Salesforce: From 360° view to 360° specialisation

More and more large companies are opting for a Salesforce-based solution to solve their business problems. From lead acquisition through social media to customer loyalty thanks to an effective customer service system, Salesforce offers multiple alternatives in its product portfolio to respond to these and many other scenarios.

Introduction

Salesforce is no longer (and has never really been) a simple CRM. It is an ecosystem of applications in the cloud, which allows us to provide solutions to almost any business problem that requires interaction with the customer. In this scenario of continuous information exchange, increasingly complex processes are built, where interaction between different areas and different systems of the company is essential.

This situation demands multidisciplinary profiles with transversal knowledge in several areas. Knowledge of Salesforce is just one of the many skills needed to understand and attack these ever-growing systems.

Let's look at a concrete example that starts with the acquisition of a customer as a lead and ends with the replacement of a defective product.  During the process, several areas of the company and different Salesforce clouds integrated with other systems are involved.

Example case

1. A customer is interested in a certain product. Through social networks, an advertisement is shown to him.

• Áreas of the company involved: Marketing and sales.
• Salesforce Tools / Clouds: Social Studio (Salesforce Marketing Cloud tool).

Social Studio connects to social networks and enables the execution of social media marketing campaigns.

2. The customer enters the advertisement and through a form gives his or her consent to receive more information. Information about the specific product is sent, as well as a discount for their first purchase.

• Áreas of the company involved: Sales and marketing.
• Salesforce Tools / Clouds: Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud.

The customer enters the CRM as a lead. The Sales Cloud, connected to the Marketing Cloud tools, allows us to work with and qualify this lead, which then becomes a customer.

3. The customer enters the e-commerce and buys the product using their discount. The payment is processed, the invoice is generated and the product is shipped.

• Áreas de la empresa involucradas: Ventas y marketing.
• Salesforce Tools / Clouds: Commerce Cloud, Sales Cloud.

We have an e-commerce developed through Commerce Cloud and connected to our sales CRM. In addition, this process requires integration with payment gateways, with the company's ERP and with a third-party system for shipping the goods. The product arrives in the hands of the customer and enters the warranty period.

4. After 9 months the product starts to fail. The customer calls the careline to ask for a solution.

• Areas of the company involved: Customer service.
• Salesforce Tools / Clouds: Service Cloud.

Through the Service Cloud, a customer service system is developed, which has several channels for receiving incidents. The incident enters the system and a case is generated and resolved.

5. It is offered a repair of the product at their home within 24 hours. The technician arrives and sees that the repair is not feasible, so he requests the delivery of a new product to replace the defective one.

• Areas of the company involved: Customer Service and Technical Assistance.
• Salesforce Tools / Clouds: Field Service, Service Cloud.

Using the Field Service cloud, we control the field technicians, their visit planning, schedules, skills, etc. In this specific case, a work order is generated and an appointment is agreed with the customer for the repair, which is registered and controlled from Salesforce.

What does the Salesforce ecosystem provide us with throughout this process?

In addition to the different clouds that we have mentioned above, which offer per se a series of specific functionalities aimed at solving specific problems; At a global level, we can highlight the following advantages:

Omnichannel

First of all, it gives us the possibility of configuring different ways of communication with the client. In this regard, Salesforce facilitates the configuration of multiple channels that allow us to have two-way conversations with the client at any time.

360° view and global management

360º view of all the information. In the same place and at the click of a button, we have all the activity carried out with the customer.

Salesforce becomes a manager of all communications and a "front-end" that brings together all the information

From the first purchase, to the resolution of a breakdown or incident; all the information, such as process status, emails, calls, visits, meetings, etc., is accessible from the customer file in the CRM. In other words, Salesforce becomes a manager of all communications and a "front-end" that brings together all the information and facilitates data control.

Ease of integration with other systems

Thanks to the different APIs available, Salesforce can be integrated with practically any system. In addition to the possibility of "end to end" integration through web services, Salesforce has an IPaaS (Integration Platform As A Service) platform among its products, offering ready-to-use connectors.

Scalability

The solutions are fully scalable and adaptable to any type of business and number of users. We can go from having an environment of 10 users to 100 in a very short time by acquiring new licenses.

Very reduced time to market

Many of the functionalities offered in its products are "out of the box" functionalities, in other words, ready to use. This, together with the ease of integration with other systems, shortens development and implementation times considerably.

Conclusions

In a changing and continuously growing market such as the one we live in, it is essential to correctly manage all processes within the company, especially those that have to do with customer relations and communication.

These processes are increasingly complex and involve different areas, and it is particularly important to have profiles that, with transversal competencies in several areas and technologies, are capable of understanding and adapting these processes in a changing and constantly evolving scenario.

Welcome to the era of 360º specialisation. Do we talk?