I've never used it myself (edit: oh, wait, that's not actually true, though it was years ago), so I can't answer some of your questions. However, I have done a fair amount of Salesforce consulting and can give you that perspective. I'll speak in absolutes but I'm sure things are more nuanced.
For established companies of a certain size, Salesforce is usually just assumed to be present, kind of like IBM in a previous era. This is mostly because everything integrates with Salesforce, and all salespeople know how to use it.
For smaller companies, particularly startups, the ROI isn't as clear. Salesforce is expensive. The CRM that most startups need is marketing-focused, and you probably get one for free with whatever marketing automation tool you use. It's worth it for smaller outfits only if they have a long and involved sales process (say, institutional sales primarily), and perhaps if you are involved in education or a non-profit, since they have programs that reduce the cost in that case.
Salesforce out of the box isn't particularly enjoyable to use, but it's learnable and usable. A lot of companies add on cut-rate customizations that end up making things a mess, but that's more a commentary on change management at large organizations than the platform itself.
To be honest,I never understood this argument that it's expensive. The enterprise version,which is essentially the bare minimum for any business that is more complex than a lemonade stand, is about $100/month/user. I'm talking about western countries here. If a business can't spend that kind of money on a user,it's time to have a think on whether it needs a CRM software or new business model. Also,if configured well, it can hike up efficiency by quite a lot. We do twice as many booking as we used to do with the team remaining the same size.
For established companies of a certain size, Salesforce is usually just assumed to be present, kind of like IBM in a previous era. This is mostly because everything integrates with Salesforce, and all salespeople know how to use it.
For smaller companies, particularly startups, the ROI isn't as clear. Salesforce is expensive. The CRM that most startups need is marketing-focused, and you probably get one for free with whatever marketing automation tool you use. It's worth it for smaller outfits only if they have a long and involved sales process (say, institutional sales primarily), and perhaps if you are involved in education or a non-profit, since they have programs that reduce the cost in that case.
Salesforce out of the box isn't particularly enjoyable to use, but it's learnable and usable. A lot of companies add on cut-rate customizations that end up making things a mess, but that's more a commentary on change management at large organizations than the platform itself.