In this chapter, we looked at the functional areas within Salesforce CRM where we described the process from campaign to customer and beyond. We saw how leads in Salesforce CRM can be converted to generate the accounts, contacts, and opportunity records that will be processed through the sales cycle to form customer records; we also saw how these customers can be supported by the customer service and support teams using the case management features.

Within the functional areas, there are various touch points where the business teams concerned with marketing, sales, and customer service have to agree on roles and responsibilities for aspects of the business processes. Salesforce has developed Salesforce Chatter, which is a collaboration application that helps in this respect by connecting people and sharing business information.

In the next chapter, we will look at the ways in which the Salesforce CRM platform can be extended further through the use of customization technologies, such as Visualforce, where you can leverage further benefits for your organization and enhance the system without the need for expensive IT development resources.