Quick Explanations of Salesforce Tech, From Its CRM To Marketing Cloud And More

We’re about to accelerate the time to value in using Salesforce technology.

Normally, companies tend to think of the moment they deploy an application as the beginning of enjoying the benefits. It actually starts earlier than that.

All technology investments should be aimed at fixing a problem or addressing a pain point. A big part of that process, however, is in identifying what those technology investments should be.

For too long, this has meant a lot of work for customers. It’s been up to them to do all the hunting around online, becoming experts in a niche they may not have even heard about a few months before.

In some cases the process can be outsourced to a consultant, but that still means hours or more spent articulating the growth challenges your company is facing. Then you’re waiting around for the consultant to come back with a laundry list of products and services to sort through.

This all taking away from time you would probably prefer to spend marketing, selling or offering a higher calibre of service to your customers than your competitors. Those are the sorts of activities that tend to really move the needle from a growth perspective.

What’s needed, in many cases, is a sort of cheat sheet.

In just a paragraph or two, you can probably get a sense of whether a particular technology will bring value to your company. You’ll still have to get more details before making the final purchasing decision, but it would be a helpful head start.

That’s what this post is offering. You may already be a Salesforce customer, or you’ve just heard about us. Either way, this cheat sheet is for you.

Here’s the at-a-glance summaries to hopefully shorten the time to value as much as we possibly can:

The CRM Platform: Sales Cloud is the CRM that will transform your process of closing deals from one where you’re reinventing the wheel each time to one where you know exactly who you’re selling to, and what and how they want to buy.

Instead of every sales rep managing all their information themselves and duplicating efforts with their coworkers, Sales Cloud centralizes all customer data in one place. Your team becomes more collaborative, best practices in selling become second nature and win rates go up. It makes sales an inherently data-driven discipline.

The Marketing Automation Platform: As more of the activity of building your brand and generating demand moves to digital channels, there’s a lot to organize and manage. Marketing Cloud is the Salesforce solution to this challenge. You’ll be able to easily do everything from running online ad campaigns to connecting with customers via social media.

If you’re a B2B company, Marketing Cloud elements such as Pardot will make sure you’re able to capture leads and run account based marketing campaigns that attract your most desirable customers. It makes marketing an inherently data-driven discipline.

The Customer Service Platform: What happens after the sale can make or break your company’s reputation, if not the future of your business. Service Cloud is Salesforce’s way of empowering agents and others in the company with a toolset to rapidly address questions and complaints, but in the most personalized way possible.

When organizations use Service Cloud, they shift from merely reacting to issues as they come up to becoming more proactive and anticipating customer needs. This is your first step in boosting metrics like CSAT and NPS. It makes service an inherently data-driven discipline.

The E-Commerce Platform: Shopping is no longer limited to making physical trips to a store, but companies need to be able to simply and rapidly spin up digital ways of buying that keep customers focused on your products. That’s what Salesforce delivers with Commerce Cloud.

Consumer-focused brands often turn to Commerce Cloud to handle not only the moment of purchase, but everything from merchandising and assortment to special promotions. It makes e-commerce an inherently data-driven process.

The Artificial Intelligence Platform: Although AI is still a mystery to many people, it’s becoming clearer every day that the job of analyzing data to discover actionable insights isn’t always a job for human beings. Salesforce has turned AI into something accessible and value-driven with Einstein.

Woven across Salesforce’s product portfolio, Einstein is taking companies from answering the “What happened” to “What’s going to happen next?”. Those predictive capabilities ensure you don’t get caught off guard when customer needs or market conditions change unexpectedly. It makes running your business an inherently data-driven discipline.

The Customer Data Platform: As companies grow, so does the volume of customer data, and putting together a holistic picture of what you know about each one can become difficult. That led to the launch of Salesforce Customer 360, which brings the big picture back into focus.

By offering the ability to integrate and connect multiple Salesforce apps, you’ll be able to develop a unique ID for each customer. That means a greater ability to personalize marketing, increase sales and enhance customer service. It makes managing customer experiences an inherently data-driven discipline.

You’ve probably noticed a common refrain through all of this background information. The digital transformation journey isn’t just about setting up a better looking website or launching a mobile app.

Long-term success comes when data-driven processes help you make better decisions, no matter what kind of business you’re growing.

These quick hits give you a hint at how that’s done. You’ll probably be surprised at how fast you’ll get there once you get started.