Salesforce Essentials

Great helpdesk and customer communication option

Salesforce as a Database

As it is a massive and comprehensive product, I don't need such an overwhelming software. Overall, it didn't meet my company's needs, but if a company has tech department, this could be a fantastic product.

Do Not Assume Anything

The best advice that I can give to a company considering purchasing Salesforce's Desk.com is to document every single expectation and need regarding a CRM tool. Do not assume any functionality exists, regardless of how simple and standard that functionality may seem. There are definitely features and functionalities that the average person might expect any modern system to offer which it does not.

Examples:
List Views - Cannot sort by most fields, cannot add custom fields to list views, and cannot modify the number of records per page
Reporting - Cannot modify fields displayed in a report, cannot edit criteria for metrics, and cannot include custom fields in reports aside from picklists, and cannot export more than 2500 records at a time
Email - Does not include standard modern emailing functions such as underlining, highlighting, modifying font color, or pasting images/tables

Also, while some more complex workflows and automation can be built in Salesforce to update fields which are then passed back to Desk via Desk Connect (native sync between Desk and Salesforce), I strongly recommend against relying on Desk Connect for any business processes. Desk Connect can and has been turned off by Desk.com for all customers without first ensuring this is okay with the customer, interrupting daily business on a large scale. It is also extremely easy to break or surpass its capabilities of Desk Connect to the point that any modification, regardless of size, made to your Salesforce org must be communicated to Desk to ensure that Desk Connect will continue to function as expected.

If you are a small-scale organization/team with very basic case tracking and reporting requirements capable, Desk may very well be the answer for you. But you still better be prepared with extensive documentation of all requirements and expectations for a tool like Desk, no matter how small or obvious they may be.

It will help you improve your customer experience

Salesforce Essentials is the best way to provide better service to our customers. I highly recommend it!

Works Great! Increases our Closing Percentage by 20%

So far its been very good. We also use other modules from Salesforce. After demoing about 4 packages, we went with Salesforce. Knowing that they are the primary leader in CRM, helped in that decision, as most of our other applications have APIs to intergrate with.