Perhaps the most important difference between Salesforce for Outlook and an automated Salesforce email integration app is something called MultiMatch. Salesforce for Outlook involves clicking on an “Add to Salesforce” button each time an email is logged a SFDC record; this technology is called “Single Email Address To Object Matching (SEATOM)”.
The problem with SEATOM is that most emails contain information (i.e., email addresses) that is related and important to more than one SFDC record. For example, a client has cc:ed a colleague on an inbound email. With Salesforce for Outlook that email will be logged into the client’s Contact record but not the colleague’s Contact record. Later, if a sales rep looks at the colleague’s Contact record in Salesforce.com, the email will be missing. This can lead to inefficiency and mix ups.
With “Multiple Email Address and Object Matching”, or “MultiMatch”, this problem is solved. The email will be synced, sorted and matched in the cloud to all the relevant Contact records in SFDC – i.e., it will be logged to both the client’s Contact record and the colleague’s Contact record. MultiMatch further increases a sales rep’s reliance on SFDC as a “system of record” or “single point of reference”. The most confidence the sales reps have in the data in Salesforce.com, the more they will use the CRM system and increase your return on investment.