11/02/2014
By Satish Reddy | Reading time 5 mins
Salesforce makes a great tool for storing your contact information. Your customer database is no doubt an important part of your sales strategy. However, Salesforce is much more powerful, and when properly utilized, it can help you increase revenue and reduce costs — and it is not just for the sales department. Failing to take advantage of all that Salesforce has to offer means you are squandering opportunities and wasting money.
Salesforce is a True Customer Relationship Manager
Some users seem to think that “CRM” stands for contact repository manager, not customer relationship management. True, Salesforce does an outstanding job of storing your basic contact information. However, it can give you a complete, 360-degree, integrated picture of your current and future customers. Your view can include marketing campaigns, orders, requests for technical support and every other instance in which you and the individual customer have interacted. Armed with this information, you can forge a true relationship with each customer and build a strategy to offer truly engaging experiences.
Salesforce is Socially Prominent
More and more, potential customers are using the social media sites to research products and companies, air complaints and share experiences. You need to know what is being said about your products, your customer service and your company. Salesforce lets you tap into postings about you on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. If you uncover issues, you can offer proactive solutions. You can also interact with customers where they are choosing to be — not broadcasting an email in the hope that they will read it rather than the 200 others they received that day, or paying an exorbitant amount for a television ad that will likely play while the viewer is preparing a snack in the kitchen.
Salesforce Enhances Collaboration
There is an old motivational saying that states that the meaning of “TEAM” is “Together Everyone Accomplishes More.” Collaborative efforts — whether between managers and supervisors, peers, or employees and customers — tend to produce better results in terms of quality, time spent and costs. Salesforce makes collaboration easier, no matter where participants are physically located.
Salesforce is Highly Customizable
The extent to which Salesforce can be customized means that you can get it to work exactly the way you want. The Salesforce AppExchange lets you choose from thousands of pre-built, verified, secure apps to suit your needs, or you can choose to have custom apps developed for highly specific requirements. Everything is integrated, so there is no danger of isolated data silos that are not accessible by the people who need the information or to struggle with multiple reports to construct a cohesive picture.
What This Means for Your Business and Your People
In conclusion, Salesforce has a lot more to offer than just a place to warehouse your contacts. The integrated, powerful and innovative design can benefit your people and your business in a number of ways.
- Sales reps can spend more time selling and less time managing or accessing client data.
- Sales managers have real-time access to the data needed to monitor and report activities, improving the reliability of forecasts.
- Customer service reps can connect all the social media conversations as well as view a complete picture of the customer’s activity. Customers can get answers in less time and at less cost to you.
- Marketers can connect with potential and current customers through social media, while the ability to offer an integrated customer experience helps increase the customer base and reach targeted audiences.
- Marketing and sales can be brought into alignment through greater visibility and efforts streamlined to eliminate duplication.
The bottom line is that Salesforce, when properly utilized, enhances your company’s ability to grow. You can increase revenue, improve efficiency and increase productivity. Having access to all the information that can be captured in Salesforce means that you can continue to learn and improve to offer your customers the type of outstanding experience they want.