Salesforce CRM Is In Trouble. How did it get to this?
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Do you use a CRM?
Is it Salesforce?
Given that Salesforce CRM is the dominant CRM platform out there, chances are good that it is.
But will you be using Salesforce CRM in the foreseeable future?
It seems incredible to believe, given Salesforce’s market dominance and nearly 20% year-on-year growth, that we may be seeing the beginning of the end of Salesforce’s position as a CRM leader.
Is this Salesforce’s Kodak moment?
In a damning new 2022 report, titled "Salesforce, Dream versus Reality", USA-based research firm Nucleus reports on Salesforce's poor customer satisfaction and user experience.
According to Nucleus, "43% of customers felt that Salesforce is more concerned with its own success.”
In addition, a staggering "51 percent of Salesforce customers would switch to another vendor, if given the opportunity."
Ouch!
Here are a few more quotes from the Nucleus report:
"Although it is considered a leader in the CRM space, Salesforce seems to have a difficult time keeping its customers satisfied."
"Users Nucleus interviewed over the past two years cited poor usability, complex integrations, and lack of support as primary concerns behind this sentiment."
"Additionally, the majority of customers interviewed noted that the price of Salesforce steadily increased relative to its value."
"With little differentiation in the CRM space, Salesforce needs to reassess its priorities to ensure it maintains an ROI for its customers in an increasingly competitive environment."
"Salesforce customers reported the lowest usability scores among all other leaders in the market, making it one of the most difficult solutions to adopt."
"Primary contributing factors were unnecessary complexity that increased the cost of user training, and integration issues that increased the cost to manage the application."
"23 percent of Salesforce customers believe the value being delivered was diminishing, relative to its cost."
"Often, support questions go unanswered for weeks or months, and assistance is relatively limited."
The final nail in the Salesforce coffin seems to be this diagram:
It suggests that Salesforce has lost its competitive edge and is increasingly giving way to competing CRM providers.
Given these findings, I wanted to know how Salesforce users really feel about their apps.
So, I launched a simple poll on LinkedIn. It asked users to choose one of 3 statements about their Salesforce experience.
Here are the results:
It’s pretty clear, the shine and luster of has come off Salesforce CRM. With 30% of respondents actively disliking their Salesforce CRM and another third of respondents not even using Salesforce CRM my poll reinforces the Nucleus Research report.
Even the 37% of respondents who said they love their Salesforce CRM have a caveat: A good number of these respondents appear to be professionally affiliated with Salesforce, either as direct Salesforce representatives or as Salesforce Partners.
Given the information above, it seems that there might indeed be something awry in the land of Salesforce.
Could this be Salesforce's Kodak Moment?
What do you think?
I am curious about your CRM. Let me know in the comments below.
Here is to your Modern Selling Success!
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About
Peter Strohkorb is the Founder and Principal of Peter Strohkorb Advisory, the international Sales Acceleration Advisory firm with a growing list of clients in the B2B services and tech space in the US, Australia, and in the UK.
Our motto is: “More Sales, Faster”.
And that is exactly what we deliver to you, our clients.
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