Salesforce Unveils Sales Cloud Innovations to Accelerate Productivity and Revenue with Data and AI

New data and AI-powered innovations help sales teams transform their business with new account planning, prospecting, forecasting, and compensation management capabilities

Salesforce today announced new data and AI-powered Sales Cloud capabilities to accelerate how sales teams drive revenue with account planning, prospecting, forecasting, and compensation management. These innovations give sellers a complete view of their customers and business by unifying Salesforce and external data with Data Cloud, and surfacing AI-powered insights in the flow of work. Customers can now collaborate on account plans directly in Salesforce, target the most qualified prospects, forecast usage data, and get deeper visibility into the team’s performance.

Why it matters: The rise of AI has also elevated the need for better data that is up-to-date, accurate, and trusted. Four out of five sales teams are experimenting with or have fully implemented AI, and 83% of sales teams that use AI saw revenue growth in the past year. And, companies want all of their AI and data tools on a single platform to run every part of their business with the trust that a fully integrated solution offers.

Zoom in: These latest Sales Cloud innovations include:

• Account Plans, enabling account-based selling so customers can grow accounts and win new business with real-time data. Customers can now do account planning where the work happens in Salesforce and consistently execute it using embedded best practices. With Account Plans, account teams can streamline account research with embedded SWOT analysis and customizable account research frameworks, define measurable goals in-app to guide strategy, measure success, and collaborate directly in Salesforce across sales, service, and success to boost customer health and accelerate deals. Sellers will also be able to use generative AI to centralize company research across the web, including competitive landscape and industry trends.

Sales Cloud is also launching two new sales technologies built on top of Data Cloud:

• Prospecting Center is the new command center for sellers to identify and prioritize prospects to keep their pipeline full. Because this is built on top of Data Cloud, customers can bring together CRM and third-party data, such as web data, firmographics, and advertising ZoomInfo and Highspot, to get a comprehensive view of prospects ranked by AI-generated engagement, fit, and intent scores. With the data in one place and in the flow of work, sellers can easily initiate actions, such as segmenting their prospects and setting outreach cadences, without toggling between applications. For customers scaling with Agentforce agents, Prospecting Center can help sellers identify the leads to route to the agent and give reps additional information when the agent hands off a qualified prospect back to the rep. This allows sellers to focus on the most qualified prospects and close deals faster.

• The new Consumption Forecasting unlocks the ability for customers to forecast on consumption and usage data. Customers can now bring external data, such as product usage and telemetry, into their forecasts to make them more complete and accurate, and can also utilize the AI model of their choice to power the insights. This helps sales teams forecast anything that runs their business as more customers adopt usage-based pricing models. Consumption forecasts are also unified with the default pipeline forecasts, so sales leaders have a unified view of their data across all business models. This saves them time from navigating multiple spreadsheets and manually manipulating data to make decisions.

Sales Cloud also announced new functionality to help sales teams of all sizes gain deeper visibility into their commissions. These enhancements are particularly well-suited for organizations seeking robust, enterprise-grade solutions. Salesforce Spiff now includes:

• New leader dashboards that give sales leaders a birds’ eye view of their team’s performance, including team pacing for a specific period, team quota attainment against goal, and team ranking. In addition, customers can now bring Spiff’s reporting data into any CRM and visualize it in Tableau, allowing customers to include commission data in their decision-making. 

These new capabilities build on Salesforce’s recent announcement of two Agentforce Sales Agents. Agentforce SDR Agent autonomously engages with inbound leads, in natural language, to answer questions, handle objections, and book meetings for human sellers. Agentforce Sales Coach Agent autonomously engages in role-plays with sellers, simulating a buyer during discovery, pitch, or negotiation calls.

Salesforce perspective: “Our customers are telling us that they want a single, integrated platform where humans work with AI to drive sales success. We’re excited to see Salesblazers adopt these innovations to power data-driven decisions and AI-powered productivity amongst their sellers.” – MaryAnn Patel, SVP of Product Management, Sales Cloud

Our customers are telling us that they want a single, integrated platform where humans work with AI to drive sales success.

MaryAnn Patel, SVP of Product Management, Sales Cloud

Customer perspective: 

• “We take full advantage of Sales Cloud’s built-in capabilities and insights so we can get more time to build relationships with our customers. No more wasted time, everything is in one spot.” – Dan Ruland, VP of Sales, Thnks

• “The transparency Salesforce Spiff will provide to our sellers, combined with the ease of use for our finance and operations teams, is a game-changer for Certinia, ensuring everyone is aligned and confident in their earnings. We look forward to Spiff transforming how we manage and motivate our sales teams as we streamline our incentive compensation process.” – Erin Sawyer, Chief Financial Officer, Certinia

 Availability:

• Accounts Plans, Prospecting Center, and new Salesforce Spiff functionality will be generally available in October 2024. Generative AI in Account Plans will be available in February 2025.
• Consumption Forecasting will be in pilot in October 2024 and generally available in February 2025.

Learn more:

• Learn more about these and other innovations at Dreamforce, either in-person or on Salesforce+
• Read about Salesforce being named a Leader in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation Platforms
• Learn about the Salesblazer community, where sales professionals can learn new skills, make connections, and uncover career opportunities
• Read seven ways to use AI to drive sales from pipeline to paycheck

Any unreleased services or features referenced here are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available.