52 Advantages to Using Service Cloud for Customer Service

When it comes to selecting the right platform for your customer service team, the options and features available seem to change daily. This is great news for your customers, because when you choose the right technology, you’re on your way to improving customer experience and your business’s reputation.

Here are 52 reasons why Salesforce Service Cloud is the undisputed top customer service solution for businesses of all sizes.

Provide Excellent Customer Service from the Get-Go

1. Find the right platform that does exactly what you need it to do.
2. Use a scalable platform that fits your needs now and grows as your customer base grows.
3. Invest in technology that stays up to date so you can service customers in the most effectiveways possible.

Salesforce Service Cloud is the industry standard for integrated, powerful software that enables customer service departments to run as efficiently as possible. The advantages to its straight-out-of-the-box usability center around your team being able to immediately work more effectively.

Keep an Eye on the Big Picture

4. Stay aware of the latest trends and news in customer support.
5. Decide on your goals, then set-up your customer service platformso you can monitor your metrics and meet those goals.
6. Populate your dashboards with only the information you need from across multiple platforms. (Lightning Service Console)
7. Observe how your customer service team operates in real time with a powerful analytics tool. (Service Wave)
8. Join the Success Community to talk to other users and get ideas for what’s coming.
9. Predict your customers’ future needs, and proactively address them, with reports that analyse your metrics for you.
10. Keep all your information organised in one centralised location.
11. Know how to help your customer service team get even better with detailed performance metrics. (Omni Routing)
12. Track the KPIs that are most important for your company and department. (Service Wave Analytics)

As important as it is to treat every individual customer, it’s just as necessary and paramount to your company’s success to have a good, well-rounded overview of your customer service department’s activities. Answer questions about average response times, customer satisfaction scores, and more with data-driven metrics. With these reports you have clear direction and quantitative ways to improve.

Personalise Your Customer Experience

13. Use data from your analytics to better understand your customers.
14. Remember that customer service is an integral part of your customers’ experience with your company.
15. Watch case history and trends for each customer to reduce redundant questions. (Lightning Console)
16. Help customers faster with immediate, detailed information in front of every rep. (Lightning Console)
17. Provide real-time service with live chat the minute a customer lands on your website. (Live Agent)
18. Keep records of every interaction—from chat to social media and email.
19. Meet your customers where they are when they contact (or just mention) you on social media. (Social Customer Service)
20. Respond seamlessly when customers reach out over social media, then move to another method of communication. (Social Customer Service)
21. Provide customer service all day, every day, so that when customers need your help, you can respond.
22. Offer video chat and screen sharing when customers need help beyond a phone call or messages exchanged online. (SOS video chat)
23. Keep up with other high-performing teams and offer customer service through apps.
24. Answer customers using the method that works best for them.

The overarching view of your customer service department’s productivity is a compilation of all the interactions your reps have with customers. Each customer expects to be treated like an individual, and the only way to ensure that happens is with the ability to keep detailed records of every interaction in one centralised location. A powerful customer service platform will do that for you.

Empower Your Customers

25. Have ways on your website or app to get in touch with your customer service team wherever they’re needed. (Snap Ins)
26. Give customers the chance to find the answers they need and learn for themselves, without ever having to speak to another person. (Communities)
27. Provide a forum where customers can come together, crowdsource answers, and teach each other. (Communities)
28. Build a community of leaders and evangelists. (Communities)
29. Create an active, well-stocked knowledge base where your customer service team and customers can increase knowledge management. (Knowledge)
30. Allow agents to add to and update your knowledge baseto keep information as helpful as possible.
31. Monitor and improve the customer journey based on customer behaviour and direct feedback. (Snap-ins)
32. Send customers surveys to let them know you’re interested in their feedback—and to qualitatively find out what you can do better.

Some customers want to learn more about your products and services, or they prefer to answer their questions on their own. This is where the ability to build communities and knowledge bases come into play. With these two features on your site, your customers have the opportunity to come together, learn, discuss, and help each other. And when deployed properly, these solutions alleviate the everyday, simple customer service requests and allow your team to focus on serving people who need their help the most.

Another important step in empowering customers is to listen to them. Employ surveys to hear straight from customers what your team is doing well, as well as what they can improve.

Reduce Your Customer Service Team’s Workload (and Stress)

33. Assign the most knowledgeable or best-suited agent to each inquiry. (Omni Routing)
34. Identify your best-performing reps based on empirical data, and have them train others.
35. Customise your platform to suit your needs in order to work most efficiently.
36. Prioritise cases correctly based on priority and the scope of the work. (Omni-Channel Presence and Routing)
37. Dispatch the right mobile employee and proactively take care of customers. (Dispatcher Console)
38. Monitor all of your customers’ products and identify what needs attention. (Advanced Assets)
39. Book service appointments quickly and accurately. (Smart Scheduling)
40. Find out exactly where a customer is experiencing difficulties and guide them to a solution based on their behaviours on your website or app. (Snap-ins)
41. Arm your agents with the right technology in order to empower them to make customers happy.

The best way to keep your customer service team running as efficiently as possible is to manage their workflow. Scheduling and routing tasks to the most capable agents ensures customers are taken care of as quickly as possible.

Keep Customers Happy When You’re In the Field

42. Dispatch and manage reps in the field. (Field Service Lightning)
43. Create and keep an eye on work orders. (Field Service Lightning)
44. Track progress and maintain satisfaction for field workers. (Field Service Lightning)

Customer service has moved beyond an agent sitting at a computer. Today, you can help your customers from anywhere—and sometimes you don’t even need an internet connection to do it.

Work from Anywhere Thanks to Cloud Computing and Apps

45. Use a cloud-based service so you’re not tied to one location.
46. Keep mobile employees updated with apps that allow them to see all the details they need to get the job done right. (Salesforce1 Mobile App)

When you work from the cloud, you can log in from anywhere at any time. And the added accessibility of working directly from your smartphone with the same powerful software means no customer service request is too intense, even when you’re away from your desk.

 

Share Information Between Users and Departments Seamlessly

A cloud-based customer service platform means no matter where you are or the time of day, customers can turn to you for help. When that platform integrates with your other software, including your CRM and marketing technology, your company’s ability to communicate internally and externally improves.

From training new employees to working alongside your highest-paying customers, you need technology that can keep up with your business, empower your employees and customers, and make sure your customer service team works like a well-oiled machine.