February 20, 2024
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Salesforce and ServiceNow are popular cloud platforms for businesses. But, how do they stack up? Which one makes the right choice for your needs? That’s what this blog is going to cover.
Salesforce and ServiceNow are like two different types of cars. Consider Salesforce a sports car, and ServiceNow a SUV.
Both cars share fundamental features:: engines, seats, wheels, and so on. However, each car is engineered for a particular purpose and is best suited to be operated in specific environments.
An SUV car is ideal for off-road travel, while a sports car is designed to deliver speed, performance, and style on smooth roads.
Similarly, Salesforce and ServiceNow have many fundamental features in common, but different platforms serve different business needs.
Salesforce vs ServiceNow: An overview
Salesforce is a customer relationship management platform that helps businesses find opportunities to better connect with their customers. It keeps track of customer information in one place and enables different departments of sales, service, and marketing to treat their customers with a personalized experience.
ServiceNow is an enterprise workflow automation platform that helps businesses stay organized and be more productive. It has a suite of low-code, customizable tools to automate tasks and processes across enterprises, improving service quality.
Salesforce vs ServiceNow: What Do They Have in Common?
Let’s find the key similarities between Salesforce and ServiceNow;
Customer Service Management
Salesforce has a Service Cloud, while ServiceNow has Customer Service Management (CSM) that helps businesses in managing customer services.
Service Cloud is a complete platform that assists businesses in engaging with customers, managing processes, and offering services. ServiceNow CSM is focused on planning and coordinating activities between customers, support teams, and other teams to resolve customer queries more rapidly.
Here is a quick comparison of Service Cloud vs ServiceNow CSM to see how they compare;
| Features | Salesforce Service Cloud | ServiceNow Customer Service Management (CSM) |
| Self-service | You can create branded self-service portals with a declarative interface to help customers find answers to the most commonly asked questions. | It allows the deployment of a self-service portal where new cases can be opened, existing cases can be reviewed and updated. A self-service portal can also be deployed on a third-party web or mobile app using no-code configuration. |
| Omnichannel customer engagement | Facilitate customer support across email, web, application, social media, and more. With API & integrations, you can also connect third-party channels. | It also facilitates communication across email, web, social media, phone, and more. |
| Workflow optimizations | It has no-code solutions to automate frequent and complex business processes. | It focuses more on providing real-time visibility into agent performance, forecasting agent demand, and making sure the agents are available when customers need them. |
| Robotic process automation | Allows the automation of repetitive tasks with no-code tools. | Its task intelligence capabilities enable the automation of the process of creating, prioritizing, and investigating issues. |
| Chatbots | It has Einstein bots that offer multilingual support to customers across the channel they prefer. | It has AI-powered conversational chatbots to solve customer queries with GenAI and automated resolutions. |
Field Service Management
Salesforce has Field Service Lightning (FSL), and ServiceNow has Field Service Management that helps businesses manage their field service experiences.
Salesforce FSL is a unified platform that connects the workforce, products, and customers into one platform to streamline field service operations. ServiceNow FSM is also an integrated system of action that connects customers and employees to ensure exceptional customer experience in the field.
Here is a quick comparison of Salesforce Field Service Lightning vs ServiceNow Field Service Management;
| Features | Field Service Lightning | Field Service Management |
| Schedule work orders | Allow the scheduling of the work orders according to priority and constraints complying with service level agreements. With AI it can automatically assign the job to the best available agent. | It automates the process of work order scheduling by assigning the right resources based on factors like priorities, territory, and more. |
| Dispatch management | It has a Dispatch Console, where all the information related to resources is available like absence, skills, availability, and more. | It has a single configurable workspace to simplify resource management and ensure seamless work distributions. |
| Field service territories | It has a concept called Service Territories to let you assign a territory to each field service agent. | It has a configurable interface to visualize, manage, and create territories. |
| Asset management | With real-time asset tracking including their usages, condition, and other specific criteria. | It has a single repository to keep track of all the assets utilized by the field service agents. |
| Visual remote assistant | With the virtual remote assistant, customers can connect with experts who can solve their problems on-screen eliminating the need for an on-site visit. | It has a multilingual virtual agent to help customers find solutions to their problems on their own. |
| Mobile accessibility | It has a mobile application available for both Android and iOS. This app has offline capabilities enabling field-service reps to work even during low or no internet connectivity. | It also has a mobile application with offline capabilities to help the sales team work from anywhere. |
Order Management
Salesforce has Order Management capabilities built directly into the CRM that allows businesses to manage the entire order lifecycle.
ServiceNow also has a product that streamlines the order lifecycle process from a single platform, called Order Management.
Here is a quick comparison of Salesforce Order Management vs ServiceNow Order Management to find out how they compare;
| Features | Salesforce Order Management | ServiceNow Order Management |
| Centralized order data | It provides all the order-related information like order history, customer records, payment terms, and more in a single place. | It also unites the entire order management lifecycle in one platform. |
| Self-service | Customers can track orders, view order history, cancel orders, and so forth. | Customers can view order details, place orders, and track their status. |
| Third-party integrations | It can be integrated with third-party systems to capture order details in Salesforce. | With order capture APIs, it also offers seamless integrations with third parties enabling order capturing from any system in ServiceNow. |
ESG Management
Salesforce has a platform called Net Zero Cloud that helps businesses reduce carbon emissions. It unifies all the data related to carbon emissions into one platform, so you can easily measure, and take necessary steps to reduce the carbon footprint.
Net Zero Cloud isn’t limited to ESG management, it is a comprehensive platform helping businesses achieve their sustainability goals.
ServiceNow has a product called ESG Management that creates a single source of action for all the data related to the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) programs of an organization.
Customization
Salesforce CRM offers a wide range of customization options and low-code development tools to help businesses align the platform with their needs. Beyond changing the user interface, and improving default features, and modules, it also allows the development of the out-of-the-box components specific to an organization.
Salesforce also allows code-level modifications to alter even the Salesforce environment. You can also develop the plugins, middleware, or connectors to ensure the data exchange with third-party systems.
ServiceNow also offers customization options. It’s a Service Portal that enables the creation of self-service portals that are customized to suit the specific needs of an enterprise. Workflow customization allows you to automate the processes according to business objectives.
It also allows the modification of baseline business rules, building complex integrations, and more.
Automation and AI
Both Salesforce and ServiceNow are making significant progress in the field of automation and AI.
Salesforce automation and AI capabilities are geared toward helping organizations scale and personalize customer experiences by staying focused on business outcomes.
ServiceNow is also making a significant leap in the world of AI. It is enabling enterprises to automate high-touch business processes thus eliminating the manual workload of employees.
What is the Difference Between Salesforce and ServiceNow?
Salesforce vs ServiceNow, the main difference lies in the reasons behind their existence.
The focus of Salesforce is centered on providing a 360-degree view of customers to the sales, service, and marketing teams helping them build personalized marketing campaigns, find prospects, close deals, and offer satisfactory customer services.
ServiceNow, on the other hand, focuses on streamlining and automating internal business processes. These processes include IT service management, human resources, customer service management, security operations, and more.
Put this into simple words, Salesforce helps outward-facing departments of an organization to do their job effectively. Meanwhile, ServiceNow is inward-facing, ensuring optimal working of internal business processes.
Salesforce vs ServiceNow: Which One to Choose?
The choice between Salesforce vs ServiceNow is subject to your business needs. Salesforce is the best choice if you’re looking for a wide range of solutions under one platform catering to different customer needs.
Similarly, ServiceNow is the best solution, if you need a complete solution for managing internal business operations like IT service management, HR management, asset management, and more.
So, now you might have an understanding of which platform to choose for your organization. The selection is not about ServiceNow vs Salesforce, which one is better, but which best suits your needs. No matter if you choose Salesforce or ServiceNow, we have a team of talented professionals to help you leverage the best out of these platforms.
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