| Functionality | 10 <p>Salesforce is one of the most powerful CRMs on the market. Its core functionality will be more than sufficient for most companies, and it also offers advanced capabilities that should satisfy even the most complex enterprises.</p> | 6 <p>Zendesk Sell offers a mix of advanced and basic features. On the plus side, it includes built-in prospecting and data enrichment, the ability to send texts and emails, make calls, and even create custom objects. However, its automation is extremely limited, with just one trigger available - you also can’t create custom reports, which feel like glaring omissions for a CRM.</p> |
| Ease of Use | 1 <p>Salesforce has the steepest learning curve and most complex user experience out of all CRM experiences. Built for large sales teams, everything (e.g. editing pipeline stages, adding an opportunity) takes longer to get done. There are foreign terms for technically proficient, power users everywhere, especially in the automations modules. Be prepared to invest weeks to learn the basic operations, and months to master the advanced features.</p> | 5 <p>Zendesk Sell is generally easy to set up and navigate, but there are frustrations. On the top of our list is how contacts and companies are stored in the same database. This means that when associating a contact with a deal, you’ll have to scroll through a disorganized list of both individuals and companies. Pages lack color coding, making them cluttered and difficult to scan for key information.</p> |
| Look and feel | 4 <p>Even with the latest Salesforce Lightning, the user interface still feels cluttered and dated compared to newer CRMs out there—it’s definitely not a joy to use.</p> | 4 <p>Zendesk Sell gets the job done but looks dull and uninspired. Some pages, like the automation and reporting modules, feel like unfinished prototypes. Page loads are another issue, with delays of up to five seconds</p> |
| Customisability | 10 <p>With Salesforce's Apex programming language, you can customise almost anything you can think of - from user interface, sales workflows to how Salesforce integrates with other software.</p> | 6 <p>Customization is another mixed bag. You can create custom objects, multiple pipelines, and custom fields, which is helpful. However, automation tools are severely limited, with just one trigger available for workflows. You also can’t create custom reports, which restricts flexibility.</p> |
| Ease of Setup | 1 <p>Salesforce offers a self-serve free trial, but as an enterprise-focused platform, the initial setup is a lot more involved. Even the simplest configurations can take over 20 minutes, with basic tasks, like customizing pipeline stages, requiring more steps compared to other CRMs. Fully customizing and implementing Salesforce can take several months, and many teams end up hiring dedicated consultants or technical experts (at significant expense) to handle setup and data migration.</p> | 7 <p>Close offers a free trial without need to speak to sales. Completing basic setup is simple, taking around 10 minutes to import contacts and set up pipelines. Due to Zendesk's limited customisability compared to more heavweight CRMs, fully setting up the platform is straightforward, and can be largely done within 1-2 business days. </p> |
| Customer Support | 4 <p>Salesforce offers personalized Q&A through live chat, but it’s only available during business hours and often feels sales-y. We wish the coverage was greater and they held off on the upsell!</p> | 3 <p>Customer support leaves a lot to be desired. The AI chatbot is often unhelpful or misleading, and attempts to connect with a human agent resulted in error messages on two separate occasions we were testing it. When connected to a human agent, the response is generic and forces you to go to a Help Centre article. Zendesk's Help Centre, while reasonably well-written, is not always easy to navigate.</p> |
| Integratability | 10 <p>Salesforce has the most extensive integration ecosystem of any CRM. It offers pre-built integrations with nearly all the key third-party tools and provides a robust API for building custom integrations.</p> | 8 <p>Zendesk Sell offers a very comprehensive library of pre-built integrations with many relevant third-party apps. It also has an API for custom integrations.</p> |
| Ease of Migration | 10 <p>Salesforce allows users to export most data via self-serve or via an API. Exports of key data to relevant 3rd party vendors are also available via pre-built integrations.</p> | 9 <p>Exporting data is easy. Contacts, deals and reports can all be exported via one click. Its API also allows you export any other necessary data.</p> |
