Salesforce is one of the most popular customer relationship management (CRM) tools in the world, and for good reason. Apart from being a very long-running software company, they continually update their software to reflect industry best practices.

If you’ve been considering switching to the Salesforce CRM, you’ve come to the right place. Below we look at the basic requirements your Salesforce CRM software needs to have, as well as the main requirements that you need to have for the software to function. 

What Is Salesforce?

Salesforce is an integrated software product that’s made up of multiple different components. The overarching goal of the software is to help you better manage your business' prospects and customers. 

The complete Salesforce CRM is made up of multiple different tools, including:

  • The Sales Cloud: This lets you easily access and manage your customer contact information. You’ll be able to view customer history, see interactions and see which marketing campaigns have been the most effective. 
  • The Marketing Cloud: This allows you to setup and manage your marketing campaigns and various channels. You’ll be able to see how your different campaigns are doing, as well as see how your campaigns overlap and enhance one another. 
  • The Analytics Cloud: This will provide your business with data and reporting to see how your business is doing. The data produced here can help drive and improve your marketing and sales efforts. 
  • The Service Cloud: This helps improve your customer support team. You’ll be able to view your customer’s history, any past conversations and more. Improve the speed and helpfulness of your support staff. 

How Salesforce Can Benefit Your Organization

Salesforce is designed to help improve your customer relationships and in turn grow your business. Relationships are the foundation for any successful business, but how much do you really know about them?

With a CRM like Salesforce, you can uncover useful data about your current customers, along with streamlining your marketing, sales, and customer service processes. Many businesses are also hiring Salesforce developers to incorporate such great features into their business effectively. 

Here are the most common ways Salesforce is used:

  • Gain customer journey insights. The way you interact with your customers will change depending on what part of the customer lifecycle they’re on. With Salesforce, you can serve your customers exactly the right messaging at all times. 
  • Improve your marketing and sales process. Turn your customer data into actionable insights that drive your marketing, sales and content creation activities. Compile and use customer data to grow your business. 
  • Streamline your operations even further with Salesforce to BigQuery integration for enhanced customer data analysis, boosting marketing and sales strategies.
  • Help retain customers for the long-term. With integrated customer service, you can keep your customers happy over the long-term. Plus, with data recording, you’ll always be aware of any past issues. Make your customers feel like family. 
  • Improve organizational efficiency. With the integration of the above features into a single platform, you can unify the customer experience and improve productivity across multiple departments with ease. 

Salesforce CRM Requirements

In terms of Salesforce requirements, it's up to you to decide if this CRM is the right fit for your business. Spend some time with the feature list above to see if Salesforce meets your standards. Overall, you need a CRM to meet your business standards and processes, not the other way around.

Determine what kind of objectives you want to meet first. For example, are you looking to get a better picture of your customer lifecycle? Are you trying to bridge communication between your marketing and customer service teams? Are you looking for better data reporting features? Does it need to integrate easily with existing software? For businesses seeking tailored solutions and expert guidance in leveraging Salesforce to its fullest potential, salesforce consulting companies offer specialized services to ensure successful CRM implementation and optimization

Make a list of requirements you need from a CRM and compare that to the software providers you are examining. 

What Are the Salesforce Technical Requirements?

Salesforce actually has very little technical requirements to run. Since it’s cloud-based software, you don’t need to install the software natively on your computer. However, this doesn’t apply to those using Salesforce Classic or Salesforce for Outlook.

The Salesforce requirements are simple, all you need is a computer with an internet connection, along with a supported browser:

  • Google Chrome
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 9, 10, 11)
  • Apple Safari (versions 5.x, 6.x, 7.x)

Obviously, you'll also want to have a fast internet connection to get the most out of Salesforce. For businesses looking to optimize their sales processes, exploring salesforce sales cloud consulting can provide tailored solutions and insights to enhance efficiency and drive growth.

With the above Salesforce requirements met, the only one question remains: is Salesforce right for your business? Determining a CRM fit requires you to take stock of your unique business needs, and see if they can be met by the CRM software.  

Your cloud provider and available features set directly affects your relationships with your clients, which directly affect your business' bottom line. Choose a superior cloud system and ensure that this effect is for the better. Fill the form below today or call us at 1-866-498-2316 to request a no-obligation quote from an 8x8 Product Specialist.

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