Salesforce is a great example. It is amazingly "old fashioned", tiny and uses non of the UX paradigms of the last 10 years. However, it gets work done really, really well.
I'm disregarding the Lightning-UI versions for now.
I think Salesforce's advantage is its ecosystem and integrations.
However, I would not cite Salesforce as a reference for good UX. It is very labor intensive to get where you need. It takes a ton clicks to get places within the CRM—simple places like to find a contact profile. The Lightening UI makes the click areas for buttons and fields larger, but does not reduce the time or effort it takes to get places within the CRM.
My previous company, Trustfuel, built a business off of Salesforce being a pain for customer success managers to use. Note taking also sucks in Salesforce—Get Pattern's business is building a better note taking tool for AE's.
However, I would not cite Salesforce as a reference for good UX. It is very labor intensive to get where you need. It takes a ton clicks to get places within the CRM—simple places like to find a contact profile. The Lightening UI makes the click areas for buttons and fields larger, but does not reduce the time or effort it takes to get places within the CRM.
My previous company, Trustfuel, built a business off of Salesforce being a pain for customer success managers to use. Note taking also sucks in Salesforce—Get Pattern's business is building a better note taking tool for AE's.