Salesforce - CRM - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

Sample00 · 03-23-2013, 08:15 AM

Not sure if there is a thread on this, so I thought I would start one here.

Are there any Salesforce users on CP and would you care to share some thoughts, tips, help in this thread?

We are new users to Salesforce with our company and since I brought it to the table, I have been made the Administrator for our company. Yet, my knowledge of it is quite limited.

It was recommended to me by my good friend Cheese and so far its been pretty good but I'd like to get more out of it.

Any discussion, thoughts, ideas, help, tips, tricks would be greatly appreciated.

Regulator75 · 03-23-2013, 08:19 AM

Salesforce? Sounds like a marketing scam from the 90's.

Sample00 · 03-23-2013, 08:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Regulator75

Salesforce? Sounds like a marketing scam from the 90's.

ahhhh, no!

its probably the largest online Customer Relationship Management tool in the world.

www.salesforce.com

KTrain · 03-23-2013, 12:49 PM

I've done a lot of work with Salesforce, using it to create lead forms on various website for clients.

For more clients Salesforce is a beast with more options than they'll ever need. It's also one of the least user-friendly interfaces I've come across. Though I think that stems from adding functionality without thought to how it will be accessed and used. Plugins also add to the clutter.

Overall, I think it's a good tool for keep track of sales contacts and creating leads but they should take a step back from adding more features and making their product easier to use for regular sales-joes who are jumping into it because their company is trying manage their client lists/contacts more efficiently.

Regulator75 · 03-23-2013, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sample00

ahhhh, no!

its probably the largest online Customer Relationship Management tool in the world.

www.salesforce.com

Yes I know. But it's name "sounds" like those cheesy businesses from the 90's.

CaptainCrunch · 03-23-2013, 02:47 PM

I used to use SalesForce at several of my jobs, and a lot of my clients use it.

Its as full featured or a CRM as what is out there. Its also incredibly flexible in terms of Sales Work Flow going from marketing to prospect to meeting planning to steps taken to ensure the gathering of required information to close to relationship management.

The ability to build fields and "sheets" to work flow is way ahead of the curve.

The ability to do some pretty funky web marketing to flow into is great.

but its not easy to use and administer unless you really know how to do it.

The SaaS model is a great money and time saver.

I'm using Microsoft CRM in my current role but I fondly miss salesforce.

Cheese · 03-23-2013, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sample00

Not sure if there is a thread on this, so I thought I would start one here.

Are there any Salesforce users on CP and would you care to share some thoughts, tips, help in this thread?

We are new users to Salesforce with our company and since I brought it to the table, I have been made the Administrator for our company. Yet, my knowledge of it is quite limited.

It was recommended to me by my good friend Cheese and so far its been pretty good but I'd like to get more out of it.

Any discussion, thoughts, ideas, help, tips, tricks would be greatly appreciated.

Glad you have joined Sample....
Maybe the best thing is to ask specific questions on areas you have more confusion in than others.
I'm assuming you have used Google and SF Q and A system?

Azure · 03-23-2013, 07:15 PM

Work is looking into adopting a CRM platform in the next few years as well as we grow.

Trying to start setting up a system to gather all information into one place, and from there go to CRM.

But wow, it looks incredibly complicated.

MRCboicgy · 03-23-2013, 07:17 PM

We use salesforce.com. I find it a pain generally, but I do like the Chatter feature as a corporate type of facebook.

Sample00 · 03-24-2013, 04:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cheese

Glad you have joined Sample....
Maybe the best thing is to ask specific questions on areas you have more confusion in than others.
I'm assuming you have used Google and SF Q and A system?

i have but find some of the answers a little confusing. I'm such a visual learner.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

The ability to do some pretty funky web marketing to flow into is great.

this is what I am after.

and also, i'm not quite clear on how to use the email marketing feature. ie) how do I send a mass email to my clients??

Sample00 · 03-24-2013, 04:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azure

Work is looking into adopting a CRM platform in the next few years as well as we grow.

Trying to start setting up a system to gather all information into one place, and from there go to CRM.

But wow, it looks incredibly complicated.

gathering the information into the salesforce platform, I found, fairly straight forward and easy.
this is where my company is at now. We have our sales people inputting all their accounts and contact information at this point.
I've gone a bit further and am emailing from it and using it for organizing meetings, notes, opportunities, etc. trying to stay ahead of the sales team so i can show them whats up next when they have finished inputting their contact info.

bubbsy · 03-24-2013, 06:47 AM

use it quite a bit at work. It's a pretty amazing CRM platform. We use it for sales/lead/bid management, as well as product roadmap stuff, but we have clients asking us to integrate our core product (telco software) to SF crm all the time.

Cheese · 03-24-2013, 07:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sample00

i have but find some of the answers a little confusing. I'm such a visual learner.

this is what I am after.

and also, i'm not quite clear on how to use the email marketing feature. ie) how do I send a mass email to my clients??

https://login.salesforce.com/help/doc/en/email_mass.htm
have you tried this?

Sample00 · 03-24-2013, 07:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cheese

https://login.salesforce.com/help/doc/en/email_mass.htm
have you tried this?

yes, i have seen that and got stuck on the template.
why do i have to choose a template? I just want to send them an email of my own design.Is there a way around that?

Cheese · 03-24-2013, 01:36 PM

^^^ours can bypass the template but we dont because every email that goes out looks like a good corporate email.
Why not make/use the template? Its actually pretty slick.

Sample00 · 03-24-2013, 08:09 PM

might have to give you a buzz, cheese. you might have to walk me through one.
if you wouldnt mind...

CaptainCrunch · 03-25-2013, 09:08 AM

I remember that we used the template and the mass mailer from contacts feature.

At one point we used I think Survey monkey attached via salesforce to be able to have client respond to a survey and the answers would go towards their contacts list.

fredr123 · 03-25-2013, 12:40 PM

Is Salesforce listed on the TSX?

CaptainCrunch · 03-25-2013, 12:50 PM

yup its symbol is CRM (clever)

Tron_fdc · 03-25-2013, 01:20 PM

We looked at it, and it didn't work for what we were doing. We ended up writing our own CRM that works for what we were after.

As with anything, it's only as good as the info that goes into it. If you force people to input leads, quotes, sales, etc into it you can get some VERY useful info (from a mgmt standpoint) and excellent metrics for evaluation. If you let people slack off with that, it's going to be a huge PITA because the info won't be accurate.

Some of the guys I work with are techno-tards, and can barely run excel. That was a problem.