Why Salesforce Isn't Just Sales

Embarking on the journey from spreadsheets to CRM is a big deal, your business has likely reached a point where growth is driving revenue and with it, comes a whole host of new requirements that you don't have time for.

You begin the process of investing in a comprehensive, user friendly customer relationship management (CRM) system that will help your business get to the next level. You’ve heard about Salesforce but don’t quite understand what it is or how it works. In any case, it’s not just sales you want to focus on. Another impression you might have is that Salesforce is not catered to small business.

What you might not know is that Salesforce works with all business sizes in any industry, and through innovative technology and apps, gives small businesses the unfair advantage that takes them from market competitor to market leader. In this article we’ll chat about how the Salesforce ecosystem can help your business grow.

So what does Salesforce do?

Think of Salesforce as an ecosystem in which all aspects of your business co exists in a streamlined user friendly experience. Whilst sales is a core function within many businesses, others may center their focus around service and or marketing. So how does Salesforce help your business unlock its potential? Salesforce is made up of 6 clouds, Sales, Marketing, Service, Community, Analytics and Apps. Each one of these clouds features an a world of capabilities, all designed to make your business, the customers number one choice.

So how do they all work, and do they work together?

To break down each cloud, it's important to understand that every one of the Salesforce clouds are designed to complement each other, creating a seamless business system. To give you a brief example, you host an event, and you hope this brings in new leads for your sales team. You receive a host of leads and they begin to funnel through the pipeline. Some close, and create new customers for the business whilst other fall through. The question you should be asking is, how many leads were a direct result of the event, and how many of those leads resulted in new business? That’s how Marketing, and sales have now unlocked your business to a world of analytics and targeted campaigns.

The Sales Cloud enables your business to capture, manage and nurture prospective and current customers. It helps you build a comprehensive database around your business and what's important to its success. The tools work to understand and analyse where your customers come from, how successful your campaigns are, and how to focus your attention to creating new business. whether your focus is B2B, and or B2C, Marketing Cloud and Pardot create insight, and direction to better market your business. In the space of two clouds, you business is now able to accurately capture and manage new business, execute and analyse marketing campaigns, harness the power of social media, and better engage your customers.

If you already have Sales and Marketing covered, what else can Salesforce do for your Business?

The Service Cloud creates a call center right there in your office. You can focus your staff's attention to website, social media, and even phone support. It engages Google, to ensure your staff can always find the answers required to keep your customers happy. Whilst attaining and logging information right to the CRM database, a priceless tool for ecommerce, financial services, and a host of other industries .

What's brilliant about seamless transition between clouds, is every interaction, report, sale, and marketing campaign builds your database, growing your businesses understanding of its customer, and allowing for management to make informed accurate decisions that will benefit the business.

If your Sales, Marketing and Service are interacting seamlessly, it's time to create a community around your business. The Community Cloud works to bring together your business and its many customers together, focusing the customers interests, and your staffs interactions. As an example, let’s focus on the health sector. Imagine a network of doctors, that now have the ability to not only communicate regarding new practices, but seek support and converse on new procedures. Whilst their customers are able find surgeries, ask questions regarding opening hours, specialists and who comes highly recommended. Engaging your community in an environment whilst sharing valuable information, key to their direct needs and interests.

So let's consider for a second that you require business tools or functionality that are specific to your business, but don't appear to be featured in the Clouds. That's where the final cloud comes in. The AppExchange, was built by Salesforce, for Salesforce customers. With over 2,000 apps capable of effectively completing business functionality requirements, and seamlessly interacting with all 6 clouds. For example, let’s say your business has contracts to formalise deals between you and your customers, but with the move to the cloud, the ability to transition to paperless is a top priority. With the combination of apps like Conga and Docusign, your business can now generate and execute digital contracts. The contracts get generated in Conga and can be signed right then and there with Docusign, on a tablet or mobile device in the meeting, or through email. No need for paper, and all contracts then attach to the client's profile in your CRM, visible on your platform for relevant parties.

Salesforce is a complex ecosystem of clouds that enable businesses to grow. See how other Small Businesses use Salesforce to their advantage HERE.