Understanding the value of Salesforce and the digital transformation potential with Unify CRM Consultancy’s CRM overview and pricing summary.
Many companies face challenges in meeting evolving expectations due to various factors, including disconnected departments, siloed data, separate point solutions, and heavy reliance on manual processes.
To address these issues, digital transformation emerges as the crucial solution. However, implementing this transformation can be a complex task. For newer companies, resource constraints might hinder their ability to build entirely new solutions from the ground up. On the other hand, larger firms may encounter difficulties in integrating legacy systems scattered across different departments and divisions. Furthermore, the common obstacles of staffing shortages and concerns about overburdening existing employees add to the challenges all organisations face in this transformation journey.
What is Salesforce?
Salesforce enables connected, personalised service from anywhere on one digital engagement platform. From your agents in the contact centre to your service professionals in the field, everyone has simple-to-use tools that help them do their best work. Customers get answers quicker and easier through AI-powered workflows and connected, personalised service across every touchpoint.
Businesses can start small and easily add functionality as they grow and their needs change. Implementation is fast and straightforward and can be done without putting extensive resources into coding and configuring. Salesforce offers composable apps and services, clicks-to-code tools, and a robust ecosystem of independent software vendors (ISV) and partner apps that are prebuilt and pre-integrated on the platform.
“In the 13 years that I’ve been working with clients, Salesforce has consistently emerged as the preferred choice for the majority of medium to large size businesses. Its popularity stems from its exceptional flexibility and functionality. Time and again, Salesforce has proven its ability to empower businesses by providing insights into their data, enabling automation, and delivering exceptional customer journeys that foster loyalty and happiness among customers,” stated Ghada Fourane, Unify CEO.
Omnichannel: integrating all digital interactions
The customer journey is increasingly an omnichannel experience, seamlessly integrating all digital interactions. Remarkably, 74% of customers now utilise multiple channels to initiate and finalise transactions. Salesforce equips you to excel in omnichannel engagement by consolidating all channels onto a single platform.
With Salesforce, you can enhance customer service efficiency through chatbots capable of handling common queries, kickstarting processes, and gathering pertinent information before transferring to human agents. Additionally, recognising the growing preference for self-assistance among customers, Salesforce offers self-service options through guided process automation and 24/7 access to relevant content and mission-critical data.
Connectivity across businesses and technology
Salesforce allows you to enable end-to-end process automation and create a 360° view of the customer. You can integrate data or logic from any third-party system with pre-built connectors and reusable APIs to power seamless multi-system workflows. Build a process once and then extend it to any touchpoint for a seamless experience. Unlock cross-department productivity by mobilising your entire company in service of the customer with a connected platform.
In many businesses, the desire to put the customer first is a value; however, disconnected systems with out-of-date data results in departments holding an inconsistent view of the customer journey. For example, we’ve seen disconnected businesses continue offering marketing discounts to customers who have already purchased that exact product. This is confusing messaging for the customer and negates building trust.
Customer service can also be impacted if the source of data presented to the agent doesn’t match the actual customer record. For example, an existing customer has a product issue, yet the customer service team has to ask for redundant information already taken at the time of sale. The customer service team has to ask these questions to a now frustrated customer because this information is not available at hand, creating a smooth interaction.
Embracing seamless connectivity paves the way for achieving the ultimate goal: Customer 360. Say goodbye to guesswork and hello to data-driven decisions that put customers at the heart of everything we do; where every interaction is a step towards customer-centric excellence.
How much does Salesforce cost?
The most effective iteration of Salesforce is the solution that aids your business in enhancing customer service, fostering better communication between employees and customers, and boosting sales while bolstering brand engagement.
Given the diverse needs of different companies, it’s natural that the Salesforce cost varies based on the specific version of the software you opt for. The positive aspect is that you have the flexibility to choose the features that align with your business requirements, enabling you to tailor-make your package. We can help you get a full picture of what to expect for when thinking “how much does Salesforce cost?” and how to budget.
The pricing depends on the features your team needs, features for:
- Sales
- Marketing
- CPQ
- Order/ commerce
- Billing Partner
- Service
- Field service
It is important to highlight that Salesforce maintains consistent pricing regardless of the size of your business and overall is priced per user for given features, offering unique flexibility. However, they offer specialised small business plans for each of their three main products: Sales, Service, and Marketing. These small business plans come with the same Salesforce cost as the plans for larger businesses but are tailored to cater to the needs of smaller teams and fewer accounts.
As your business expands, you will want to leverage advanced features such as workflow automation. The significance of automation becomes even more pronounced with a larger team, ensuring uniformity across all processes and seamless integration with your analytics. As you progress to higher Salesforce tiers, you will unlock access to more advanced features designed to support larger or expanding businesses.
The most effective iteration of Salesforce is the solution that aids your business in enhancing customer service, fostering better communication between employees and customers, and boosting sales while bolstering brand engagement.
So, how much does Salesforce cost? Given the diverse needs of different companies, it’s natural that cost of Salesforce varies based on the specific version of the platform you opt for. The positive aspect is that you have the flexibility to choose the features that align with your business requirements, enabling you to tailor-make your package.
Salesforce in action
Vonage automated complex processes to boost efficiency and productivity. With customer data in one place, Vonage sales teams were able to more quickly understand the needs of customers and prospects.
To streamline its quoting process, Vonage now uses Sales Cloud to unify sales operations, quickly building custom workflows with Flow’s low-code tools. With simplified quote creation and management, provisioning time has gone from four days to just minutes, while also reducing the opportunity for human error.
Also, read case studies like the one on Santander. To scale up its services, Santander UK used Salesforce to build a trailblazing digital subscription platform, called Santander Navigator, that provides personalised growth strategies and recommendations to businesses looking to expand internationally.
Beyond customer satisfaction: CRMs for enhancing the employee experience
In the midst of ongoing migrations and resignations, the importance of purpose and value in retaining employees cannot be understated. Salesforce plays a pivotal role in enhancing the work environment for agents and field service personnel by streamlining tasks, optimising workloads, and enabling them to concentrate on their core strengths—assisting customers. Furthermore, as the demand for remote work continues to rise, Salesforce equips your teams with the necessary tools to deliver exceptional customer service seamlessly from any location.
How to get started with Salesforce
As a Salesforce partner specialising in CRM strategy, implementation and migration, we would be delighted to discuss your needs, design a roadmap, help you choose the right products and work together on a solution that is right for your team. Contact us
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We are Unify, CRM, Data and Analytics specialists for enterprise-level organisations. We work with companies who have started or about to start their digital transformation and help clients to use their customer experience analytics to drive actionable outcomes and business efficiency. Find out how we can help your digital transformation programme through innovative solutions to unlock ROI rapidly or to conduct a customised data and operational process audit for your business.