimited Edition

Salesforce CRM Unlimited Edition is the most powerful solution for maximizing CRM success and going well beyond to manage all your business functions as a service. Unlimited Edition boasts the most advanced customization capabilities, full development control for building custom applications, no limits on downloads from the Force.com AppExchange, premier support services, mobile access to Salesforce CRM, and more.

Salesforce CRM Enterprise Edition

Salesforce CRM Enterprise Edition includes the advanced customization, integration, logic, and workflow capabilities required to meet the unique needs of complex organizations. In addition to more advanced application and platform features, Enterprise Edition provides more power to extend your success beyond CRM with solutions from the Force.com AppExchange marketplace plus the ability to develop custom applications that run on Salesforce CRM.

Salesforce CRM Professional Edition

Complete CRM for Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service
Salesforce CRM Professional Edition gives you a complete view of your customers with industry-leading applications for core CRM functions. With more advanced sales and marketing features and added customer service functionality, Professional Edition helps busy professionals work as a unified team to grow your business and better serve your customers.

Salesforce CRM Group Edition

Salesforce CRM Group Edition is the perfect CRM on-ramp for teams of up to five sales and marketing professionals. Featuring award-winning ease of use and built-in Google AdWords* integration, Group Edition provides complete visibility across your organization. Collaborate with your team and generate new leads and customers with the starter version of salesforce.com's popular CRM solution.

Salesforce CRM Personal Edition and Force.com Developer Edition

Salesforce.com also offers solutions for two additional audiences: individual sales reps and application developers.

• Salesforce CRM Personal Edition CRM
• Force.com Developer Edition
   

Price:

Salesforce CRM is available in multiple editions starting at less than $9 per user per month, with more-advanced solutions starting as low as $65 per user per month.** The edition you need will depend on the size of your team and your customization and integration needs.

** Based on a minimum annual commitment. 

Rich's View:

 This review is undergoing a major update and should

be available real soon now!

Short List:

If you are considering this program, you should also look at these other CRM solutions:

Rich's Recommended Web Sites

CRM Success

Salesforce.com's own site discussing best practices

http://crmsuccess.blogs.com/

Trust.Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com's own site devoted to system performance, discussing real-time access to critical service performance characteristics and historical information.

http://trust.salesforce.com/

AppExchange Developer Network

Salesforce.com's own site devoted to SForce

http://blog.sforce.com/

AppExchange Open Source Projects

Salesforce.com's own site devoted to related Open Source Projects

http://sforce.sourceforge.net/

SalesForceWatch.com

Salesforcewatch.com is written by Mark Mangano, Director of Application Development for a financial services firm outside of Philadelphia, PA. It is a great site!

http://www.salesforcewatch.com/

Perspectives on Salesforce.com

This blog is written from the perspective of a Salesforce.com solution provider and contains tips, findings, sample code, functionality wishes, etc.

http://sfdc.arrowpointe.com/

Bill Emerson's Weblog

A Developer's Look at the sforce api.

http://spaces.msn.com/billemerson/

Outreach Salesforce

More useful Salesforce tips

http://jsalesforce.blogspot.com/

Jim Cecil's Nurture Marketing site

http://www.nurturemarketing.com/

Nurture Institute

http://www.nurtureinstitute.com/

Rich's Recommended Reading List