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“How do you create integrated customer experiences?” Salesforce SVP of Product Management Patrick Stokes asked the audience this at Connections ‘19, kicking off a discussion highlighting how consumers are demanding continuous experiences with brands, regardless of the touchpoint. Those can include multiple social platforms, websites, chatbots, mobile apps, in-store interactions, and online support.

However, connecting these fragmented channels to deliver a seamless, continuous experience is extremely challenging for brands. Data still exists in silos, such as in a marketing email database or customer service platform. To help overcome these data challenges, the Salesforce team has created tools to help teams leverage best practices from the most common use cases. These solution kits are available for download now.

 

Why are integrated experiences so important?

Integrated experiences drive value and impact. A recent Salesforce Customer 360 pilot projects a 50% reduction in time to resolution plus 66% fewer clicks by the service agent to deliver a solution. 

We know that 73% of customers now expect companies to understand their needs and expectations, so delivering personalized, integrated experiences are becoming much more critical. According to Harvard Business Review, personalization can also reduce acquisition costs by as much as 50%, lift revenues by 5-15%, and increase the efficiency of marketing spend by 10-30%. 

 

What’s the first step?

The first step in getting started is to lay a solid data foundation. Begin with building your data strategy, define your profile orchestration, and then align a resolution strategy for data discrepancies.

Ekta Chopra, Head of Digital from e.l.f. Cosmetics gave insights into important considerations to take on before embarking on an integration project. Her recommendations:

  • Make sure you have someone with integration expertise on the team with a deep knowledge of your architecture
  • Take a use case based approach and leverage Solution Kits
  • Understand what inputs are necessary for each use case before getting started
  • Map out your journeys!

“We’re on the road to Nirvana; a single view of the customer is the key to a frictionless consumer journey!”

— Ekta Chopra
 

Integrated experiences with Salesforce Customer 360 

 In upcoming releases, the Salesforce Customer 360 platform will be able to facilitate these connections via a single Salesforce user ID and customer resolution engine. Here’s how we want to empower brands to create integrated experiences: 

  1. An admin-driven platform with click-based functionality that connects all of the Salesforce applications for app and data management
  2. A complete view of your customer delivered via single ID and profile across all of your applications
  3. An external application connector via Mulesoft that enables information to act like tenants from other data sources and integrates with any system

This approach will turn disconnected customer experiences into one unified profile that sits at the center of the experience. The data ”swivel chair” becomes a thing of the past because information can now be surfaced at the moment of need while allowing systems of record to remain unchanged. The Salesforce Information model, which is a shared data model that will make data available across systems by creating a common referenceable source of data. In connecting data — and the broader context, your customer’s experiences — brands can move the needle in key areas such as time to resolution, increased shopping cart, and higher employee satisfaction. 

The Salesforce Customer 360 platform reduces the level of friction when connecting clouds, allows for various ways of accessing data, and will include a metadata store. Also because we know that every company’s information models are unique and different, it does not require any changes in existing information models. 

Be sure to download our solution kits.