Lesson 1 of 5 12 min read
What is CRM and how Salesforce works
Understand what a CRM does, how Salesforce organises customers in an org, and how to get a free practice org.
In this lesson you will
- Explain what a CRM system does for a business
- Describe orgs, clouds, editions and the three yearly releases
- Name the core standard objects and follow a lead from first contact to a closed deal
What is a CRM?
A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system keeps everything a business knows about its customers in one place: who they are, every conversation, every deal and every support request. Without one, this information lives in spreadsheets, inboxes and people's memories, and gets lost when someone leaves.
Salesforce is a cloud CRM. Nothing is installed: users open it in a browser or the mobile app, and Salesforce runs the servers, database, security patches and backups.
Orgs, clouds and releases
- An org is one company's private Salesforce environment, with its own data, users and configuration. Developers also use sandboxes, which are copies of production for testing.
- Salesforce is multitenant: many companies share the same infrastructure, but each org's data is kept separate. Every customer runs the same version, so everyone gets upgrades automatically.
- Salesforce ships three releases a year: Spring, Summer and Winter.
- Products are grouped into clouds: Sales Cloud for selling, Service Cloud for support, Experience Cloud for customer and partner portals, plus Marketing and Commerce products.
Salesforce is metadata-driven. When an admin adds a field or a page layout, they are changing configuration (metadata), not writing code. This is why so much can be built with clicks.
Layers from top to bottom: Sales, Service and Experience Cloud, Salesforce Platform, Multitenant infrastructure
The core standard objects
Data is stored in objects, which work like database tables. Every org starts with standard objects:
| Object | What it represents | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Lead | A possible customer who has not been qualified yet | Someone who filled in the website enquiry form |
| Account | A company or organisation you do business with | Infosys |
| Contact | A person, usually linked to an account | The training manager at Infosys |
| Opportunity | A potential deal, with an amount and a stage | 20 seats in a cloud course |
| Case | A customer question or problem | "I can't open the course portal" |
From lead to deal
- Lead
- Qualified lead
- Convert
- Account + Contact + Opportunity
- Closed Won
When a sales rep qualifies a lead, they convert it. Salesforce creates an account and a contact, and optionally an opportunity. The opportunity then moves through stages such as Prospecting, Proposal and Negotiation until it is Closed Won or Closed Lost.
Admins and developers
| Role | Typical work |
|---|---|
| Administrator | Users and security, objects and fields, page layouts, reports, Flow automation |
| Developer | Apex code, Lightning Web Components, integrations and deployments |
| Consultant | Understands a business process and designs how Salesforce should support it |
Most Salesforce careers start with administration, because developers need to understand the platform's configuration before writing code.
Hands-on exercise
Sign up for a free Developer Edition org. In the App Launcher, open the Sales app, create a lead for a fictional student, then convert the lead and note which records Salesforce created. Move the new opportunity through two stages and look at how the stage path at the top of the page changes.
Knowledge check
3 questions • 70% to pass • Practice only, no certificate
Key concepts
- A CRM keeps customer data, conversations, deals and support requests in one place.
- An org is one company's Salesforce environment; sandboxes are copies for testing.
- Salesforce is multitenant and metadata-driven, with three releases a year.
- Leads are converted into accounts, contacts and optionally opportunities.