In my years as a help desk pro, I can attest to the fact that many small businesses struggle to find a CRM platform that ticks all of their boxes for necessary features. Plus, full solutions like Salesforce are usually too expensive and had more features than necessary for the small business setting.There may be hope on the horizon for those small businesses, now that Salesforce Essentials has launched. The first Essentials apps, built on the Salesforce platform, include:Sales Cloud Essentials, which is basically Salesforce CRM for small businesses. Salesforce Service Cloud Essentials, which is a cloud-based help desk platform for small businesses. Both offerings are available today, and are priced at $25 per user per month. Plus, Salesforce is offering three months of Google G Suite for free as part of a bundle -- a clear counter to Microsoft Office 365's growing portfolio of management tools. Potential PSA Competition?: We're poking around to see if the Essentials offerings are designed to eventually compete against PSA (professional services automation) platforms that engage MSPs, IT services providers and IT consulting firms in the SMB sector. But so far, it looks like the Essentials offerings are more horizontal in nature -- designed for all types of small business users.Learn with Trailhead: Salesforce's interactive, online learning environment, called Trailhead, is free and can guide Essentials customers through the setup. In addition, Trailhead gives anyone, regardless of their education level or background, the opportunity to develop skills that span Salesforce products, app development and even business skills such as public speaking, the company claims. Utilize Einstein artificial intelligence: Essentials includes Einstein Activity Capture, which automates manual data entry to make sales and service reps more productive. When emails and calendar events are received, Einstein automatically adds messages to the appropriate record in Salesforce. Work faster with Lightning and the Salesforce Mobile App: Essentials is optimized for any device so customers can work the way they want, increasing productivity. Relevant information is displayed in one unified console and users can easily customize their consoles by simply dragging and dropping components most relevant to them. Scale as they grow with third-party apps: Customers can use the Small Business Hub on the AppExchange, the enterprise cloud marketplace for business apps and solutions, to access apps that integrate with Essentials, extending the power of the Salesforce Platform.
Content, Channel technologies, Channel markets, Small business, Channel technologies, Channel technologies
Salesforce for Small Business: Help Desk, CRM Tools Launch

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