There’s no doubt that using Salesforce provides businesses with a number of opportunities. However, there are most probably a few more benefits that you haven’t heard or thought about. For those who are starting their experience or yet considering getting engaged, we prepared for you the guide through non-obvious benefits of the platform.
Benefits of Salesforce You Don’t Know Yet
The unusual benefits of Salesforce can surely be appealing for both experienced and non-experienced users. Let’s catch a glimpse of those which are the most intriguing from our perspective.
Pre-built blocks
Salesforce provides its users with an opportunity to compose their own solutions built of prepared blocks. This significantly accelerates the configuration process, as operating on ready-made components is much easier than building elements from scratch. Pre-built blocks can define layouts, user interfaces, backend, logics and architecture of the application.
The Salesforce database includes:
- objects (tables)
- edit forms
- related lists
- list views
- lighting components
- timelines
- discussion boards
- chevron diagrams
- actions (such as: Edit, Share, Clone, Delete), and more
All the examples above comprehensively support managing internal processes. For instance, you can use predefined blocks to build the functionality of adding coworkers to target projects (“Sales Teams”, “Case Teams”). Thanks to this, the entire team will be able to easily follow the status of each task, communicate and exchange information and receive notifications. All with just one pre-build component.
In the early 2010’ Salesforce was, and seems still is, positioning its platform as “not-a-software”, means you don’t have to know programming to set up, manage and use the platform: so-called System as a Service, where tons of features are prepared in a ready to configure manner. Although some configurations may require programming skills, many of them can be implemented also by non-technical users. This improves the speed and work quality within the organization, as many modifications can be completed without the support of technicians.
Predefined processes
Of course, each company, for the successful business operations has to define a number of internal processes: marketing, including lead collection, sales, CPQ, orders management, customer support, customer onboarding, asset installation, contracting, billing and revenue collection. Yeah … a lot ;) and potentially more will come into the picture along with business maturity.
Although each business is different, and unique on its way, Salesforce has made an excellent work in understanding the ground rules of all the processes and came up with a proposal for each, that you can start with. For example:
- lead qualification and conversion
- sales path
- service path
- customer service
- customer journeys
- contracting
and more. Designing all the paths from scratch is obviously challenging and requires a broad knowledge about marketing and sales.
Fortunately, Salesforce made it much easier. The platform provides its users with a number of predefined patterns that support companies in organizing their processes. How does it work? A logged-in user has access to already designed and set diagrams, paths and processes that can be used right away. For instance, Sales Path offers the following stages of sales process:
Obviously, all patterns can be freely modified by the system administrator and adjusted to the individual needs of the organization.
Continuous Platform Development
Believe us or not, but Salesforce is under constant development. They release 3 major annual updates with new layouts, interfaces and improvements. In case we spot any dysfunctionality, we can be sure that they will be corrected in the next round.
Moreover, as a Salesforce User, Community Member and Partner, we constantly receive new updates and solutions included in the price of the already purchased license. Although it sometimes happens that some changes are not compatible with previous versions of the software, we still significantly benefit from Salesforce’s devotion to improving the product quality.
Rich Documentation
Salesforce provides its users with nearly unlimited access to knowledge. The platform prepared the following resources:
- help.salesforce.com - the main knowledge base including the guideline through all product functionalities
- Trailhead - the platform with topic-oriented courses, available free-of-charge
- Trailblazers - the unique platform providing users with an opportunity to stay in touch with other Salesforce community members in order to exchange knowledge and experience.
Thanks to the resources above, both Salesforce users and administrators are strongly supported in their daily work with the platform. Delivered documents minimize the number of necessary training and reduce the number of errors.
Security
In 2021 cybersecurity is simply critical, especially when it comes to cloud-based solutions. Salesforce ensures a high level of data safety thanks to 2F Authentication and Cloud redundancy. It also allows companies to implement their own security schemes and measures in order to correspond with the individual needs of the organization.
Moreover, security measures prevent unauthorized access to data. Entering projects or systems is possible only after logging in and being approved by the system administrator. This mitigates the risk of data leakage or misuse. In addition, Salesforce also introduced the Shield Platform Encryption to secure sensitive data. All the security-related data is also comprehensively monitored in real-time in order to detect vulnerabilities and stored for further analysis or audits.
Do you want to learn more about the benefits of Salesforce? Feel free to contact us. We will be happy to provide you with our expertise in the topic and show you how to maximize the functionality of the platform.