Last Updated on Mar 6, 2020 by James W
Introduction
For any business, customer relationship management is the approach to handle customer relations efficiently. In this approach, all the details related to the customer are recorded. Using this information, you can understand the customer’s preferences. This will also help you develop customized services and products for the users.
CRM helps to satisfy your current pool of customers and acquire new customers. Businesses implement customer relationship management using CRM software. One of the best and largest CRM software programs in the industry is Salesforce. It has a simple interface that helps to keep all the customer profiles intact.
Many employees are opting for certifications such as Salesforce Developer Certification to contribute more towards their respective organizations.
Let us first understand the basics of the Salesforce software.
What is Salesforce?
Salesforce is a software-as-a-service provider that offers high-quality CRM services. It was founded by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez. They offer CRM software, which is useful for businesses to connect with their customers and potential clients. Salesforce is one of the earliest companies to launch a completely cloud-based CRM solution.
Nowadays, major organizations such as Amazon, Adidas, Spotify, Toyota, Aldo, and American Express use Salesforce. The services offered by Salesforce allow these companies to connect with their customers and identify their needs.
Salesforce offers a wide variety of services for users in mobile and desktop domains. The different services offered are as follows:
Salesforce Sales Cloud
The Salesforce Sales Cloud is a CRM platform that is used by many businesses. This helps them to manage their sales data, customer support, and marketing aspects. It helps to monitor customer information and store it in one place. All the customer data is managed easily is updated regularly. You can also manage new leads through the sales cloud.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
This is used for specifically handling the different marketing campaigns of the company or business. You can perform the following actions:
- Social media marketing
- Email marketing
- Advertising campaigns
- Personalized web content
- Content management
- Data analytics
- Creation of customer journeys across the different channels
Salesforce Community cloud
The community cloud is a platform where employees, staff, customers and other stakeholders communicate with each other. The employees can connect with the customers and other partners of the company. Customers can share their problems with other customers. Through the platform, partners can connect with the employees and develop better sales strategies.
Salesforce Service cloud
This is the platform used for any company’s customer support and services team. It has a case tracking system like a call center. The product offers a social networking plug-in for analytics. So, the service cloud enables the customer to solve customer’s problems easily. Using the platform, the customer support agents provide solutions to the customers.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud
The platform enables businesses to provide customer services irrespective of their location. Managing digital commerce, order management and developing integrated solutions for customers is easier through the commerce cloud. The data integration features offer the customers a better experience. The service helps bring many stores online and implement new technologies.
Salesforce App Cloud
The Application cloud offers a set of tools to create applications that will run on the Salesforce platform. You can use these tools to build applications that will use customer data more effectively. You can also automate business processes. The different tools offered by the platform are as follows:
- Force.com
- Salesforce Sandbox
- Heroku
- App Exchange
- Salesforce Thunder
Therefore, the requirement for employees who know Salesforce has increased. Modern businesses are looking to hire more and more professionals with Salesforce certifications.
Let us look at the different types of Salesforce certifications:
Types of Salesforce certifications
Salesforce offers different certifications that are based on the following job roles:
- Administrator
- Architect
- Consultant
- Marketer
- Developer
Administrator certifications
- Salesforce Administrator
- Salesforce Advanced Administrator
- Salesforce CPQ specialist
- Salesforce Platform Application Builder
Architect certifications
- Application architect
- System architect
- Heroku architect
- Technical architect
Developer certifications
- Salesforce platform application builder
- Salesforce Platform Developer 1
- Salesforce Platform Developer 2
- Salesforce B2C Commerce developer
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud Developer
Salesforce Marketer certifications
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud Consultant
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud Developer
- Salesforce Pardot Consultant
- Salesforce Pardot Specialist
Salesforce Consultant certifications
- Salesforce Certified Sales Cloud Consultant
- Salesforce Community Cloud Consultant
- Salesforce Pardot consultant
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud consultant
- Salesforce Field Service Lightning Consultant
- Salesforce Einstein Analytics and Discovery Consultant
- Salesforce Education Cloud Consultant
- Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud Consultant
- Salesforce Service Cloud consultant
Best certification for beginners
As a beginner, you can start with the Salesforce Administrator certification. This will give you a solid foundation on the basics. You will be able to decide whether you want to handle customer issues or develop applications. Later on, you can move on to the Advanced Administrator course or the Platform builder certification.
But, the best certification to choose after the Administrator track is the Salesforce Developer Certification. The knowledge of the Administrator track will be relevant here as well. As a Salesforce Developer, you will design, code, test and execute Salesforce applications. Moreover, developers earn around $ 100,000 annually.
So, you can start from platform application builder certification, then move on to Platform Developer 1 and Platform Developer 2. This will help you build a lucrative career in Salesforce.
Conclusion
Nowadays, most companies use CRM software for developing better relations with their customers. So, companies such as Cognizant and Accenture are hiring Salesforce developers and architects. The average salary of a Salesforce developer is more than Rs. 7,00,000 per year. Professionals with knowledge of Apex and VisualForce are in high demand.
Therefore, to capitalize on the current situation of the job market, take a Salesforce course and make yourself job-ready.
