Salesforce Contact Center: Automation, Intelligence and New Real-Time Data Drive Cost Savings and Proactive Service Experiences

Salesforce has rolled out new technology that gives companies the contact center solution they need right now. Bringing together a comprehensive set of tools, Salesforce Contact Center now efficiently transforms and scales contact centers into a hub of automated, intelligent, and real-time customer service.

Contact center leaders can now leverage real-time data from automated bots, digital channels, and self-service hubs, resulting in an even more complete and unified view of each customer. 

• These new real-time capabilities give agents the tools they need to reduce resolution times, deliver more personalized service, and improve customer satisfaction — all while saving an average of 27% in service and support costs.  

Why it’s relevant: 85% of customers expect consistent interactions with businesses — and service sits squarely at the center of the customer experience. 

Organizations are being asked to do more with shrinking budgets while also facing external challenges like economic uncertainty and labor shortages. The need for tools that empower agents to offer connected, seamless customer experiences at scale has never been greater. 

Innovation in action: Salesforce Contact Center brings together Salesforce’s most powerful capabilities to empower contact center agents to move faster and do more with less thanks to automation, intelligence and real-time data designed to engage customers whenever and wherever they are:

• Financial service providers can use Omni Routing to proactively route customers to the appropriate department, such as the fraud or lending department, while also empowering agents with fiduciary intelligence and real-time data automation to resolve multiple issues in a single engagement. 
• Communications service providers can use a combination of AI and automation to proactively reach out to customers and provide personalized, real-time recommendations based on customer data, like what steps are required to reset an internet router during a potential service outage. 
• Healthcare providers are equipped with real-time, up-to-the-minute data to meet the needs of patients and guide conversations.

What’s in Salesforce Contact Center:

• Service Cloud Voice turns voice into a native channel within Salesforce for faster call resolution and more personalized conversations. Customers can use bundled telephony or partner telephony connectors on Salesforce AppExchange. 
• Digital Engagement helps contact centers connect with their customers on their preferred digital channel, with messaging on web, mobile, WhatsApp, SMS, or Facebook Messenger.
• Self-Service lowers call and chat volumes by empowering customers with self-help pages and AI-powered bots to solve frequently asked questions. 
• Feedback Management leverages surveys built natively into Service Cloud to collect real-time, actionable feedback from customers to drive informed business decisions. 
• Shift Scheduling and Omni Routing routes the right work to the right agents regardless of channel and adjusts shift schedules to reflect demand.
• Einstein Conversation Insights uses Einstein AI to analyze customer interactions to flag next best actions in real time, spot conversation trends, and use data-driven insights to coach service agents.

The Salesforce perspective: “Service Cloud enables companies to do more with less. Now, service departments can deliver complete, connected service experiences from digital self-service to the contact center, to front-line field service — all in real time,” said Clara Shih, CEO of Service Cloud, Salesforce. “With rising customer expectations, shrinking team sizes, and uncertain economic conditions, organizations must leverage service technologies that provide holistic, 360-degree customer experiences to be successful.”

“With Salesforce Contact Center, organizations can instantly transform their contact center, empowering agents to provide automated, intelligent, and seamless customer service experiences,” said Ryan Nichols, SVP and GM, Contact Center, Salesforce. “In an environment where customers have more choice than ever, experiences centered around real-time customer data will help turn potentially negative interactions into long-term customer loyalty.”

Reaction to the news: GE Appliances has used Service Cloud to help drive their “zero distance” philosophy — a commitment to grow closer to their customers, whom they call “owners,” to provide products and services that deliver outstanding experiences.

• “Service Cloud has enabled our company to establish and grow close relationships with our owners. These Zero Distance relationships allow us to create and offer the products they need the way they want,” said Viren Shah, Chief Digital Officer, GE Appliances.

Explore more: 

• Learn more about Salesforce Contact Center here.
• Watch Service Cloud’s Dreamforce 2022 keynote to learn more. 
• Learn how Intel used Service Cloud to win the Intel Quality here.
• Review the fifth edition of Salesforce’s State of Service report to understand the industry trends impacting the service sector and how organizations can quickly adapt to meet changing customer expectations. 

Pricing and availability: Service Cloud Contact Center is generally available today. 

• Shift Scheduling must currently be manually added to Salesforce Contact Center and will become an out-of-the-box feature beginning in February 2023.
• Einstein Conversation Insights will be an out-of-the-box feature of Salesforce Contact Center beginning in February 2023.