What Are the Features and Benefits of Sales Cloud?
セールスクラウドとは、セールスフォース・ドットコムが提供している営業活動の効率化を図るCRMツールです。
顧客管理はもちろん、顧客の属性に合わせて最適な営業担当者を割り振ったり、案件状況を可視化して適切なフィードバックが可能になります。
これにより、属人的な営業を脱却し、成果にこだわった効率的な営業体制を構築することができます。
Sales Cloud Functions
The basic functions of Sales Cloud are as follows.
|
Features
|
Feature Overview
|
| Management |
• Prospect Management
• Existing Customer Management
• Sales Opportunity Management
|
|
Forecasting and Analysis
|
• Sales Forecasting
• Sales Opportunity Scoring
|
|
Support
|
- Business Automation
- Process Development
- Cross-Device Functionality
- Workflow and Approval System Development
|
While there are other features when broken down in detail, the core functions are categorized into three areas: Management, Forecasting & Analysis, and Support.
Among the many CRM options available, Sales Cloud is a tool that emphasizes Sales Management. By optimizing your sales structure after implementation, you can increase your win rate and boost revenue.
Sales Cloud is positioned strictly as a Sales Management tool. While it can be used to analyze existing customers, you must collect information via a corporate database to analyze prospective customers.
Therefore, if you wish to conduct more strategic analysis, we recommend using it in conjunction with tools that can collect database and corporate information.
Costs Associated with Implementing Sales Cloud
Sales Cloud employs a pricing structure where monthly fees vary based on the number of users and the features utilized. Below is a list of the Sales Cloud pricing structure and available features.
|
Plan
|
Cost
|
Number of Users
|
Available Features
|
| Essentials |
3,000 JPY / Month
|
Up to 10 Users
|
• Customer Management
• Mobile Support
• Reporting Features
• Cross-sell and Up-sell Management
- Process Customization and Automation
- Integration with Other Applications
|
|
Professional
|
9,000 JPY / Month
|
-
|
- Essentials Features
- Sales Forecasting
- Opportunity Scoring
|
|
Enterprise
|
18,000 JPY / Month
|
-
|
- Professional Features
- Opportunity Scoring
|
|
Unlimited
|
36,000 JPY / Month
|
-
|
- All Features
|
For details, please check the Sales Cloud pricing page.
Reference: How to Choose the Optimal Salesforce Edition
Three Things You Can Achieve by Implementing Sales Cloud
1. Visualization and Understanding of Deal Status
By using Sales Cloud, you can visualize and understand the status of your deals, whether you are inside or outside the office.
This allows you to not only check detailed customer information while on the go, but also to review past deal history and progress, enabling you to provide optimal proposals tailored to the customer's current situation.
Furthermore, because the deal status for each sales representative can be monitored across the organization, it is possible to proactively prevent missed opportunities or oversights in customer follow-ups.
2. Improvement of Sales Quality
Sales Cloud allows you to accumulate past sales information and activity history. By building a knowledge base of patterns that led to won or lost deals, you can reference past successes and failures during sales pitches to new customers, and create materials that are more likely to lead to positive results.
Furthermore, because users can view talk scripts and prepared materials from top sales performers, even new sales representatives can maintain high standards of service, leading to an improvement in the overall sales quality of the department.
Beyond improving the quality of individual sales representatives, analyzing patterns of won and lost deals enables "Sales Opportunity Scoring," which helps realize efficient sales operations by focusing efforts exclusively on high-potential customers.
3. Strengthening Interdepartmental Collaboration
Sales Cloud allows for the centralized management of customer information, sales opportunities, and appointments, which facilitates stronger collaboration between departments.
The most significant impact is expected in strengthening the collaboration between the marketing department and the sales department that conducts face-to-face negotiations. By assigning sales representatives with proven track records in specific industries and business types to leads generated through marketing initiatives, companies can build a sales structure with a higher win rate.
Many companies face challenges in the collaboration between their marketing and sales departments. By implementing Sales Cloud, organizations can enhance internal synergy, ultimately leading to increased revenue through more effective customer acquisition.
Characteristics of Companies That Benefit from Sales Cloud
The characteristics of companies that are well-suited for Sales Cloud implementation are as follows:
- Strengthen Inside Sales
- Companies Over-Reliant on a Single Top Sales Performer
- Companies Lacking Interaction Between Departments and Branches
- Companies with Strict Approval and Internal Authorization Processes
- Medium to Large Enterprises with Dozens of Sales Representatives
- Companies Capable of Assigning Dedicated Personnel for Sales Cloud Utilization
- Companies with Established Environments for Organizing Customer Information
Sales Cloud is a tool that helps improve sales performance. Generally, companies facing challenges in their sales operations will experience the most significant benefits from its implementation.
In particular, companies where information is siloed across departments or branches, leading to inefficient lead handoffs, or those overly reliant on top-performing sales individuals, will find the implementation highly effective.
Sales Cloud Implementation Steps
Before implementing Sales Cloud, it is essential to understand its basic structure and undergo service training. The specific implementation steps are as follows.
- Watch Demo Video
- Consider Implementation
- Apply for a Free Trial
- Formal Contract
- Conduct Training
Salesforce provides various product demo videos to help you visualize how the products are used. First, please check the Demo Videos before considering implementation.
Once implementation is decided, apply for a 30-day free trial, input your company's specific workflows and sales information, and proceed with customization.
While results may not be immediate, you should consider a formal contract after verifying the user experience.
After signing a formal contract, conduct training for employees to ensure the system is adopted as an internal tool. Appointing a dedicated administrator is key to smooth operations.
Points to Consider When Implementing Sales Cloud
A key point to consider when implementing Sales Cloud is that training to encourage the organization of customer information and data entry by sales representatives is essential.
Sales Cloud is strictly a tool for managing existing customer information; if the quality of data entry is low, it cannot lead to accurate analysis or improved sales efficiency.
Therefore, data consolidation and data cleansing are necessary to resolve data duplication and errors, and it is also essential to create manuals and conduct training to ensure accurate information is entered.
Please be aware that if the environment is not properly established, accurate analysis cannot be performed, making it difficult to achieve the intended benefits of implementation.
