LinkPoint Connect vs. Salesforce Lightning Platform

LinkPoint is great for people who spend a lot of time working inside outlook. It allows you to update and add records directly from outlook and it has some built-in duplicate prevention which is nice if you don’t have duplicate prevention measures in place. It’s fast and stable. A lot of our users were unable to use SFO due to it crashing outlook.

Incentivized

We use Salesforce Lightning Platform in everyday business as sales coordinators. By using this tool, we are able to send new requests to clients and communicate regarding pending proposals in real-time. This also tool holds many of our client accounts where we are able to monitor their sales and revenue.

• Setup is pretty seamless, at least from an end-user point of view. Essentially you open both Outlook and Salesforce, and then click on the LinkPoint Connect button in Outlook. You are then asked to sign in (provide username/password) to Salesforce. That's all--once my login information was accepted it was set up and syncing emails and calendar items from Outlook to Salesforce. Pretty painless!
• Recording/syncing emails to client records is, from my standpoint at least, the core functionality, and LinkPoint does this pretty much flawlessly and with little to no effort or input on my part. This is incredibly important to me as it creates the documentation record I need in Salesforce to provide excellent service to my clients as well as for compliance reasons.
• The LinkPoint interface also makes it very easy and efficient to perform additional actions in Salesforce without ever leaving Outlook. New Salesforce tasks, events, follow up reminders, etc. are all easy to set up from the LinkPoint sidebar directly in Outlook with just a few clicks of the mouse. And, in those cases where you need to go a little deeper there is a link in the sidebar that will open up the client record directly in Salesforce in a single action, bypassing the multi-step process normally required (i.e. open the program, search for the client, select and open the record, etc.). This ease of interaction between the two programs has removed barriers and has helped me be more consistent in fully utilizing what Salesforce has to offer. No longer do I move on to the next item on my to-do list with scribbled note that will hopefully remind me to update Salesforce later, when I have a chance...

Incentivized

• Reporting and Dashboards are thorough and can show a wealth of important data to inform and scale processes. It's helpful in a high volume sales cycle to be able to quickly identify weak points in performance and productivity so that adjustments can be made.
• Highly customizable. We are able to customize just about everything which allows us to track very specific things and in theory create better efficiency.
• Parent/Child account hierarchy exists which is helpful.
• Contact records can be associated with multiple accounts and opportunities. This, in theory, should minimize duplicates and mismanagement of contacts.
• Console helps a lot with data nesting. Having a fairly comprehensive look at an account without searching through various tabs and sections speeds up an otherwise cumbersome platform.

Incentivized

• Installation is a bit tricky for non tech savvy users.
• Ability to sort/filter search results when looking for additional records.
• The ability to mass create multiple contacts/leads from an email would be nice.

Incentivized

• Can be cumbersome: takes multiple clicks to get where you need to go
• Lightning is slower than original Salesforce, and it is very noticeable
• The UI change means sometimes I can't find what I need, so I have to switch back to the Classic version to find it

Incentivized

UI can be quite complex, but the more that is required will bring more complexity. Can handle complexity and variety very well, but makes ground-level views harder when not knowing full extent of functionality. Finding new functionalities can be difficult to pinpoint on some pages

Incentivized

Never had to use the support team, which probably means the product works well!

Incentivized

Salesforce's support is top-notch. They have subject-matter experts that are accessible at all times to address needs as they come up. They let you know in advance when there are system updates and enhancements so that you are prepared for upcoming changes. I've never had an issue that wasn't addressed immediately when reaching out for support.

Incentivized

Prior to our move to LinkPoint, we used the Salesforce add-in for Outlook. This required manual syncing of email and calendar items and no easy to use interface between the two programs. It was very cumbersome for me to use, to the point where I quit using it altogether some time ago. I found it far less frustrating to just switch back and forth between Outlook and Salesforce and manually perform the requisite actions, create tasks or other items, enter the required data, etc.

Incentivized

We were previously using an older version prior to it becoming Salesforce Lightning Platform so we were well adverse on the advantages of using a CRM, to begin with. It made sense to convert to Salesforce Lightning Platform after we were given a free trial of the platform. Certain reps were chosen to experiment with it and from there a decision was made to move forward. We've been customers ever since.

Incentivized

• It provides transparency into your outbound communication with customers.

Incentivized

• Better visibility of Accounts and Contacts interactions makes it easier to maintain during employee transitions.
• Tracking of current jobs and relating them to past jobs is very useful.
• More efficient use of Sales Reps time.
• Sales Managers have good visibility into how their people are working.

Incentivized