With a 20% share of the overall CRM market, Salesforce is widely considered the Amazon of customer relationship management platforms.
The tool’s popularity is growing by the year — and if you’re looking to improve your business with modern CRM technology, Salesforce might be at the top of your shortlist. After all, no procurement manager or IT head is going to get fired for going with the market-leading provider of a certain tool.
However, while this may be true, there are a wealth of excellent alternative CRM systems out there that could better serve your specific commercial goals. The reality is, the right choice is rarely a one-size-fits-all when it comes to implementing a CRM solution. So, just what Salesforce challenges might stop your business from succeeding with the platform?
To open up the conversation and inspire you to explore some CRM alternatives, we’re going to tell you five definitive reasons why you shouldn’t choose Salesforce — and how Workbooks solves these problems. Let’s dive in.
First of all, Salesforce is expensive. Both the monthly and annual plans on offer cost more than most other CRMs on the market, with entry-level pricing starting at £60 per user per month. This is regularly cited as the primary reason that SMEs choose to switch to another CRM. For the average business, or even a scaled enterprise needing to justify every penny of its IT outlay, Salesforce simply isn’t the affordable option.
Plus, Salesforce’s broad feature set may not gel best with your business, making many of its tools redundant. This places many teams out of pocket over tools they have no use for, and without the option to opt out of services that provide little to no value to their business.
At Workbooks, we take a different approach. We offer an SME-focused CRM system that costs less, is customisable, and comes with an unmatched level of support included. Entry-level pricing for a Workbooks CRM edition is just £25 per user per month, less than half of what Salesforce charges. This means that no matter where your company is on its CRM journey, you’re likely to enjoy a far better return on investment (ROI) than with more expensive solutions.
On average, reviewers saw a return on their investment in Workbooks in only 12 months — that’s 7 months less than Salesforce.
In the digital age, you have more tools than ever before vying for your valuable software buck — and every decision you make will have a direct impact on your business’ future success. Don’t settle for Salesforce without exploring other options that could deliver more value for your money.
Explore the Workbooks pricing options to learn more.
While we’re on the topic of value for money, let’s talk about Salesforce’s integration capabilities. The challenge is, if you want to integrate your tech stack’s additional platforms, apps, and data sources with Salesforce, your monthly fee will double.
This is because Salesforce doesn’t offer ample CRM integration opportunities out of the box. To achieve this, you have to access the more advanced pricing editions which include API support, and in the process, double your monthly subscription fee from £60 to £120.
So, when big-name CRM providers like Salesforce flaunt their market-leading integrations, you might be impressed — but you’re in for a nasty surprise when it comes to purchasing a plan that will let you leverage the integrations you require.
On the other hand, Workbooks provides a range of integration options as part of our core offering, with a specialist team that will help you create a CRM ecosystem that provides maximum value. We can collaborate with you to look at the existing apps, data sources and more that make up your digital workflows, and then tailor our product offering to fit neatly alongside them.
With Workbooks, you’ll be investing in a system that connects seamlessly with your existing tools — without charging you a premium for the privilege.
Explore some of the many integrations we offer across accounting, ERP, project management and more on our integrations page.
So, you don’t want every user in your organisation to have the same level of access? Well, if you choose Salesforce as your CRM, tough luck — there’s not much wiggle room.
While there are CRMs on the market that will tailor solutions to meet the exact needs of everyone in your company, and charge you accordingly, Salesforce is far more rigid.
As a platform, Salesforce dictates that everyone in the business must use the same pricing edition, even if some of them don’t require a particular tool or find features completely redundant. This results in a crammed interface, and unfortunately, plenty of opportunities for the unsuspecting user to accidentally change or implement a feature that they don’t know how to use.
Naturally, this spells trouble for your streamlined workflows. And the same principle applies to your processes. If you have very specific business functions that you want to tailor your CRM to fit, Salesforce offers little scope to do so. Or, rather, it will cost you a fortune in professional services.
Workbooks offers an adaptable CRM platform that can be configured as needed to meet your current and future business goals, challenges, and pain points. We allow you to mix your licences across users, so if you want some CRM editions and some Business editions, that’s completely fine. No more overpaying for tools that will sit unused by entire factions of your workforce, and in a roundabout way, could actually slow down your processes.
When you implement a CRM correctly, you don’t have to bend your processes to fit around it. But don’t take our word for it, just have a look at some of our client success stories for examples of how we’ve collaborated with different businesses each with distinct needs.
It’s not good enough for a CRM to come with an endless list of extensive features. For your new solution to offer long-term business value, it’s essential to get the implementation just right.
Unfortunately, Salesforce isn’t willing to help you get your data into the system, offer personal training and support, or decide how to use its technology to your business’ advantage. As is the common theme, this kind of support is reserved only for businesses willing to pay extra.
While Salesforce does have an extensive library of online training materials and resources, these might not be viable options for onboarding a tech-resistant workforce. And as digital transformation efforts continue to accelerate, you’ll need high adoption rates and user competence across your entire organisation to wield your CRM’s features effectively.
But if you’re looking for someone to ensure every aspect of your system’s implementation is successful, you will have to invest in a Salesforce partner — resulting in more time and money spent.
The problem here is, Salesforce partners make their money from consulting. This means that they’ll often try to upsell and extend the scope of what your organisation ‘needs’ in order to implement its CRM optimally. And if something doesn’t quite work, you’ll then have two partners to deal with rather than just one point of contact in your software provider. This could leave you stuck in the middle of back-and-forth delegations and shirked responsibilities, wishing you took your business elsewhere.
At Workbooks, we believe that your CRM journey doesn’t start and end with your purchase. Our team is on-hand to ensure that each step runs smoothly, from initial consultation, through your implementation, and up to training and ongoing support.
Before you onboard with us, we offer a co-funded workshop to ensure that the software meets your needs, and if it does, you’ll receive full CRM software and implementation from a single vendor. We also provide free consulting days to support your CRM implementation, ensuring your entire team receives the support it needs for a streamlined transition.
When you’re talking to a Salesforce rep, they are likely to offer you an alluring discount or incentive for sign-on — the kind that is difficult to refuse.
But, more often than not, it’s unlikely that you’ll receive any further discount when your current subscription term ends. Offering a one-time reduced fee is common practice among big-name vendors, to mask the true cost of implementation once onboarding, support, and extra licences have been factored in. Ultimately, this leads your costs to rise exponentially down the line — discount or no discount.
And once your workforce has adopted the tool into its daily workflow, it’s rarely a case of painlessly withdrawing your investment. This is because you’ll be embedded into the CRM ecosystem that you’ve chosen — and if it’s Salesforce, you’re likely to have paid out additional costs for full integration capabilities. So, you could find yourself locked into an overpriced platform with redundant features you don’t need, and it could be gradually increasing in price.
At Workbooks, we offer our standard pricing edition which includes everything you need to get started with the CRM. We have no third-party ties or hidden costs during implementation, meaning that you’ll quickly start earning back your investment.
Our CRM edition includes both sales and support functionality in one licence, including out-of-the-box features to cover marketing, sales, order processing, invoicing, customer service and more.
We won’t make you empty promises, but we will help you to implement a CRM solution that transforms how your business operates for less.
If you want to squeeze every last business-boosting drop of value from your CRM investment, you must take the time to consider your needs in detail.
At Workbooks, we prioritise our clients’ objectives to provide a CRM solution to power their growth, adaptation, and success. By working with you as a partner, we will customise our CRM technology so that everyone in your business benefits. We have the tools as well as the talent to do so — and without charging you for the extra time.
Considering the Salesforce challenges that many clients face, you could be selling your business short if you opt to sign on without exploring your other CRM options.
Get in touch with us to learn more about the Workbooks CRM platform and discover how we can partner with your business to maximise the value of your CRM.
