Salesforce CRM:
Everything you need to know.

What is CRM (customer relationship management) and what can it do for you?

 
CRM helps unite your teams around your customers, get actionable insights from data, attract prospects,
and retain loyal customers. Salesforce Customer 360 is the world’s #1 CRM, and we’ve been hard at work building it since 1999.
 

Learn more about CRM technology, how to use it, and its business benefits.

Table of Contents

 
“Having a single source of truth allows our employees, regardless of the function they perform, to have the knowledge and data they need at their fingertips.”
Dan Torunian
VP, Employee Technology & Experiences, PayPal

What is CRM?

CRM is an acronym for customer relationship management. It’s a technology used by any kind of business or organisation, large or small, to manage and support customer relationships. CRM technology helps organisations build and grow relationships across the entire customer lifecycle, including marketing, sales, commerce, service, and IT. It’s used by B2C companies in consumer goods and retail and also by B2B organisations across high tech, manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, and more.

A CRM system allows businesses to manage customer and prospect relationships with data. You can store, track, and analyse customer and prospect information in one central location, including contact and account information, sales opportunities, service cases, and marketing campaigns. With data in one central location, organisations have a complete picture of customers and prospects that can be shared and analysed by teams across the company in real time.

 
See how Salesforce Customer 360 works in action and learn how customer relationship management tools can help you build your business. (2:39)

Why choose Salesforce for CRM technology?

Long gone are the days when CRM was just a simple database that stored customer information. Now, it’s an intelligent, proactive, AI-powered platform that empowers employees with the information they need to make the best decisions for every customer. It’s the backbone of the world’s most customer-centred organisations and helps companies put the customer at the centre of everything they do.

Salesforce Customer 360 is the complete Salesforce CRM product portfolio of market-leading applications to build and sustain customer relationships across every line of business.

 

It’s complete.

With best-in-class apps for marketing, sales, commerce, and service, all built on our trusted platform, Customer 360 goes beyond CRM to support every customer touchpoint.

You can integrate data from any source, make sense of it, and take action in real time with our MuleSoft integration platform and Tableau, our business intelligence platform. Einstein, our built-in artificial intelligence (AI), uses this data along with workflows in Slack to completely automate the majority of repeatable business functions.
A smiling man and the Customer 360 color wheel and industry names (Sales, Service, Marketing, and Commerce)
 

It’s collaborative.

Slack is now part of Customer 360 and serves as the integrated engagement layer, helping employees communicate, collaborate, and take action with colleagues, customers, and partners wherever they work. Everyone can manage their daily Salesforce tasks right from Slack — increasing productivity, adoption, and value.
 

It’s scalable and secure.

Customer 360 is built and hosted on the fully cloud-based Salesforce Platform, trusted by over 150,000 companies to deliver their most business-critical apps. With Hyperforce, our next-generation infrastructure architecture, it’s even more powerful. Hyperforce delivers Salesforce apps securely and reliably across all major public clouds. It allows for greater scale and innovation and maintains customer compliance and data residency requirements. The best part? All of this technology is carbon neutral.

It’s adaptive and flexible.

For companies of any size in any industry, Customer 360 can flex with your changing needs. With an ecosystem of 8,700+ mission-critical partner apps and services, Salesforce and Slack can maximise your use of our technology to meet your business needs. And with more than 9 million installs, you can implement apps with confidence.
 

We’re customer-obsessed.

We have countless stories about helping our customers achieve and exceed their goals. We provide expert services, on-demand training, and everything in between to ensure our customers maximise the value of Salesforce. With more than 11 million Trailblazers, you’re part of an incredible community where you can learn, grow, and fuel customer success in your organisation.
See how Salesforce Customer 360 unites your teams with a single, shared view of every customer. [3:19]
Learn more about Customer 360 and find the right solutions for any team or industry.
 

Answer a few quick questions and we‘ll create a CRM solution for you and your business.

 

Discover how Salesforce CRM helps organizations grow.

IBM uses CRM technology to unite 380,000 employees across 170 global locations.

 
The tech giant scaled service and improved the speed of sales with Customer 360. But its biggest win was in internal communications across teams, time zones, and channels. IBM was an early adopter of Slack, and its use has decreased communication clutter and humanised conversations in real time.
 

“Whenever you go through a crisis, leadership has to come to the top. How do we emerge stronger as a business? Can we change the way we work? Can we make quicker decisions?”

Arvind Krishna

Chairman & CEO
IBM
 

Sonos increased year-over-year ecommerce growth 84% and deepened B2C and B2B customer relationships.

 
Sonos connects marketing, commerce, and service to seamlessly engage customers across touchpoints and reinvent the home audio experience from anywhere. With Customer 360, Sonos powers both B2C commerce operations and a digital B2B storefront and community for small and midsize dealers. It scales service with AI and automation and builds loyalty with targeted marketing journeys based on customer usage data.
 

“Our employees can collaborate across different organizations, datasets, and dashboards to deliver service in a consistent manner, no matter where they are in the world.”

Dharam Rai

VP, Customer Experience
Sonos

Get a free trial of Salesforce CRM.

Will Customer 360 work for your organisation? Take 30 days to decide. There’s no credit card required and nothing to install. Try a couple of tools in the Customer 360 toolbox and see what they can do for you.
 
Try a free trial of Sales Cloud.
Using your data or ours, access preconfigured processes, reports, and dashboards specific to sales. Take advantage of online training and live onboarding webinars for sales reps, leaders, and administrators.
Try a free trial of Service Cloud.
Use Service Cloud Professional Edition for preconfigured processes, reports, and dashboards specific to service, plus on-demand webinars and online training for onboarding new hires, service agents, leaders, and administrators.
Try the Customer 360 Solution Finder.
Use the solution finder to find a solution tailored specifically to your industry and needs. Get matched to the right products that meet the needs of your role, scale to your business size, and fit your priorities.

Kickstart transformation with CRM.

For decades we’ve partnered with industry analysts, thought leaders, and our customers around the globe to develop best practices for successful customer-centered transformation. Read our library of research and thought leadership to help you meet your goals.
 

The Transformation Playbook

Learn how to change mindsets, connect silos, and center your business around your customer.
Your Guide to Customer-Focused Technology
Read how to build a technology roadmap around your customers, from vision to integration to adoption.
Unlock, Analyze, and Act on Your Data
Increase your organisation’s agility with a scalable data strategy.

Ask us what CRM can do for you.
Call us at 0800 0921223 (Freephone).