salesforce-service-cloud-vs-servicenow-it-service-management

Salesforce Service Cloud is a digital customer service platform in the help desk software category on TrustRadius. It allows users to respond to internal and external service requests across a variety of digital channels and provides automated and self-service help for customers. 

In contrast, ServiceNow is an IT management service (ITSM) tool that allows organizations to centralize and align the delivery of information technology services and processes. This helps provide a better end-user experience. It can also be used as a technical support/ticketing system for internal or external purposes. 

Features

These platforms can both be used as support platforms. However, Salesforce Service Cloud is primarily used as a customer service platform while ServiceNow focuses more on supporting organizations’ internal technical needs—including providing technical support. 

Salesforce Service Cloud provides users with a comprehensive view of customer communications and serves as a single source of truth for tracking customer interaction histories for the entire organization. It also provides access to self-service portals to articles, knowledge-bases, account information, and the organization’s customer community. Using the Service Cloud, users can provide one-on-one or automated support across digital channels like chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, etc. 

ServiceNow provides organizations with features related to IT service support, application building and deployments, and workflow streamlining. These capabilities include the ability to automate business processes, a no-code mobile application builder, workflow applications builder, intelligent chatbots, Machine Learning-driven task automation, a configuration management database, and performance analytics. 

Limitations

Both platforms have a wealth of features and support a variety of use cases, but each has a few limitations to be aware of. 

Users on TrustRadius comment that Salesforce Service Cloud has so many features that learning how to use the platform can be overwhelming, especially for new users. Many have said that customization is needed to take full advantage of the system and that Salesforce Service Cloud has limited out-of-the-box functionality. Prices for certain add-ons can also be expensive. 

ServiceNow customers on TrustRadius note that user-interface can be clunky and hard to navigate. Some users also feel that report building can be difficult. The software also requires a significant amount of engineering resources in order to customize it exactly to your business needs. 

Pricing

Salesforce Service Cloud offers four different pricing tiers. The higher-priced plans provide access to more advanced features such as service contracts and entitlements, web services APIs, and access to 24/7 support. All plans are all billed annually, on a per user per month basis. The initial price points for each plan are as follows: 

• The Essentials plan is $25 per user per month 
• The Professional plan is $74 per user per month 
• The Enterprise $150 per user per month 
• The Unlimited $300 per user per month 

ServiceNow does not disclose pricing information on its website but will provide a customized quote upon request.