Salesforce.com For Dummies®

Chapter 1. Looking Over Salesforce

In This Chapter

• Solving business challenges

• Extending the value of what you have

• Deciding what Salesforce size fits you

You might not realize it yet, but every time you log in to Salesforce you're accessing an extremely powerful lever of change for you, your group, and your company.

Sounds like a tall order but consider this: What value do you put on your customer relationships? Your partner relationships? If you're a sales rep, it's your livelihood. And if you're in management, you have fewer assets more valuable than your existing partner and customer base. What if you had a tool that could truly help you manage your partners and customers?

Salesforce isn't the first customer relationship management (CRM) system to hit the market, but it's dramatically different. Unlike traditional CRM software, Salesforce is an Internet service. You sign up, log in through a browser, and it's immediately available. Salesforce customers typically say that it's different for three major reasons:

• Fast: When you sign on the dotted line, you want your CRM system up yesterday. Traditional CRM software could take more than a year to deploy; compare that to months or even weeks with Salesforce.

• Easy: End user adoption is critical to any application, and Salesforce wins the ease‐of‐use category hands down. You can spend more time putting it to use and less time figuring it out.

• Effective: Because it's easy to use and can be customized quickly to meet business needs, customers ...