No matter what you’re doing related to sales these days, it seems impossible to avoid the buzzword “Salesforce.” For good reason – the company has permeated most industries in some way or other due to its comprehensive Platform as a Service options that support the entire organization.
Salesforce is best known for its CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system to manage and support sales. Salesforce Sales Cloud does so much more, however, to drive sales growth.
What is Salesforce Sales Cloud?
Sales Cloud is Salesforce’s first and most known product, released back in 2009. Salesforce became popular by offering this software as a service before it moved on to tools for commerce, customer service, IT, and marketing.
So what is Sales Cloud in Salesforce? It’s a CRM tool designed for customer and lead organization that has improved to include territory management, sales automation, sales collaboration, and a lot more.
Benefits of Salesforce Sales Cloud
There are a lot of reasons why companies choose Salesforce.
- Convenience. The tool is cross-platform so reps, leads, and everyone else can check forecasts, pipeline status, meeting outcomes, and more on the go from anywhere with their phones.
- It helps reps sell more. With Sales Cloud, Salesforce reports teams will see an increase of 44% in sales productivity and will close deals 38% faster.
- Pick your own adventure. Sales Cloud can be used alone or integrated with other Salesforce apps to support the entire organization.
It’s important to remember that Salesforce Sales Cloud benefits depend on what version of the platform is used as well as the specific needs of the business.
Salesforce Sales Cloud vs Service Cloud
In all fairness, Salesforce Sales and Service Cloud sound really similar, so it’s easy to get them mixed up. Before delving further, let’s make sure you’re reading up on the intended product!
If what you’re looking for is an app that can grow sales while focusing on opportunities and leads, Sales Cloud has your back.
The Service Cloud module focuses on service and cases that help businesses support clients, with features for customer service, self-service, case management, and solutions.
Both are great apps, but the focus today is on the Sales module.
Sales Cloud Features
Enough of the opening act and on to the headliner! Here’s what everyone should know about Sales Cloud features in Salesforce.
Lead Management
Create, save, and edit lead information, then track leads until close. Additional features let teams optimize their campaigns and marketing decisions.
Contacts and Accounts Management
Get a comprehensive glance of customers including their activity, history, key contacts, and communications. Gain open source insights from social media channels within salesforce.
Opportunity Management
See an overview of team deals including stage, products, quotes, competition, and more. This helps sales managers stay up to date on team happenings and helps sellers stay connected to info needed to close a sale.
Pipeline and Forecast Management
Lets you have real-time visibility into forecasts and make adjustments as needed to maintain the health of the pipeline. It filters deals to highlight the most promising ones and uses AI to guide reps.
Salesforce Financial Services Cloud
Salesforce Cloud offers a unique version for organizations in the financial services industry. The Financial Services Cloud format was designed with the needs of banks, wealth and asset management firms, lenders, and insurers in mind. It includes features such as a native Financial Account object with predefined values for different types of financial accounts and financial service-specific Action Plans.
Salesforce Sales Cloud Einstein
Einstein is an add-on for Salesforce Cloud’s platform. It expands upon the classic Salesforce Sales Cloud capabilities to also provide:
- Lead scoring that automatically prioritizes leads most likely to close
- Opportunity Insights that explore customer sentiment, competitor involvement, prospect engagement and more
- Activity Capture to connect email, calendar, and meetings to Salesforce records automatically
- Account Insights that let reps see key business details about accounts like M&A activity and expansion updates
If these features look familiar, it’s because Revenue Grid offers a parallel product with Salesforce Sales Cloud Integration that comes with additional functions not available with Sales Cloud Einstein. Revenue Grid supports on-premises deployment to give your team full control of privacy and customer data, whereas Einstein works only with a third party. RG also doesn’t disrupt standard Salesforce reporting and it allows for custom objects. Read more about how Revenue Grid compares to Sales Cloud Einstein here.
Salesforce Sales Cloud Pricing
Due to its brand-name status, Salesforce can justify charging more than its competitors while still leading the CRM market.
According to SFDC (Salesforce Dot Com) website , the most basic version of Sales Cloud starts at $25 USD per month per user. The Essentials version only comes with basic lead management and part-time support. Companies can also choose the Professional, Enterprise, or Unlimited formats which cost $75, $150, and $300 per user per month, respectively.
The Einstein add-on is another $50 USD per month per person.
Salesforce Sales Cloud Demo
Depending on how many copies a company plans to subscribe to, those numbers can add up. Fortunately there’s a 30-day free trial of the Professional edition to test Salesforce Sales Cloud functionality for your business.
Salesforce Sales Cloud Access
Equipped with a demo or newly purchased edition, what comes next? This isn’t enough to get you Salesforce Sales Cloud certification, but it’s a start:
1. Add users
2. Customize pre-existing features
3. Import data
4. Set up reporting
5. Roll out Salesforce and best practices
6. Set up additional features or integrated software for Sales Cloud in Salesforce
Can’t get enough of Salesforce?
Check out the SFDC Sales Cloud page for more information about features and pricing. Or, read more about Salesforce products on the Revenue Grid blog.