If you seek a software solution to improve your customer service, you are probably grappling with the Salesforce Sales Cloud or Service Cloud dilemma.
Both are built on the Salesforce platform with a spotless reputation and customer base of over 150,000 businesses, from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Both solutions help to build customer relations with overlaps in their feature sets. Salesforce Service Cloud caters to the needs of customer service agents while helping sales representatives refine their pipeline. By the way, Salesforce provides Configuration services to tailor your Salesforce product to your specific requirements, while Consulting services improve your business strategy with expert advice.
So, what’s the difference between the two? And which should you choose when? We’ll help you unravel the tangle. Let’s pull a thread by getting an overview of each platform.
What is Sales Cloud in Salesforce, and why should you use it?
Salesforce Sales Cloud, a CRM solution for sales teams, is Salesforce’s flagship offering, released back in 1999 with the company’s launch. It automates a range of processes and assists in qualifying and tracking leads, engaging prospects, and predicting sales.
One of the key advantages of Salesforce Sales Cloud is using AI to help sales reps close deals more effectively. In addition, you can access the platform from anywhere — through a mobile app or a browser extension.
What is Service Cloud in Salesforce, and why should you use it?
Salesforce Service Cloud is a software solution for customer service and support.
Service Cloud in Salesforce equips customer service teams with a comprehensive set of tools to efficiently handle inquiries across channels. Aside from automating many support service tasks, the solution includes self-service options, AI-powered chatbots, and insightful analytics.
Salesforce Service Cloud comes with AI capabilities, ITSM features, and call center functions. It integrates with opportunity management data, ensuring better alignment with sales processes. Finally, it offers a mobile app.
Salesforce Sales Cloud vs Service Cloud: Quick Features Review
Now that we’ve established the fundamentals, let’s compare Sales Cloud and Service Cloud based on the main criteria.
A quick disclaimer: we won’t cover every feature and criterion but rather focus on the most pertinent ones.
The Primary Purpose and Key Features
Salesforce Sales Cloud
The main goal of Salesforce Sales Cloud is to empower sales teams with tools to effectively manage sales processes, drive revenue growth, and enhance customer relationships.
This translates into a comprehensive set of features that streamline various aspects of sales operations:
- Activity Management allows tracking and managing emails, calls, events, tasks, and other selling activities in one place.
- Lead Management lets businesses capture, track, and contact leads across channels. AI capabilities help prioritize prospects who are most likely to purchase.
- Account & Opportunity Management provides a workspace for agents to track and progress their deals. It comes with essential deal details, a visual representation of the deal progress, customizable guidance for driving deals successfully, productivity tools for taking action, and more.
- Pipeline Management simplifies tracking and managing the sales pipeline. It allows you to view all your deals as a Kanban board, segmented by stage, or as a chart, grouped by stage, account, or fiscal period.
- Reports & Dashboards and Forecast Management enable you to generate reports and real-time dashboards to forecast sales, identify trends and opportunities, and gauge your reps’ performance by tracking lead volume, activity conversion rates, and beyond.
- Workflow & Process Management automates various sales processes, such as sending emails and initiating calls once an email is opened. The feature comes with a straightforward interface for creating automated workflows, setting reminders, supporting cross-team collaboration, and more.
Salesforce Service Cloud
Service Cloud was primarily designed to help businesses deliver exceptional customer service and support experiences.
The core functionalities of Service Cloud cover numerous tasks:
- Case Management allows agents to efficiently create, track, and resolve cases (customer issue resolution requests and inquiries) from various channels in a unified interface known as Agent Workspace.All information about the particular customer—from their name to past interactions across channels—is displayed in one place, helping your reps deliver personalized customer service and support.
- Omni-Channel Routing automatically assigns inquiries from multiple support channels—email, phone, chat, social media, self-service portals—to the right agent based on skills, availability, and priority.
- Knowledge Management empowers agents and customers with a centralized knowledge base containing articles, FAQs, and documentation. While customers can find answers to their questions through self-service, agents can resolve issues faster through real-time AI-powered article recommendations.
- Einstein Chatbots leverage AI to engage with customers 24/7, so you can assist multiple customers at once across channels.
- Work Order Management allows you to manage field service operations efficiently. The feature facilitates scheduling and assigning tasks to field technicians, ensuring they have all the required information and spare parts for successful completion while also updating work order status in real-time.
- Incident Management enables your IT support team to proactively monitor systems and identify customer issues before they escalate. It automatically generates incident reports, notifies relevant experts, and keeps customers informed — all while helping you quickly identify affected assets, determine root causes, and explore possible solutions.
- Customizable Reports and Dashboards and Advanced Reporting Features provide insights into customer service performance and agent productivity. You can track key metrics, monitor trends, and identify areas for improvement to enhance the overall customer experience.
Who are the target users?
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce Sales Cloud is geared towards sales representatives, sales managers, and sales operations professionals.
However, executives and business leaders can also find Sales Cloud useful whenever they need to gain visibility into the overall sales performance, track revenue growth, or make strategic decisions.
In some instances, Sales Cloud comes in handy for customer success managers, too — to track customer interactions, renewals, and upsell opportunities.
Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud targets customer service teams, call centers, field service professionals, and IT support teams.
In some organizations, sales teams may also use Service Cloud to collaborate on resolving customer issues, access customer information, and provide post-sales support.
What about the vendor’s customer support?
Salesforce Sales Cloud
First of all, you get access to require a secure and quick data transfersupport channels available for all existing and potential users of Salesforce products, including a live chat and call center, Help Center (for self-service), and beyond.
Second, you can additionally select one of three Success Plans:
- Standard Success Plan with access to community advice and online learning for teams—available for all licenses
- Premier Success Plan, which is essentially a global 24/7 customer support, with expert guidance and knowledge base resources tailored to your needs—available for purchase for the three first pricing tiers (30% of net license fees) or as a bundled offering for users of Unlimited and Unlimited+
- Signature Success Plan with a dedicated account manager, proactive system monitoring, key event management, and faster response times of 24/7 customer support—available for purchase atop your pricing plan
Salesforce Service Cloud
As Salesforce Service Cloud’s license holder, you have the same support options as Sales Cloud’s users. In other words, you get access to general customer support options, including a live chat, call center, Help Center, and beyond, and you can also choose one of the Success Plans.
What add-ons and integrations are available
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Sales Cloud offers a dozen add-ons, mostly AI-powered tools like Sales Engagement, Sales Programs, Einstein Conversation Insights, and others.
Most add-ons are available for the Unlimited pricing tier and above. This tier unlocks a variety of add-ons for an extra fee. Unlimited+ also comes with most add-ons as bundled offerings.
Moreover, Sales Cloud offers a selection of third-party apps that are pre-integrated—you’ll just need to download them from AppExchange. You also have the option to implement integrations with any solutions of your choice using Web Services API. Both capabilities become available starting from the Professional pricing plan.
Salesforce Service Cloud
Service Cloud in Salesforce also comes with a number of add-ons, including Service Cloud Einstein, Field Service, Self-Service, Service Intelligence, and others.
All Service Cloud’s add-ons are accessible for an extra charge or as bundled offerings from a certain pricing tier up. Take Einstein Bots: they are available for purchase within Enterprise or as a bundle offering as part of Unlimited and Unlimited+.
Finally, similar to how it works with Sales Cloud, you can augment the capabilities of Service Cloud by using pre-integrated apps from AppExchange or through custom integrations implemented using Web Services API—both available from the Professional pricing plan onwards.
What are the main benefits of Salesforce Sales vs Service Cloud?
At first glance, Sales Cloud and Service Cloud offer similar advantages. Both solutions automate mundane tasks, improve decision-making, facilitate collaboration, and foster personalized interactions.
At the same time, these benefits manifest differently, given that the two are designed to address different aspects of customer-business interactions.
Salesforce Sales Cloud
According to Statista, Sales Cloud generates 24% of Salesforce’s revenue. Such profitability owes to the following benefits:
- Informed decision-making. Sales Cloud provides a centralized platform for storing and managing customer data. With all the needed information within reach, sales reps can make informed decisions on which prospect to approach and how.
- Personalized engagement. Customizable email templates, automated follow-ups, and predictive analytics help sales representatives deliver personalized, targeted sales experiences to customers and prospects.
- Streamlined processes. With workflow automation, process builder, and optimized approval processes, sales spend less time on manual tasks and administrative overhead and close deals faster.
- Improved collaboration. Chatter and similar features facilitate communication and collaboration among sales reps who can now easily share information, insights, and best practices.
- Better performance. Sales teams leverage AI-powered reporting and analytics to track key performance metrics, monitor pipeline health, and identify opportunities. Meanwhile, sales managers get actionable insights to coach and motivate their teams more effectively.
- Flexibility. Salesforce offers mobile apps for iOS and Android devices, which allow sales reps to access Sales Cloud data and functionality on the go.
Salesforce Service Cloud
The same report reveals that Service Cloud makes up 26% of Salesforce’s annual revenue — the largest share among all Salesforce products. So, what makes Service Cloud such a sought-after solution? Let’s zero in on its main benefits:
- Faster response times. Agents can quickly create, prioritize, and resolve customer cases — all thanks to intuitive Agent Workspace UI and robust case management capabilities. With automated omnichannel routing and escalation rules, inquiries are promptly directed to the right agent, which cuts the response times.
- Enhanced productivity. Service Cloud automates repetitive tasks and workflows, such as responding to emails, updating cases, and setting follow-up reminders. As a result, processes run smoother.
- Personalized interactions. Service Cloud allows agents to access customer history and preferences, tailoring their strategies to each customer’s needs.
- Proactive issue resolution. Service Cloud’s AI-powered features, such as Einstein Bots and Einstein Case Classification, enable businesses to proactively identify and resolve customer issues.
- Data-driven insights. Service Cloud’s analytics and reporting tools provide actionable insights into service performance, agent productivity, and customer satisfaction. Businesses can make data-driven decisions to optimize customer service operations and deliver truly customer-centric experiences.
Overall, both Sales Cloud and Service Cloud offer numerous benefits to their users. This statement is backed by many real-life cases.
The real use cases of Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud
For years, businesses of all sizes and across industries have actively utilized both Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. Companies, from tech startups to financial service providers, retailers, and healthcare organizations, witness significant enhancements in their sales and customer service operations after integrating Sales and Service Cloud into their workflows.
Here are a few instances of Sales Cloud or Service Cloud in action.
Salesforce Sales Cloud
- Bayer Consumer Health, a world-known consumer healthcare products provider, uses Sales Cloud along with other Salesforce solutions to drive data-powered sales.
- Close Brothers Finance, a UK-based financial service provider, relies on Sales Cloud to track their reps’ performance, identify suitable candidates for lending proposals, notify clients about new government schemes, and efficiently collaborate on proposals with underwriters working remotely.
- After introducing Sales Cloud into its processes, GoCardless, a fintech company, doubled its number of prospect interactions in just 12 months — all thanks to Sales Cloud’s collaboration capabilities and ability to easily provide the necessary information about each prospect.
Salesforce Service Cloud
- Touring Club Suisse, a provider of travel insurance, roadside assistance, legal protection, and other services promising stress-free trips for 1.5 million travelers, uses Service Cloud to connect with their clients anytime, anywhere. Thanks to the omnichannel routing feature, TCS managed to reduce average handling time by 22% and first-time resolution rate by a whopping 82%.
- Norway Post, a Nordic logistics company, has been using Service Cloud since 2011. Its 500 customer service reps spread across 12 departments rely heavily on Service Cloud for their daily operations. The platform plays a crucial role in cutting case resolution time. It offers managers a bird’s-eye view of all support processes so they can promptly identify and remove any bottlenecks.
- Heathrow Airport caters to over 200,000 passengers daily. The airport uses Service Cloud to automate its customer service. In particular, its support team relies on Einstein bots that answer an average of 4,000 questions monthly, freeing up agents’ time for other tasks. With a 360-degree view of each passenger, Heathrow’s support team reduced average case handling time by as much as 27%.
It’s worth noting that many businesses, including those featured on Salesforce’s website, use several Salesforce solutions. For example, Norway Post and GoCardless combine Sales Cloud and Service Cloud with other Salesforce products.
This trend only demonstrates that there is no clear winner in the Salesforce Sales Cloud-versus-Service Cloud debate. Rather, both solutions complement each other by catering to different stages of the customer journey.
Salesforce Sales Cloud vs Service Cloud Pricing and License Options
Which Salesforce product offers better cost per value? Both Sales Cloud and Service Cloud in Salesforce are Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products available via subscription. So, how much do these subscriptions cost? And which solution offers a better cost per value? Let’s find out below.
Salesforce Sales Cloud
To start using Sales Cloud, you must first select one of the five pricing options:
- Starter Suite ($25 user/month/billed annually or monthly) offers only the most basic CRM functionality: elementary lead, account, and opportunity management in addition to email integration and reporting. No automation, pipeline inspection or glorified AI capabilities are available at this tier.
- Professional ($100 user/month/annually) comes with sales forecast management, contact and order management, the ability to create basic quotes for customers, wider collaboration capabilities, process automation options, the possibility of integrating third-party apps, and beyond.
- Enterprise ($165 user/month/annually) lets you purchase AI capabilities, such as Einstein Relationships Insights, which uncovers critical information about your prospects for a truly customer-centric experience, Conversation Insights, which helps resurface best sales practices from calls, AI-driven lead scoring, and more.
- Unlimited ($330 user/month/annually) leverages all AI capabilities, including Einstein GPT for Sales, generative AI. It also comes with a Premier Success Plan offering expert guidance, tailored resources, and global 24/7 support, and the full range of sandbox capabilities.
- Einstein 1 Sales ($500 user/month/annually) offers the entire scope of Salesforce Sales Cloud capabilities.
Salesforce Service Cloud
Similar to Sales Cloud, Service Cloud is available in five editions with the same price tags:
- Starter Suite ($25 user/month/annually) offers key help desk features, such as case management, knowledge management, reporting, certain automation features, and a mobile app.
- Professional ($100 user/month/annually) adds omnichannel routing, contract management, collaboration features like Chatter and Swarming, case escalation, incident management, order management, telephony integration, asset management, automation flows builder, integration capabilities, and beyond.
- Enterprise ($165 user/month/annually) unlocks advanced case management, Einstein Bots and Enhanced Messaging (for an extra charge), Help Center, advanced reporting, and more.
- Unlimited ($330 user/month/annually) offers Premier Success Plan, AI-powered case classification and article recommendations for agents, a complete array of sandbox features, and beyond. Service Replies and Work Summaries can also be added for a fee.
- Unlimited+ ($500 user/month/annually) provides the full scope of Service Cloud features, including AI-enhanced Voice and Messaging, AI-powered case routing, messaging replies, case wrap-up, and knowledge base article creation powered by Service GPT, generative AI.
To sum up, Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud offer comparable value for cost. License prices are identical, and the cost-to-value ratio remains consistent across plans: Starter provides the bare minimum, Enterprise unlocks add-ons for a fee, Unlimited includes most add-ons bundled, and Unlimited+ offers advanced AI capabilities, including generative AI.
Ultimately, features, not price, dictate the choice. Yet, there’s another consideration.
Which One, Salesforce Sales Cloud or Service Cloud, Is for You?
In the ideal world, it’s nice to have both solutions: Sales Cloud for your sales team and Service Cloud for your customer support team. But in the real world, your choice in the Salesforce Sales Cloud vs Service Cloud dilemma will largely depend on your business size and organizational structure. If you don’t have separate teams for sales and support, you can probably go with only one solution, taking advantage of feature overlaps between both.
If this is the case, consider your current business strategy. Should it be focused on driving more sales, choose Salesforce Sales Cloud. Though designed for sales, it can cover basic customer support service needs as it centralizes all the necessary customer data and offers task management and simple collaboration capabilities.
But if the focus is on nourishing existing customers, Salesforce Service Cloud is a better option. It not only offers extensive help desk capabilities but also supports opportunity management and other sales-related activities. For example, Service Cloud can help capture and track leads coming through customer service channels.
Final Note
At first glance, Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud may appear similar, yet a deeper analysis reveals their disparate purposes. Sales Cloud is tailored for sales activities, while Service Cloud is designed for customer support functions.
While some functionality overlaps make them interchangeable to a certain extent, each solution is geared towards a different stage of the customer journey. That’s why combining both solutions often works best.
No matter what you ultimately decide, you can seamlessly transfer your data to a new platform without any coding required. Simply set up a free test migration and see for yourself!