That’s what was top of mind during Service Cloud’s keynote today. “We need to go further than making a connection. We need to create human-centric service,” said Service Cloud Vice President Mark Abramowitz. It seems counterintuitive that emerging technologies like the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence can help businesses enhance their customer relationships. Used incorrectly, they have the potential to damage relationships instead.

However, many companies are finding the winning formula and building service use cases and interactions that set new industry standards. Trailblazers heard from Alice Mitchell, Director of Global Omnichannel Product at ASICS Digital; and Jason Potts, Enterprise Tech Executive at State Farms about how they leverage technology to deepen customer relationships.

Lending a helping hand to Chicago’s students

School’s out for the summer, but Trailblazers are already prepping kids for the upcoming year. Attendees took the time to stop by the Future Ready Kit Build Station to build school supply kits for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago. “It’s like a buffet line, but instead of picking and choosing things, you select everything,” Steve Scranton, Senior Director at World Vision explains.

World Vision partners with companies to bring volunteer and partnership opportunities to help children in need. “It’s great, we can coordinate to build kits at events like this, or come to offices.” Since giving back is a big part of our Ohana culture (Ohana is the Hawaiian word for family), it was heartwarming to see so many Trailblazers participate and help those who need it most.

e.l.f.’s Kory Marchisotto applauds the badass women of Connections

Salesforce’s Growth and Innovation Evangelist Tiffani Bova caught up with e.l.f. (eye, lips, face) Chief Marketing Officer Kory Marchisotto and nabbed her thoughts on the event. Marchisotto shared how she loves that Salesforce spotlights female leaders including e.l.f.’s own Head of Digital Ekta Chopra. She also touched on how e.l.f. leverages Salesforce to bring the best of beauty and make it accessible for every eye, lip, and face.

Shall we play a game?

The Customer Success Expo was jamming today with people keeping their eyes on the prize(s). Aside from Quest, Trailblazers had the opportunity to play several different games on the expo floor. First stop was a boating adventure where players steered Astro and friends across a vast lake while collecting coins and gaining customer engagement tips for marketing, service, and commerce.

Next, attendees lined up at Google’s large booth to try their hand at Leap and Learn Lake — a digital interactive game where players had a chance to win a Bluetooth speaker. As a strategic partner, Google had a large presence at this year's Connections to showcase the benefits of Salesforce and Google together — or “a relationship for your customer relationships.” After getting a look at Google Marketing Platform and Google Cloud, attendees got hands-on with Trailhead to learn more about the partnership.

Meanwhile, not too far away in the Campground, players took the Conagra Challenge — a “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” style game complete with podiums for contestants. Players learned how Conagra leverages the Customer 360 platform to develop deeper relationships with their customers.

The new rules of customer engagement

The customer experience stakes have never been higher. In fact, 84% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services — up from 80% in 2018. This forces companies to rethink not just the individual experiences they provide customers, but their entire approach to customer engagement.

In a session unveiling new data from the recently released State of the Connected Customer report, Tiffani Bova shared how savvy businesses can develop valuable one-to-one customer relationships. “By 2023, we project that experience will reach parity with product quality,” Bova reveals. She went on to talk about the shift in personalization standards.” Personalization is knowing your customer — how much they’ve spent with you, knowing how long they’ve been a customer and giving them relevant communications — not just knowing their name and adding it to an email.”

That’s a wrap for our daily coverage of Connections ‘19. Check out Salesforce LIVE to watch video replays of the keynotes and be sure to check out the announcements and blog posts from the past three days. See you at Dreamforce!