What is Salesforce and what does it do: the ultimate guide

Salesforce: what it is, what does it do and why to use it, benefits of the software, what services it offers
Salesforce
·
9/5/2022
·
5 min. read

Salesforce is a popular cloud-based CRM owned by the US company of the same name. It is used by large international companies such as Sony, Financial Times, AWS, Canon, Philips, American Express, and Toyota.

What is Salesforce?

Salesforce is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system that is designed to manage a wide variety of business processes, customer relationships, analytics, marketing, sales, and so on. Salesforce CRM works similarly to the SaaS model (a form of computing in the cloud). Its users are provided with ready-made software, access to which is gained via a browser or mobile application. The CRM system is designed to meet the needs of small, medium-sized, and large enterprises. It offers instruments for searching, retaining a customer base, closing deals, and more. unnamed.png

What services does Salesforce offer?

It has prepared quite a number of solutions to the problems faced by different industries; often they stand out as independent products. Check out what the major Salesforce solutions include.

Sales Cloud

Sales Cloud is the core of the entire CRM. It has built-in objects (Lead, Contact, Account, Opportunity, Order, Quote, etc.) for managing the client relationship and ready-made business logic (Lead Conversion, Lead Assignment, Forecasting, etc.). It allows users to build a pipeline and apply to a wide range of tools for analytics and reporting.

Service Cloud

Service Cloud helps businesses process customer complaints. The service has built-in objects (Case, Knowledge Article, etc.) and built-in business logic (Case Assignment, Case Escalating, Web-to-Case, Email-to-Case). The user interface of the console app allows support professionals to conveniently work with multiple records without switching between tabs.

Experience Cloud

Experience Cloud simplifies the creation and development of attractive and intuitive websites that enhance interaction with customers, partners, and employees. Tightly integrated with Salesforce, Experience Cloud allows users to configure automatic uploading of content from the CMS.

Marketing Cloud

Marketing Cloud is a business-to-consumer (b2c) marketing solution with the typical functionality of a marketing tool: bulk emails, email tracking, creation of landing pages, advertising campaigns, etc. The service helps businesses create a customized and targeted customer journey, understand their consumer base better, and improve their marketing efforts.

Pardot

Pardot offers a variety of instruments for business-to-business (b2b) sales. It allows managers to create forms and landing pages, track visits, check and evaluate potential customers, measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and capture real-time statistics.

Tools for specific areas

Along with that, Salesforce offers tools for specific areas of activity:

Salesforce Lightning — for low-code development of applications for the automation of operational activities of enterprises. It features a rich library of easily configurable components that can be dragged and dropped, deleted, cloned, etc. Configuration Price Quotes (CPQ) — for flexible price setting and sales, advanced management of the decision-making process, configuring products, and applying quantity discounts. Healthcare Cloud — for bringing together patients and healthcare providers. Non-Profit Cloud — for charitable organizations. Government Cloud — for government organizations. Vaccine Cloud — for easy search of a clinic for vaccination. Force.com Sites — for the development and deployment of cloud applications and websites. Omni-Channel — for the integration of different channels of communication with customers. Einstein AI — artificial intelligence for data analysis.

unnamed-3.png Einstein AI helps businesses discover use cases to improve their most critical KPIs

A complete list of Salesforce solutions can be found on the official website of the developer. Each product of this system has its own tariff plan. unnamed-4.png Sales Cloud tariff plans

Benefits of Salesforce

Time management

A well-designed CRM allows a business to find the best potential clients, save time in the search process, and automate sales as much as possible. Salesforce does not require any software to be installed. You can start working with this CRM in just a couple of days. All data is sent to the business and is available in real time. This helps the company enter the market more efficiently and begin to increase its share on the word.

Increased revenue

Salesforce helps to correctly define business goals based on actual metrics, maintain constant feedback from customers, and stimulate the sales team’s motivation for better marketing. This results in a significant increase in sales volume and growth of profits.

Ultimate accessibility

The CRM has a cloud-based structure, therefore employees can access it from virtually anywhere, which helps to increase the overall productivity of their teams. It is easy to get started with Salesforce due to its ability to seamlessly import data from Google Calendar, Gmail, Excel spreadsheets, and many other sources.

Customer satisfaction

The system features scorecards that give a clear picture of ​​how well a company is meeting customer expectations. For each client, you can view a full and detailed description of the service history, current requests, and the quality of service data.

Easy account planning

The drag-and-drop scheduling feature allows users to schedule events related to accounts, contacts, and interests right on the list view page. You can also invite users, clients, and employees to meetings without leaving the system.

unnamed-5.png Account planning solution offered by Salesforce

Trusted reporting

The report builder allows users to group, filter, and summarize records to create accurate, detailed, and reliable reports. Report charts and tables can be used to visually represent data. You can prepare reports on archived changes or omit part of the data when reporting.

Team collaboration

With Salesforce, you can support efficient interaction between all participants and components of business processes. You can set tasks, distribute them among specialists, and monitor their implementation. Details of negotiations, results of transactions, calls, and orders — everything is stored here.

Omnichannel support

All customers of the service highly appreciate the Salesforce technical support service. The company’s specialists are always ready to give actual step-by-step instructions on any issue, from creating customized reports to enabling customer notifications.

Easy integration with other tools

One of the important advantages of the service is its flexibility. The CRM system, as well as separate Salesforce products, are easily integrated with other services. You can combine Salesforce with just about any other part of your business process.

Use Albato to integrate your CRM with other apps and enjoy a unified experience of superior data quality and management. Read the article “How to connect Salesforce to Albato” in our blog.

Salesforce architecture

The platform is built on a multi-tenant, metadata-driven architecture.

Multi-tenant architecture

Multitenancy is a mode of software operation in which multiple independent instances of one or more applications run in a shared environment. Instances (tenants) are logically isolated, but physically integrated. Multi-tenant architecture is a fundamental way to cut the cost of computing resources and storage for SaaS solutions, due to the minimum amount of resources required and their ultimate load. The most tangible benefit comes from a combination of multi-tenancy and “unlimited scaling”, when there is no need to use additional funds to promote new resources or add servers.

unnamed-6.png The platform’s software architecture

Metadata

Metadata is information that describes the configuration of every client’s organization. It can be of different types such as programmability, presentation, configurations, code, logic, etc. Salesforce stores metadata in a shared database along with other data, thus keeping data along with its function. It makes the system more scalable, customizable, and secure.

API

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) allow two software components to interact with each other using a set of rules and protocols. Each time a user opens the system, Salesforce applies the corresponding API name to access the metadata and the data the user is looking for. In this way, all user data and metadata are maintained via the API, which gives Salesforce a lot of flexibility.

Which companies use Salesforce?

Salesforce is deservedly considered the №1 CRM platform in the world. Among its most notable clients are Spotify, Amazon Web Services, U.S. Bank, Toyota, Macy’s, and T-Mobile.

According to Ascendix.com, 150,000 companies across industries use Salesforce tools. The software helps organizations consolidate all business functions and processes into a single source of information. 62% of the service’s clients are located in the US. These are, for instance, Spotify, Amazon Web Services, and U.S. Bank.

According to the data for 2021, the majority of CRM users are professional services. Other large segments are manufacturing, financial services, banking, and retail.

49% of all Salesforce customers are small firms (up to 50 employees), 40% are medium-size, and only 11% are large firms with more than 1,000 employees. unnamed-7.png Salesforce prices for small businesses

Conclusion

  • Salesforce is a leading cloud-based CRM platform that offers customized solutions for all industries, company sizes, and business purposes. It has a multi-tenant, metadata-driven architecture.
  • Salesforce has long ceased to be just a system for managing customer relationships: the system includes a wide range of solutions for many industries and areas, developed internally or by third parties.
  • Despite their relatively high prices, Salesforce products remain one of the most demanded by sales, service, and marketing teams. They offer a number of sophisticated tools for small, medium, and large companies, including such world giants as U.S. Bank and Toyota.

Salesforce

Related articles

Show more
Connect Zendesk with Popular Apps | Streamline Your Support Workflow with Albato
4 min. read

Connect Zendesk with Popular Apps | Streamline Your Support Workflow with Albato

Zendesk offers a comprehensive customer service solution, designed for ease of use and scalability. See how Albato can help you enhance the app’s usability!

How to use Claude Artifacts: 7 Ways with examples | Guide 2025
Claude AI
10 min. read

How to use Claude Artifacts: 7 Ways with examples | Guide 2025

Learn how to use Claude Artifacts with our detailed guide. Explore 7 best ways with real Artifact examples: web pages, prototypes, presentations and visualizations.

Connect Gumlet with Your Favorite Apps | Optimize Your Media Management with Albato
3 min. read

Connect Gumlet with Your Favorite Apps | Optimize Your Media Management with Albato

Gumlet is best way to stream ad-free videos on internet. It has powerful CMS to organise videos and hollywood grade DRM. See how Albato can help you enhance the app’s usability!

Connect Octopush with Albato | Elevate Your SMS Marketing Strategy
3 min. read

Connect Octopush with Albato | Elevate Your SMS Marketing Strategy

With Octopush, businesses are well equipped to propel their brand, promote their offers and services at scale. See how Albato can help you enhance the app’s usability!

Connect DocuSign with 800+ Apps | Simplify Document Management on Albato
3 min. read

Connect DocuSign with 800+ Apps | Simplify Document Management on Albato

DocuSign is a top electronic signature and digital transaction management platform, helping organizations manage contracts and agreements securely and efficiently. See how Albato can help you enhance the app’s usability!

Chili Piper Alternatives 2024: Top 6 Scheduling & Lead Management Tools
CalendarHero
4 min. read

Chili Piper Alternatives 2024: Top 6 Scheduling & Lead Management Tools

Discover the top 6 Chili Piper alternatives for scheduling and lead management. Compare features, pros & cons of Calendly, Dashly, Cal.com & more. Find the best fit for your business.

Customer Service Skills: Essential Guide to Handling Discount Requests
1 min. read

Customer Service Skills: Essential Guide to Handling Discount Requests

Learn essential customer service skills for handling different types of discount requests. Discover proven strategies for maintaining customer loyalty while protecting your business interests.

Passion.io Alternatives: 5 Better Options for Video Apps
2 min. read

Passion.io Alternatives: 5 Better Options for Video Apps

Looking for Passion.io alternatives? Explore 5 powerful platforms: Gurucan, Mighty Networks, Thinkific, Bettermode & FlutterFlow. Compare features, pricing & choose the best app builder for your needs.

5 Powerful Mobile App Marketing Strategies You Haven't Tried Yet | 2024 Guide
5 min. read

5 Powerful Mobile App Marketing Strategies You Haven't Tried Yet | 2024 Guide

Discover 5 powerful mobile app marketing strategies to boost downloads and user retention. Learn how to leverage automation, A/B testing, analytics, and cross-promotion tools to grow your app effectively. Perfect for developers and small teams.

How to Start an Affiliate Marketing Store
4 min. read

How to Start an Affiliate Marketing Store

Step-by-step guide to creating a profitable affiliate marketing store. Learn how to choose programs, build a site, and monetize your audience.

Top content automation tools in 2024
4 min. read

Top content automation tools in 2024

Maximize your reach in 2024 with tools designed for every content channel. Find out how top automation platforms can transform your workflow

Best Learning Management Systems (LMS) 2025: Complete Comparison Guide
5 min. read

Best Learning Management Systems (LMS) 2025: Complete Comparison Guide

Discover the most convenient Learning Management System (LMS) to choose the perfect one for your needs.