Full disclosure: I now work at Salesforce. I just celebrated my first anniversary with the company as a lead solution engineer.

I have a relatively unique view of our CRM product because I spent the previous 15 years working for three different competitors.

So what has struck me the most about Salesforce CRM in my first twelve months?

1. It works.

In my entire career this is the first time I have worked with an enterprise software solution that simply works.

2. Our customers really like us.

The London World Tour was an eye opener and I truly understood why the afterparty was called “Obsession.” Not to mention the customer enthusiasm I witnessed last year at Dreamforce.

3. Salesforce is highly intuitive and therefore easy to use.

I worked on the CRM product of a different vendor for the previous six years. You’d think I’d have gotten the hang of it in that amount of time. Yet, even now, I’ll download a trial occasionally and it still isn’t like riding a bike. In contrast, the learning time with Salesforce has been short.

4. A great deal of my former customers now use Salesforce.

I have mixed emotions about this as I’m quite proud that one of the CRM solutions I worked on for a large bank lasted for well over a decade and was only replaced when a solution as good as Salesforce came along.

5. Upgrades with Salesforce are seamless. 

I heard this a lot in my years prior to Salesforce, but it really is true and is a very big differentiator.

6. I want to refer people to the product.

I have no reservations in recommending Salesforce to friends and family. This has not been true of any other solution I have worked with.

7. I don’t need to know any code.

The Salesforce toolset allows me to do almost everything with clicks. I could make the previous CRM solution I worked on look good without code, but it was mainly smoke and mirrors or I needed help from a developer.

8. Salesforce truly is a platform.

As a competitor, I had no idea about the depth and breadth of solutions in the Salesforce kit bag. And most things can be done out of the box with configuration.