There was a time when Customer relationship management had just entered the realm of services and goods trade industry, and the most important part of it was the persuasion power of the sales team. We have come a long way since then, and now almost all of the tedious and recurrent tasks have been replaced with more strategic and targeted actions, that actually reap the benefits with fewer investments.

A lot of the credit for this head-spinning progress goes to pioneers like Salesforce, which completely altered our outlook for CRM services. Now the sales team can engage with multiple customers in a more effective manner, and even provide valuable insights to the marketing team for overall improved ROI. It’s amazing how all of this has happened just because one fine day in the year 1999, former Oracle executives sat togetherto create a sales automation software with three developers from Left Coast Software.

We know Pat Sullivan and Mike Muhney have built ACT more than a decade ago, but what Salesforce has done in the coming years with the concept of CRM, has established itself as the software that led all of it progressing journey.  In fact it’s been the world’s #1 CRM platform for the fifth year in a row now for many reasons, including its progressive nature within all the varying industries. We have listed 5 characteristics, or rather reasons, to why both we and our clients are passionate about this innovative software.

1. Better Information Management
2. Better Problem Resolution
3. Cloud services
4. Multiple Team Collaboration
5. Complete Optimisation in Sales Processes

Better Information Management

The foundation of any good relationship is built on trust. Plus, we know that in order to build a strong reliability factor, it is important for the company to offer a more personalised and positive experience to its customers. What’s the most essential aspect that paves way for such an experience? Better and more organised information. There you have it, the ultimate first-step for building a more efficient and fulfilling customer relationship. With a holistic view of all the accounted leads, Salesforce ensures that your sales team can access all the required information quickly. The fast organisation and retrieval of information by Salesforce proves more beneficial, as the numbers of sales and leads grow. There’s an increased need for the storing of the identifiable data with all the mapped information. This all would become quite cumbersome, leading to slower and even invalid responses which can easily break an almost built deal. Thanks to Salesforce however, it not only manages information seamlessly but also allows your team members to work together as a team. For example, if a lead has a query, it’s not necessary for the initial rep to be there in the office all the time, any other rep can easily access the stored information and just as seamlessly solve the client’s problem. So just with simple information management, Salesforce has managed to bring more efficiency in the system whilst also ensuring better customer experience at all times.

Resolution

In line with better information management, Salesforce also paves way for improved problem resolution within an organisation. In an earlier example, it was demonstrated how any Sales rep could cover the work of their colleague, saving the customer’s valuable time, and thus leading to a better overall experience.Now, let’s take another example, where an old customer reaches your sales team for troubleshooting requirements, however the rep who has dealt with the customer may have left the organisation or may have been assigned to another project. In such a case, any rep with ample experience with Salesforce would be able to offer the customer all the assistance they may require. The customer doesn’t have to start afresh with the rep to let him know his history with the company, instead, the rep would be able to retrieve all the previous data of the customer to offer a personalised solution within minutes. However it isn’t just the easy availability of data that enables Salesforce-powered organisations to improve their customer services, that’s something that any CRM solution can do. Salesforce takes it all up a notch. It allows all the information to stay accessible to the sales team at all the times and places. This brings us to the next feature that makes Salesforce an even greater solution for customer relationship management- Accessibility.

Cloud services

One of the chief reasons that has led to the unprecedented success of Salesforce is its cloud services. Salesforce has simplified CRM functions to a great degree by allowing the responsible teams to access it from anywhere and at any time. Just ask any Salesforce developer to configure the solution for mobile devices and voila! Your team has become completely, able to manage more tasks without the overheads of logging into specific systems. This also means that if you’re working in different time-zones, your sales team would be able to provide round the clock customer services without any additional time management strategies. Another benefit of the Salesforce cloud services is that there is no central location where your data is kept. The decentralisation of the cloud services, increases the security of your data multifold, while also ensuring better accessibility all around.

Multiple Team Collaboration

Do you know what the additional advantage of having a CRM solution on the cloud is? Better team communication. It further enhances Salesforce’s capabilities for team collaboration as a CRM solution. Using Salesforce, all your different teams will have direct access to the stored information. That means the email that was sent by your customer for seeking an absolute solution that requires services from varied teams, can be viewed by all the different teams. No team will have to forward the specific details to the other team, and neither team will have to wait for the work of the others. They will simply collaborate on the same platform while staying on the same page at all times. It severely diminishes the overhead of team communication, while also allowing them to collaborate on a greater scale with better accessibility.

Complete Optimisation in Sales Processes

It is pretty evident that when team collaboration is at its height and information access is all-encompassing, sales processes are bound to get optimised. Although there is more to it than what first meets the eye. Salesforce, being conscious of the requirements in the present times’, has made it easy for the different industries to automate custom tasks. In doing so there many Salesforce development companies with certified developers can help you. They will let you customise hundreds of mini tasks (filling out forms, creation of reports, etc.) that are a part of every sale made. These tasks are mainly conducted to comply with government and organisational policies, which means they would be a recurrent nature and may consume more of the sales team’s time than what they are worth. With Salesforce you easily automate these tasks, which will have an additional flawless advantage. Other than implementing the automation of certain tasks, Salesforce also offers certain planning resources to further improve the optimisation of your sales processes. There are built-in calendars and to-do list tools in the platform that will allow your teams to collaborate in a more professional manner, for improved delivery of the projects.

Indeed, Salesforce CRM is a marvellous solution that not only makes your sales team’s lives easier, but also greatly improves your organisations overall capabilities in the scaled-up environment. No wonder, so many companies around the globe have made Salesforce the integral part of their organisational processes. It is a CRM solution that is worthy of all the attention and support it presently has.