5 key misconceptions people have about Salesforce

Gerard Hill -

Whenever a new product or service has been launched and its all the rage amongst a majority of marketers on a global scale, one of the most pressing questions in the minds of most people is that “Overall, is it a success or a failure?”. Well, surely the answer cannot be that easy for a particular kind of technology that has not had enough time to prove itself. However, in the case of Salesforce, it certainly has had enough time out there in the playing field and everyone can collectively agree that it has been a success for the most part.

Of course, the aspect of Salesforce cost is as important as any other aspect out there, but the mere adoption of Salesforce does not mean that things will change overnight. The building of strong and meaningful external and internal connections for your business will be facilitated with the help of Salesforce. On that note, let us dispel five key misconceptions most people have about Salesforce:

  • Salesforce is nothing more than a sales tool: This misconception is because it initially started out as a simple CRM. However in due course, it branched out to include a lot of other aspects such as customer support and marketing as well. Even if you’re not in the market for a good CRM, Salesforce will still have something for you. Some of the various products and add-ons that they have are Pardot, Einstein Analytics, The Salesforce Service Cloud and Force.com, to name a few. If you think that’s it, there are literally dozens of more options for you to choose from.
  • You need to be tech-savvy to use Salesforce well: To all those of you who think this to be true, just wrap your head around this fact – from the very beginning itself, Salesforce was designed to be as user-friendly as possible. Enough people have stated that once you get used to the hang of it on a daily basis, the software is fairly easy to use. One really does not need to go through the hassle of hiring a developer and you can make all the necessary customizations as well without touching the aspect of coding at all.
  • The sales team does not require any sort of training for Salesforce: This is directly linked to the previous point as there is a certain level of required guidance for the most part, just to get into the rhythm of things and figuring out how to use it daily. Luckily for you, there are a great many options that Salesforce has to offer for new users and each major Salesforce product contains a training module. Plus, there is also the added option of experience instructors that offer many classes and workshops for newbies.
  • Salesforce does not require any customizations: Having this mindset will certainly cause you a great deal of stress in the long run because you’ll have to adopt your own business processes and sales to fit into Salesforce, instead of the other way around. Many other companies will benefit from the customizable features that it has to offer and by customizing it from the beginning, you can specifically set it up for some users.
  • All data problems will be solved once you implement Salesforce: This is one thing no magic app can do. You will certainly have to construct a standardized and proper methodology to help you collect data on customers and leads alike. No matter how well you set up Salesforce, poor-quality data will still pull you down. Either the data is outdated, insufficient or just completely incompatible to the needs of the company at hand.

At the end of the day, it is certainly worthwhile noting that because of the sheer scope and size of Salesforce, it is easy for a lot of marketers to feel overwhelmed about where to even begin. Given that fact, it is really no surprise that there are so many misconceptions to be dealt with. Hence, the first step is to dispel those misconceptions.

The moment you become well-informed about Salesforce as a complete entity, things will definitely start to look up for you. Not only will you get a good grasp of how to go about implementing it in the best possible way, but you will get to try out all of the new products that they have been adding to their brand.