As more and more companies embrace the inevitable transformation of digital technology, Salesforce seems more relevant today than ever before. Retail, Fashion, and the grocery industry have successfully leveraged this technology to gain tangible business impact. As a process-specific, cloud-based business technology, Salesforce continues to grow and gain popularity amongst other industries as well. 

Salesforce is critical to customer success, integrating it into businesses can be the difference between make or break. Especially for SaaS companies, where customer engagement is the real differentiator, it is critical for companies to get all the relevant stakeholders such as tech support, sales, and marketing on a single platform and facilitate seamless customer interactions. Salesforce enables that. 

SaaS in 2022

By the end of 2021, 99% of businesses would have adopted SaaS in one form or the other!

The Software as a Service (SaaS) model is being adopted by more and more organizations for a multitude of reasons, key among them being the flexibility and cost-effectiveness they offer. The pandemic acted as a catalyst in driving digital growth and subsequent adoption of SaaS services by organizations of all sizes. 

Despite limited IT budgets, more and more customers are adopting subscription-based pricing models to satiate their IT needs, especially SMEs and start-ups. That doesn’t mean established companies are shying away from SaaS solutions. In fact, they are adopting those as it gives them the diversity and agility to come up with modern solutions.     

It is evident the SaaS industry will grow consistently and will continue to evolve with technological advancement. By knowing what lays ahead and how to overcome or capitalize on these trends, most business owners should be able to go from strength to strength.

As the market demand grows exponentially, the outcome of this is a suitable business ecosystem that paves the way for healthy competition among SaaS vendors. 

Salesforce – The Perfect Partner in the World of Digital Selling 

With an increase in the number of people working remotely, more organizations are embracing Salesforce since digital selling is the way forward. Even after being in existence for over 20 years, Salesforce has managed to stay relevant and constantly reinvent itself. 

While Salesforce Anywhere allows users to sell globally with relative ease, Sales Cloud 360 simplified digital selling and boosted remote sales productivity to a whole new level. Also, combining platforms like Quip, Salesforce Meetings, Salesforce Anywhere and the recently acquired Slack, Salesforce has brought itself to a level where users get additional value and meet increased demand. 

Salesforce is being extensively used in industries such as retail, e-commerce, fashion, financial services, manufacturing, and media to just name a few. Salesforce AppExchange offers ready-to-install apps, solutions, and consultants enabling clients to adopt Salesforce to any industry.

Research says, over the next 5-6 years SaaS- CRM deployment will reach anywhere between 80-85%. Since Salesforce holds a 15% market share in the Cloud-based CRM domain, it will fully take advantage of the situation to establish itself as the true market leader. 

But what is really fueling this CRM boom is SaaS.

Why do SaaS Companies need Salesforce?

The greatest advantage of Salesforce is that it is a SaaS company. This gives Salesforce an added edge in positioning itself to SaaS businesses. Salesforce understands every challenge and pitfall that these organizations may face. 

Running a SaaS company is no mean task even though it may seem attractive and lucrative. Managing subscriptions, lead generation, customer support are all laborious tasks. The solution to all the above: Integration of Salesforce to SaaS. 

Companies like Bennett, Coleman & Co, Spotify, and Pandora are already leveraging the power of Salesforce to grow their user base and ensure customer satisfaction. 

There are a multitude of benefits Salesforce can offer SaaS companies, but we’ll talk about the key among them. 

• Streamlined Sales Cycles: Sales, whether offline or digital, involves the accumulation of enormous amounts of data. SaaS sales can be more complex. Sales pipelines, lead generation, follow-ups, interactions, all add to the accumulation of a large amount of data. Add to this, the source of each lead, all together form a complex web of data. Salesforce integrates all this data, connects every sale and marketing lead right from source to closure to create a cohesive sales journey, ensuring that every lead is addressed individually, thereby maximizing sales potential.

• Simplified After-Sales Support: An organization’s responsibility doesn’t end with the closure of a sale. In fact, that is where it begins in the form of after-sales support. Customer experience is at the forefront of any business. SaaS success is purely achieved through recurring business and hence is directly linked to customer experience. This is where Salesforce’s Service Cloud comes into play. It records customer interactions in their entirety and facilitates omni-channel communication. This means companies can be available to the customer via whatever communication channel they choose. Phone, email, text, and chat are all supported by Service Cloud. Salesforce further simplifies customer support by helping develop product catalogs, FAQs, and discussion forums. While this helps customers get speedy resolutions, it also helps the company understand their customer’s psyche better. 

• Sustained Business Retention: Like mentioned earlier, SaaS success is achieved through recurring business, and for this business retention is significant. Salesforce CPQ helps in achieving this success. Salesforce Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) manages multiple revenue models, like free trials, discounts, referrals, refunds, one-off transactions, etc. But its key functionality is managing renewals on the original terms of the establishment. Salesforce CPQ ensures pricing is correct, and product configuration meets the relevant terms and conditions laid down by the organization. This minimizes human error and increases accountability. 

• Salesforce Cloud Apps: Salesforce’s innovative offers enable multiple businesses to use a common platform, which works out less expensive for them. This ensures that the quality of pre and after-sales improve considerably. Salesforce cloud services also help streamline and enhance communications using services like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Sales Chatter. Sales Cloud. in particular, is a feature-packed service. It can manage everything customer-related, right from lead generation, sales funneling, contact management to performance management.

• Uniform Architecture: One of the biggest advantages of Salesforce is its universality. Service quality and performance are consistent irrespective of the size of the client’s business. They all have access to a singular infrastructure and platform. This also means that updates and upgrades are instant, cloud-based without any human intervention. It enables businesses of all sizes to adopt the platform with ease and make the most of it. 

At Sapours, we have helped several SaaS businesses, at different stages of growth and success, adopt Salesforce and benefit from it. We understand the complexities involved in running a SaaS company and making it a success. From generating leads, managing subscriptions, maintaining large amounts of data, knowing what to do with such data to retaining the business and ensuring enhanced customer experiences, we can simplify and streamline things for your business using Salesforce. 

We understand both ends of the spectrum! As a SaaS company and a Salesforce vendor. Let’s connect to discuss more.