Businesses know for a fact that in order to retain a customer and have them come back for a repeat transaction it is all about understanding customer behaviour and usage patterns. Based on these past interactions, the kind of product purchased and used, a personalized approach to a customer can be created. The assurance of a consistently good experience when interacting with a company, their representative or simply shopping is what brings a customer back. A great cross channel experience is what everyone is looking for. Salesforce Customer 360 helps organizations integrate the varying aspects of service, commerce as well as marketing on a single platform, to provide customers with a seamless experience.
What is Salesforce 360?
Salesforce 360 was announced at Dreamforce 2018 and is a set of services that is aimed at providing immediate access to unified customer data across all of Salesforce apps. The idea is to connect everything, from a company’s employees to their customer and to their products. Salesforce 360 will be available in 2019.
It will comprise of three main components:
The Customer User Interface: This click-based user interface will be for app as well as data management. Admins will be able to use this to create trustworthy connections between apps and the Salesforce organizations using them. Data can be mapped and reconciled on Clouds, allowing for a single systematic representation of all the customer data. Earlier organizations had to depend on companies that would be based on point-to-point connections. Now with Salesforce customer 360 apps, this will be a thing of the past.
The Customer 360 ID: This ensures that a customer is recognized by each and every system with absolutely no dependence on the channel of engagement chosen or if customers use varied means of identifying themselves – such as email, mobile number, telephone number, etc. With its data management abilities, the software will be able to update any changes to the customer profile across all Clouds and include any data exchange that employees may need when interacting with the customer. The benefit here is that unlike the large data lakes or data warehouses that add to the expense of an organization, Customer 360 will leave the data at the original source and call on it only when it is required.
Inclusion of Packages for common use situations: Salesforce 360 includes packages that can be deployed in common situations that are triggered by the instances such as an abandoned cart; or browsing history that indicates interest. These can be based on data generated in the commerce cloud and then deployed to enhance the experience provided by the Service Cloud. Each of the several packages included is about enhancing the user experience. Components of the Service Cloud will include pre-built connectivity to Customer 360. As for the Marketing Cloud, pre-installed journey as well as email templates will have all the necessary content and data that is sourced directly from Customer 360.
A huge benefit with Customer 360 is that it provides companies with access to customer data that is gained from external systems. This is done through platforms such as MuleSoft Anypoint Platform, which was acquired by Salesforce. It allows for users to design as well as manage API-led connectivity across any kind of application, data, as well as device. These APIs connect directly to Customer 360. The company also has a partnership with Apple bringing the iOS mobile platform on board.
The idea of a single customer view is not really a new concept. However, it is the manner in which Salesforce Customer 360 delivers on it that makes it a game changer in the industry. The manner in which data is handled is one of the key differences – it is efficient, is secure and by allowing data to reside in the source till it is required, brings down the amount of duplicate data that is created. This frees up organizations and allows them to focus on better data management as well as on delivering a truly seamless cross-channel experiences.
Here is a sample of what it can do. A customer at an online apparel stores spends a good deal of time filling up his cart only to abandon it. All of this takes place on the Commerce Cloud. When he abandons his cart, this immediately triggers an action that places him in a campaign playing out in the Marketing Cloud and offering discounts on those very products that have been abandoned. Another situation is where a customer may connect with the support system for a change in order or some such requirements. The representative will have complete access to the customer’s shopping history to make informed conversation with them. All of this powered through the combined might of the Marketing and the Commerce Cloud.
If you would like to know more about Salesforce Customer 360, get in touch with us by writing to services@suyati.com.
