Business Operations

The Top 10 Salesforce Automation Platforms

Discover the top Sales Force automation platforms with features like lead scoring, sales forecasting, and customer relationship management.

Last updated on Jun 26, 2024

Written by Alex Zawalnyski

Technical review by Laura Iannini

The Top 10 Salesforce Automation Platforms include:

1. Oracle Sales Automation
2. SAP Sales Cloud
3. Sage CRM
4. Zoho CRM
5. Microsoft Dynamics CRM
6. Salesforce Sales Cloud
7. Pipedrive Sales Automation
8. Hubspot Sales Hub Enterprise
9. Insightly CRM
10. Monday Sales CRM

In the competitive and quick world of sales, ensuring that your operations are streamlined and efficient is vital. Most organizations use a customer relationship management (CRM) tool to help them keep track of leads and sales data. One of the most popular and widely used CRMs is Salesforce. Salesforce automates key sales processes, manages leads, tracks customer interactions, and provides analytical insights, freeing sales professionals to focus on building relationships and closing deals.

Organizations can enhance Salesforce’s capabilities and ease of use through integrating automation tools. These tools offer features such as lead scoring, email automation, opportunity tracking, forecasting, and comprehensive reporting. Given the increasing complexity of sales cycles and the need for real-time data, the demand for advanced Salesforce automation platforms has grown rapidly.

With a broad range of options currently available on the market, choosing the right Salesforce automation platform can be daunting. Each solution advertises unique functionalities, integrations, user experiences, and pricing models. This guide is designed to provide an overview of the top Salesforce automation platforms. We will evaluate them based on their capabilities, ease of use, integration potential, scalability, and user feedback.

Oracle Sales Automation

Oracle Sales Automation is a streamlined solution that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of sales teams. The platform is built around an automated data foundation that verifies and deduplicates customer-related data such as addresses, emails, and phone numbers. This streamlines data handling, whilst ensuring data integrity. Users can easily customize the ML functionalities to align with specific business needs, without the requirement of data science expertise.

In addition to automating data management, Oracle offers insightful sales guidance comprised of insights, intelligent scoring, and prioritization. These assets will assist sales representatives in identifying and focusing on the most valuable leads and opportunities. These insights extend to recommending actions for improving engagement and suggesting ways to uncover new revenue opportunities, facilitating a faster sales process. Oracle Sales Automation is a comprehensive solution that augments the capabilities of sales teams by simplifying complex processes and offering intelligent guidance.

SAP Sales Cloud

The SAP Sales Cloud solution is a cloud-deployed platform that is designed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of sales organizations. The platform can integrate with Salesforce to enhance and automate its native capabilities. The SAP Sales Cloud offers a unified view of every customer, enabling a streamlined approach to mobile selling through the integration of intelligent recommendations, insights, and analytics. The platform gives you a holistic view of client interactions, fostering a more personalised and strategic approach to sales engagements. This improves lead management as well as enhancing customer experience.

The SAP Sales Cloud has a guided selling feature which offers step-by-step advice on how to advance business prospects. The platform assists in intelligent forecasting by allowing real-time analysis of data, helping to pinpoint volatility and track attainment with insightful what-if scenarios. You are given a detailed overview of pipeline health through intuitive visualizations and deep analytics. This provides a clear picture of pipeline flows and potential issues. The SAP Sales Cloud improves the sales journey based on intelligent recommendations, along with the development of targeted sales campaigns, and interactive analytics that offer a 360-degree insight into account details and performance metrics.

Sage CRM

Sage CRM is a comprehensive business management solution designed to optimize various aspects of your business operations. The platform allows for an improved understanding of your customer base, enabling the delivery of a high-quality customer experience to drive retention and revenue growth. Sage CRM minimizes the duplication of tasks, thereby fostering a more efficient and productive work environment. The platform can also grant real-time insights which can assist in making informed business decisions and growing the customer base.

Sage CRM enhances team performance by providing a comprehensive overview of sales information, thereby allowing sales personnel to work more efficiently and capitalize on crucial opportunities. The platform also offers features to streamline business processes and gain comprehensive insights across the business. Integration with MailChimp enables tracking of email campaigns, assisting in the coordination of marketing efforts and the improvement of customer service through reliable data analysis.

Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is designed to streamline sales and marketing processes, allowing businesses to automate routine tasks, thereby enhancing productivity and driving growth. By utilizing the workflow automation feature, professionals can link multiple rules in a single workflow, allowing for enhanced efficiency in daily operations. The platform offers the flexibility to automate and schedule sales routines, catering to the specific needs of a business.

Zoho CRM offers in-depth analytical tools (powered by Zia Intelligence) to scrutinize audit logs and activity history. This allows you to identify patterns and trends, with Zoho able to suggest pre-built workflows to simplify and solve any issues. Through this intelligence, businesses can gain insights into the performance of various workflows, helping to identify areas that may need adjustments for improved operation. Zoho CRM is able to integrate seamlessly with third-party applications, expanding its functionalities to meet diverse business requirements. Users can create custom functions to view information from other daily-used applications directly within the CRM system. This offers a centralized hub for all necessary customer data.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a comprehensive software solution that can be accessed via the cloud or installed on-premises. This versatile platform allows admins to customize the platform to suit their unique business needs. The CRM includes an array of visualizations, dashboards, and document management features to assist in streamlining various business processes. Users can benefit from the MAPI-based Outlook clients, fetch-based reports, and the ability to manage goals and appointments effectively. The platform readily connects to a vast array of data sources from the initial setup. AI is then used to generate insightful, targeted insights.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM integrates effectively with third-party tools through modular, prebuilt applications. By extending capacity and capabilities in this way, Microsoft Dynamics CRM empowers businesses to optimize operations and enhance customer engagement. It also. Moreover, it provides robust security measures including encryption and role-based access controls, ensuring both business and customer data remain secure.

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Sales Cloud is a popular CRM solution designed to streamline the sales process and enhance productivity. As it is developed by Salesforce, the Sales Cloud platform integrates seamlessly and provides various features such as lead, activity, and forecast management. Sales Cloud’s activity management function allows users to synchronize and manage emails and engagement activities on a singular platform, offering a comprehensive view of customer interactions. This helps to improve collaboration on deals and documents, keeping teams informed and aligned, irrespective of their location.

The platform aims to facilitate easier tracking of deals across different channels and assists in day-to-day management through actionable to-do lists. It also offers real-time forecast management capabilities, enabling users to tailor KPIs according to their business needs, uncover pipeline trends, and adjust strategies to ensure accuracy and efficiency. Users can also keep an eye on various metrics such as lead volume and conversion rates through customizable, real-time reports and dashboards.

Pipedrive Sales Automation

Pipedrive is a comprehensive sales automation system developed to streamline the sales process and reduce the time spent on administrative tasks. One of the platform’s key features is an AI-powered Sales Assistant that offers behavior-based performance tips and recommendations. This feature also ensures that all team members are updated on account changes, making collaboration easier. The Smart Contact Data feature allows users to collate information about their prospects from platforms like LinkedIn, Google, and Twitter to take a more informed and strategic approach to closing deals.

Pipedrive allows you to use custom email templates that maintain a personal touch, while increasing email outreach. The system also offers an open API allowing seamless integration with other software and the development of custom features. The platform assists in automating various steps of the sales journey, helping professionals to focus more on priority tasks and less on manual, repetitive activities.

Hubspot Sales Hub Enterprise

Sales Hub Enterprise is a CRM system designed to streamline your sales processes through customization and automating tasks in a way that aligns with your unique business objectives. One of the platform’s key features is the Custom Objects function. This allows users to create and manage information that is particularly relevant to their business, facilitating easy sorting, reporting, and automation. Through integrating all sales data, the system facilitates intelligent forecasting, thereby allowing users to strategize effectively without spending excessive time on spreadsheet reconciliation and administration work.

Other features include a set of sales engagement tools for improved connection with prospects and B2B commerce capabilities to improve the customer’s buying experience. The platform also ensures optimal information management through advanced permissions, offering the flexibility to control access based on a range of parameters. The conversation intelligence tool captures vital details from each call, presenting an opportunity for insightful evaluation and coaching of the sales team. This features is enhanced by leveraging AI-powered insights. This selection of features aims to automate the sales process, thereby allowing teams to concentrate on the core aspect of selling.

Insightly CRM

Insightly offers a cloud-based CRM platform designed to assist businesses in efficiently managing their sales pipelines and customer relationships. Some of the areas that the platform is well suited to optimizing are lead and opportunity management, business workflow automation, and project management. The platform provides customizable performance dashboards and reporting tools to help businesses monitor their key performance indicators in real-time.

The platform has particularly advanced lead management capabilities that allow sales users to capture detailed information about each lead, then prioritize and distribute them according to set criteria, and obtain a real-time view of each deal’s status. Insightly CRM supports the automation of business workflows and processes; this helps to reduce manual tasks and the risk of human error, thus allowing teams to focus on critical business activities. Insightly emphasizes data integrity and security by allowing businesses to set validation rules and advanced permissions, thereby ensuring data accuracy and compliance. The platform adheres to various industry standards including SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and HIPAA compliance.

Monday Sales CRM

The Monday sales CRM is a comprehensive platform designed to streamline the sales cycle and allow sales teams to centralize and automate lead management. This saves time on repetitive tasks by automatically assigning leads to representatives and setting reminders for upcoming activities. The platform allows for customization without the need for coding skills, enabling users to edit deal stages, manage multiple pipelines simultaneously, and adjust various aspects of the CRM to align with their unique sales processes. The platform integrates email functionalities, allowing for seamless logging of sent emails and tracking of client interactions.

Monday Sales CRM provides customizable dashboards, granting real-time insights into the status of deals, projected revenue, and team performance. Beyond sales processes, the platform also assists in post-sales management, aiding in project tracking and collection management, all from a centralized location. Sales operations are further supported through the facilitation of planning and acceleration of the sales hiring process. Monday Sales CRM equips the sales team with the necessary tools, information, and resources to facilitate successful deal closures.

The Top 10 Salesforce Automation Platforms

Everything You Need To Know About Salesforce Automation Platforms (FAQs)

What Are Salesforce Automation Platforms?

Salesforce automation platforms integrate with a business’ Salesforce account, allowing tasks to be completed autonomously, with the assistance of AI and ML technologies.

Salesforce is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that is used to help businesses find and manage their customer base, close deals, and streamline customer experience. The platform helps improve internal business communication between teams; connecting sales, marketing, commerce, and IT teams, and ensuring they are working from the same information. By streamlining this communication, you can improve productivity and efficiency.

Salesforce automation tools use AI and ML to automate processes like data ingestion and analysis. This saves valuable time, allowing your sales team to focus on selling, rather than admin. Salesforce automation tools then analyze the data they’ve collected, providing you with intelligent insights to guide business and sales decisions.

Some automation tools can even provide prioritized lists of tasks for a sales representative to complete each day. This ensures that time-critical tasks are not overlooked and that you are making the most of your time. Through complex data analysis, the prioritized list will ensure that your time is spent as productively as possible. High-value leads can be followed up, while poorer-quality ones can be pushed further down the list.

How Do Salesforce Automation Platforms Work?

Salesforce automation platforms work in two main ways. The first way is to improve communication and collaboration through more effective information sharing. The second way is through analyzing and interpreting the data that the platform has access to – thereby improving the value of that data.

What Features Should You Look For In Salesforce Automation Platform?

Salesforce Automation platforms have a wealth of valuable and effective features to help improve productivity, streamline workflows, and drive customer engagement. When looking for a solution, it is worth considering the specifics of your organization and what you need from the platform. With this in mind, we’ve made a list of some of the top features you should look for when considering a solution.

Customer Database – Salesforce is a useful tool for keeping track of customers and understanding how they interact with your business. A good Salesforce automation platform will allow you to automate the ingestion and ongoing management of your customer database. It should be easy to update, as well as easy to index; you may want to identify all customers who meet specific criteria, for example, in order to send them specific mail.
Analysis – With the vast quantities of data you have at your disposal, you need to ensure you are making the most of it. Your Salesforce automation solution should ingest customer, business, and contextual data, and then perform insightful analysis on it. This can result in suggestions to improve business efficiency and production, as well as help identify which potential leads are highest value or very close to conversion.
Reporting – It is important that you can access and understand the insights that the platform is giving you. Any findings should be clearly displayed in relevant graphs and tables. You should be able to customize these graphics to highlight specific findings and illustrate results. Naturally, this information should be easy to export and share with relevant stakeholders.

What’s The Difference Between A CRM and Salesforce Automation?

While they work in similar ways to achieve similar outcomes, CRM and Salesforce automation platforms are not the same thing.

CRMs are designed with customer retention as the overarching goal. This is achieved through improving customer experience and making a sales team’s job easier. If they can streamline their processes, the customer is better served, and more likely to remain a customer.

Salesforce automation tools assist with sales, rather than wider customer relationships. They deliver sales and lead management tools, assisting sales teams with converting leads into sales.

Most good CRMs will include Salesforce automation as a part of their package. Although these are two distinct types of technology, today, many providers offer a hybrid platform with multiple features and benefits.

Alex Zawalnyski

Journalist & Content Editor

Alex is an experienced journalist and content editor. He researches, writes, factchecks and edits articles relating to B2B cyber security and technology solutions, working alongside software experts. Alex was awarded a First Class MA (Hons) in English and Scottish Literature by the University of Edinburgh.

Laura Iannini

Cybersecurity Analyst

Laura Iannini is an Information Security Engineer. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Cybersecurity from the University of West Florida. Laura has experience with a variety of cybersecurity platforms and leads technical reviews of leading solutions. She conducts thorough product tests to ensure that Expert Insights’ reviews are definitive and insightful.