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Small Business > Salesforce For SMBs? What To Expect + 5 CRM Alternatives

Salesforce For SMBs? What To Expect + 5 CRM Alternatives

Jacob Statler Leave a Comment

Last updated on August 7th, 2023

Salesforce For SMBs? What To Expect + 5 CRM Alternatives

Today, you’ll learn the features and use cases Salesforce Essentials brings to your SMB. You’ll also get familiar with 5 alternative CRMs that may be a better fit for your organization.

In the CRM hunt, many SMBs may come across Salesforce, a known CRM option in the market. 

However, brand recognition doesn’t always mean a software is the perfect fit for your organization.

For that reason, we’ve researched and compiled the tangibles you can expect from using Salesforce for SMBs, along with 5 CRM alternatives that may make more sense.

Table of Contents:

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Can Salesforce Be Used For Small Businesses?

Yes, Salesforce offers CRM for different businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises.

Their SMB CRM solution is called Salesforce Essentials. 

There are also specialty CRMs with purposes that serve more niche, small business needs (marketing-specific, customer service, eCommerce, etc.)

All these options can seem a bit overwhelming, so the best way to choose the right CRM type is by having a strategy. 

This is where CRM evaluations and implementation plans come into play. 

These are the criteria and overall roadmaps you’ll take to pick the best CRM for your business. 

Another good approach to aiding your CRM choice with Salesforce or an alternative is to read what customers say. 

For that reason, let’s go over some reviews around Salesforce Essentials.

Reviews On Salesforce Essentials: What Customers Have To Say

Here are G2 reviews of verified Salesforce customers and their experiences and opinions on the CRM. 

1. “Difficulties In Use”

Here’s what 3 different users had to say about its difficulty:

“The utilization of Salesforce has been very challenging. A small business is left to figure out issues….”

Salesforce review

“It is a very complete program that makes it difficult to approach because of its many tools and functions. Its learning curve is undoubtedly high, and it requires dedication and time to take advantage of each tool.”

Salesforce reviews

“I dislike how hard it is to actually learn everything since there is so much”

Review Salesforce

2. “Good For Tracking Leads And Customers” 

3 users speak on the customer tracking functionality:

3. “Outdated For The User Interface” 

Here’s how the user interface fairs:

4. “Wide Range Of Tools”

One reviewer mentions:

5. “CRM Drawbacks”

6. “Requires More Support To Maximize Its Use”

What a user says about CRM support:

Salesforce Small Business CRM: 8 Features And Use-cases

Salesforce Essentials provides sales and customer service features for SMBs to use. Here are some features of the CRM, along with scenarios for them.

  • Email Marketing
    • Use-case: sending weekly newsletters that nurture your list of warm prospects. 
  • Activity Tracking 
    • Use-case: Tracking team sales targets to ensure you get enough weekly demos. 
  • Sales Forecasting
    • Use-case: Tracking the accuracy of your forecasts by comparing metrics to expectations 
  • Contact Management
    • Use-case: Exporting customer data to spreadsheets to use for your Facebook lookalike campaigns 
  • Segmentation
    • Use-case: Segmenting customers based on industry or product commonality using tags 
  • Document Storage
    • Use-case: Storing company SOPs in your CRM for staff access
  • Support Ticket Tracking
    • Use-case: Tracking customer inquiries and customer service success
  • Task Management
    • Use-case: Ensuring post-meeting sales action items get done promptly. 

How Much Is Salesforce Per Month For A Small Business?

Here’s what you can expect to pay in your SalesForce investment.

  • Salesforce Essentials starts at $25 per month
  • Professional – $75
  • Enterprise – $150
  • Unlimited – $300

6 Pros And Cons Of Salesforce For SMBs To Know

Pros:

  • Tailored for SMBs – SalesForce Essentials has capabilities that most small and medium-sized businesses would see as beneficial for their marketing sales and customer service needs. 
  • Resource abundant – Salesforce has guides and training to navigate implementation.
  • Multiple tiers for scaling – Salesforce has adequate scalability potential (however, there are small business CRMs that scale better).

Cons:

  • Steep Learning Curve – It may be a steep learning curve due to all the features and niche information you have to learn.
  • Outdated UI – Reports of outdated and slow UI which negatively affect the user experience, and day-to-day team productivity.
  • Company user adoption can be low – Due to the steep learning curve, getting everyone to learn and use Salesforce CRM can be difficult, affecting CRM adoption rates.

VipeCloud: The #1 Salesforce Alternative For Small And Medium-sized Businesses 

1. VipeCloud 

VipeCloud

VipeCloud is a CRM that services the marketing, sales, and customer relationship-building needs of SMBs. 

Who It’s For

Small and medium-sized businesses that want all-in-one capabilities without the hefty costs. 

What It Does Better 

  • Updated, simple to understand UI
  • Abundant support and guides to navigate the CRM to its full capabilities 
  • Unlimited users compared to just 10 for Salesforce Essentials 
  • Easy, clear to understand sales and marketing reporting 
  • More affordable based on average pricing tiers 

VipeCloud Customer Reviews 

Here’s what customers are saying about their experience with VipeCloud:

  • “I am over the moon impressed with the ease of this product. I love the analysis report given after each mass email.”
  • “Vipecloud enables us to do a multitude of different things with our customer database — everything from contact management to email marketing and even to tracking opportunities. It’s one of the best on the market.”
  • “The creators listen to the clients. They are adding new features and make the system easier. They aren’t afraid to expand their initial concept and incorporate a better wider vision based on the users”
  • “I love the email features and social media posting. The system is user-friendly. The customer service is excellent, prompt, and easy to understand.”
  • “I love that there are so many options for email layouts, pictures, and backgrounds. VipeCloud is professional, easy to use, and makes you look like a pro!”
  • “They LISTEN until they understand their client’s needs. What separates a good company from a great one are the people and the product. VipeCloud has Both.”

VipeCloud Support 

VipeCloud Features & Benefits 

VipeCloud Features
  • Forms – Capture lead data quickly and sync that information into your records streamlined.
  • Estimates – Speed up how quickly customers get your pricing quotes and track how they interact with them.
  • Contact Scoring – Rank your most valuable prospects and know the ones who fit your ideal customer profile (ICP) the best based on their behaviors and attributes.  
  • Task management – Know exactly what needs to be done, by who, and when with tasks. This augments productivity which compounds well in just a given quarter 
  • Scheduler – Let prospects and clients set a time to meet with you and block off times when you’re unavailable. Meeting reminders get sent to ensure everyone shows up for important meetings. 
  • Segmentation – Segment contacts based on commonalities so that your marketing messages resonate with the right audience. This boosts the likelihood of successful text and email campaigns.
  • Integrations – Let VipeCloud communicate with your most used software so that information moves from system to system without too much manual work.
  • Reports – Get precise and up-to-date information on the state of your sales and marketing efforts and team activity. Reports help eliminate sales ambiguity which is what many SMBs struggle with.

VipeCloud Pricing 

VipeCloud offers 4 affordable pricing tiers based on your needs. The best part is that all tiers are month to month, meaning no extended contracts. 

Here’s how the pricing measures up when billed annually:

  • Plus – $20 (or $25 monthly)
  • Pro – $40 (or $50 per user monthly)
  • Enterprise $60 (or $75 per user monthly)
  • Custom solution – Contact us.

Here’s what each tier consists of:

Plus:

  • Feature-rich CRM, one pipeline
  • 2K contacts
  • 10K monthly emails
  • Email marketing
  • Video email
  • Texting 
  • Stories
  • Social sharing
  • Sign up forms
  • 1 user

Pro:

  • Everything in Plus, along with:
  • 10K contacts per user
  • 30K monthly emails per user
  • Sales & marketing automation
  • Custom fields
  • Account management
  • Sales estimates & QuickBooks integration
  • Inbox sync
  • 1 scheduler
  • 1 team
  • Phone support
  • Up to 10 users

Enterprise:

  • Everything in Pro, along with:
  • 60K contact per user
  • 60K monthly emails per user
  • One-email-per-minute mass email processing
  • Multiple schedulers
  • Website tracker
  • Contact scoring
  • 10K email verifications per month
  • Multiple pipelines
  • Multiple teams
  • Unlimited users

Custom:

  • Everything in Enterprise, along with:
  • Custom contact count
  • Custom email sending quantity
  • Custom email verifications quantity
  • Dedicated SMTP delivery account
  • Dedicated IP addresses and rDNS support
  • Custom implementation and training

4 More SalesForce Alternatives For SMBs

  • Pipedrive – Pipedrive offers simple and useful sales functionality to manage your opportunities better.
  • Keap – An affordable all-in-one CRM solution for SMBs that covers both sales and marketing needs. 
  • Agile CRM – Covers your marketing sales and customer service bases and allows up to 10 users on their first tier. 
  • Hubspot – Simplifies scheduling along with marketing, sales, and customer service in a simple UI.

The Verdict: The Bottomline Of Salesforce Essentials For SMBs

Salesforce Essentials aims to make robust selling and marketing more accessible for SMBs.

Although CRM support and information are there, it might fall short of being easy to use for the average small business.

In addition, users mention Salesforce lacking in modern reporting capabilities and easy-to-understand UI. 

For this reason, CRM users of today want an all-in-one system that not only meets their needs but does so on a year-to-year basis.

It’s that simple.

That’s why VipeCloud is proud to offer the Sales and Marketing suite, which lets you simplify business operations without the common implementation headaches many SMBs report. 

What do you get?

  • An easier learning curve.
  • Better pricing.
  • More personalized support.

Request a demo today to have an expert walk you through VipeCloud and answer all your burning questions. 

If you’re ready to start, you can grab your 15-day free trial when you sign-up today. 

About Jacob Statler

Jacob has been using CRM to help scale his marketing agency since 2019. Since then, he has been sharing his learnings about how small business owners can improve their sales, marketing, and client relationships using new tactics and evergreen strategies. He has written over 120 articles on sales strategies, marketing, small business tactics & CRM insights.

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