What Is a Salesforce Sales Cloud, and How to Use It?

Salesforce Sales Cloud is easily the most comprehensive solution for the sales teams. The superstar status of Sales Cloud is well-deserved since this product brings 23% of Salesforce’s annual revenue. No surprise, though. After all, CRM systems were mostly created for sales reps to manage their client’s data. 

In this post, you’ll discover what Salesforce Cloud actually is, how you can benefit from using it, and what features and editions are there. 

What is Salesforce Sales Cloud?

Salesforce Sales Cloud is a comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) platform designed specifically to help sales teams manage leads, track opportunities, automate tasks, and close deals more efficiently.

It offers a range of tools and features that enhance sales productivity, improve decision-making, and facilitate collaboration, making it an essential solution for businesses looking to optimize their sales processes and drive revenue growth.

We’ve already explained earlier in one of our blog posts that Salesforce Cloud is not just space for storing data but the whole platform with specific tools and technologies used to benefit your business. And while many CRM platforms are focused on one specific industry or department, Salesforce, this all-powerful titan, decided to create products for them all. That’s why they have Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, Sales Cloud, and so on.

Thus, Sales Cloud is basically a set of tools and technologies that can help sales teams with their day-to-day work.

You may be interested in exploring 15 types of Salesforce clouds in another our blog post. 

Top Benefits of Using Salesforce Sales Cloud

As a special set of tools for sales representatives, Sales Cloud must bring lots of benefits to your business, right? But it’s always better to know what exactly you can expect before you start using the product. So, in this block, we’ll cover 4 main advantages of using Sales Cloud.

You Can Make Informed Decisions

To boost your decision-making, you need two things – data and analytics. And thanks to the tools Sales Cloud provides, you can easily obtain both of them. Sales Cloud will help you collect, store and analyze information about your prospects, monitor your sales process, and even make informed predictions of possible results.

Example: Coca-Cola Enterprises implemented Salesforce Sales Cloud to gain deeper insights into their sales data. By leveraging the platform’s analytics and reporting tools, Coca-Cola was able to make data-driven decisions that led to a 20% increase in forecast accuracy and a more streamlined sales process.

You Get Better Sales Automation and Collaboration

With Sales Cloud, your sales reps will get rid of repetitive routine tasks like sending follow-ups, scheduling meetings, or informing customers about updates, leaving them to the caring hands of automation technologies.

In addition, Sales Cloud can be easily integrated with other productivity and collaboration tools your team uses, so your data is always synchronized, and team members are connected.

Example: Canon, a global leader in imaging solutions, adopted Salesforce Sales Cloud to automate repetitive tasks and enhance collaboration across teams. The integration with other productivity tools allowed their sales team to focus on high-value activities, resulting in a 10% increase in sales productivity.

Your Sales Team Productivity Increases

Since many repetitive tasks will be completed automatically by the tools Sales Cloud offers, your sales team can focus on more complex challenges. Meanwhile, using predictive analytics will help your sales reps react faster, be more confident in their decisions, and perform more efficiently.

Example: ADP, a global leader in human capital management, implemented Salesforce Sales Cloud to enhance the efficiency of their sales team. By automating repetitive tasks and providing sales reps with real-time data and insights, ADP saw a 15% increase in overall sales productivity. This boost in efficiency enabled their sales teams to close deals faster and focus more on building customer relationships.

You Will Get More Leads

Eventually, because of sales automation, analytics, and forecasting, your sales team will be able to provide faster and more personalized customer service. This, in turn, will increase sales and decrease the possibility of customer churn.

Example: The multinational company Schneider Electric implemented Salesforce Sales Cloud to enhance lead generation through better analytics and forecasting. As a result, they saw a 30% increase in lead conversion rates, contributing to substantial revenue growth and lower customer churn.

The Main Salesforce Sales Cloud Features

All the benefits we described above are provided by certain features. So, we will give a list of certain tools and technologies Salesforce empowered Sales Cloud with. Thus, you’ll understand if this product is what your Sales team needs.

Contact Management

With Sales Cloud, you can bring your content management to the next level. Not only it’s easier to store all contact information in one place, but Salesforce also offers the ability to monitor your customer activity and your brand mentions on social media. Using this feature, you will better understand your clients, their interests, and their wishes regarding your product or services.

There, you can also share all information about clients and the conversations you had with your teammates.

Opportunity Management

Sales Cloud will analyze your sales pipeline and give you informed insight about where and how to improve it. Meanwhile, you can add to your CRM system specific products and services alongside their price and send a quote to your prospect right from Salesforce. This will help you react quickly and more likely close the deal.

Lead Management

Thanks to the Sales Path, you are aware of each and every step of your leads: where they came from, what interactions they had with your brand, and what the chances are to turn this lead into a client. Salesforce Sales Cloud can automatically assign a score to every lead you have, and then you see if it can be converted now or if you need to work on it more.

Reports and Dashboards

Your sales reps can modify their reports and dashboards to get the most valuable information right in front of their eyes and to easily and quickly complete their daily tasks.

Sales Forecasting

As we already mentioned, Sales Cloud automatically scores your leads and customers, and after analyzing their behavior and interactions with your team and your products, can give you insights about the possibility of them buying or falling out.

Sales Collaboration

Your sales reps can collaborate with each other and share all important information within the comfort of your Salesforce CRM system. They can easily inform their colleagues about any updates regarding customers or ongoing projects just by simply using their phones and leaving comments in the general feed or the feeds under specific records. Then your team rests assured that no detail is lost or missed.

Territory Management

Sales Cloud can also help you with sales territory modeling. So, you can see and better understand the geography of your customers, the profit, and the potential of each territory. You can also assign certain employees to certain territories to make it easier for them to connect with each other and close deals faster. And with a Run Rules option, you’ll be able to set some automated actions to each territory separately or to a few of them at once.

Sales Data Processing

Deep analytics is not the only advantage of Salesforce. Sales Cloud will not only process data you collected, but also help you find some data about your customers, and even potential customers. With a special tool, Data.com Prospector, your sales reps will be able to find more companies they can target, and find more information about already existing prospects.

Looking for a trusted vendor of Salesforce development services or Salesforce integration services? Reach out to Synebo and let’s discuss your project idea.

Salesforce Sales Cloud Editions

The matter of cost is pressing for most businesses. Let’s compare the existing Salesforce Cloud Editions and the functionalities they offer to find out what can work best for your company:

How to Implement Salesforce Sales Cloud?

Here at Synebo, we have substantial experience with Salesforce Sales Cloud implementation, as it’s basically a ground service, needed nearly for any Salesforce project. One of such was our Salesforce integration for Medisafe company:

In this project, we created a managed package and executed an integration of Medisafe with Salesforce. Among other things, we delivered the following:

• Managed package distribution
• Secure JWT connection
• Custom permissions for widget visibility
• Dynamic data handling
• REST resource endpoint
• Asynchronous data updates.

We ensured that the Medisafe’ teams, including sales department, can serve their clients in the most effective way possible. 

With our expertise and experience, Synebo team shares a basic Salesforce Sales Cloud implementation process:

#1 Define Business Goals

Begin by clearly defining your business goals and objectives. Understand what you aim to achieve with Sales Cloud, such as:

• Improving sales productivity
• Enhancing customer relationships
• Increasing revenue.

This step is crucial for setting a clear direction for the implementation process, aligning it with your overall business strategy, and ensuring that the platform meets your specific needs.

#2 Configure Salesforce

Customize Salesforce to fit your unique business processes. Start by setting up user roles, profiles, and permissions to control access to data. Then, configure objects, fields, and page layouts to align with your sales process. Tailoring Salesforce to your needs ensures that it effectively supports your team’s workflow and enhances user adoption.

#3 Perform Data Migration

Plan and execute the migration of your existing data into Salesforce. This includes cleaning up your current data, mapping it to Salesforce fields, and ensuring data integrity during the transfer. Proper data migration is critical for maintaining the accuracy of your records and providing a seamless transition for your users.

#4 Integrate Systems

Integrate Salesforce with your other business systems, such as:

• Marketing automation tools
• ERP systems,
• Customer service platforms.

This integration helps to create a unified view of your customer data across all touchpoints, enabling better decision-making and more effective sales strategies.

#5 User Training

Provide comprehensive training to your sales team to ensure they are comfortable using Salesforce Sales Cloud. Focus on teaching them how to navigate the platform, enter data correctly, and use key features like reporting and dashboards. Well-trained users are more likely to adopt the system and use it effectively to drive sales performance.

#6 Monitor and Optimize

After implementation, continuously monitor Salesforce usage and performance. Gather feedback from users and analyze key metrics to identify areas for improvement. Regularly update and optimize the system to adapt to changing business needs, ensuring that Salesforce continues to deliver value over time.

Salesforce Sales Cloud implementation requires extensive experience and expertise. Despite the process looking simple, each step necessitates the application of specialized knowledge. So, the best advice is to find a trusted Salesforce implementation service partner and let them assist you.

Let Synebo Salesforce experts handle your implementation needs end-to-end.

Takeaways on Salesforce Sales Cloud

Now that you know what is Salesforce Sales Cloud, let’s summarise what we discovered so far. Salesforce Sales Cloud is an indispensable tool for any business with a sales team, offering a comprehensive suite of features designed to enhance productivity, collaboration, and decision-making. From managing contacts and opportunities to automating routine tasks and providing deep insights through analytics, Sales Cloud empowers your team to focus on what truly matters—closing deals and driving revenue.

If you’re still not certain if Sales Cloud can meet all of your sales team needs or find yourself a little confused about some of the features or technologies Salesforce uses — feel free to get in touch with the Synebo team. With more than 13 years of experience on the market and over 1000 projects completed, we are ready, willing, and able to address any of your concerns. 

Reach out to the Synebo team, and let’s discuss your needs!