The Top 4 Salesforce Experience Cloud Use Cases

Salesforce Experience Cloud lets organizations build branded portals and communities on top of their CRM data to connect customers, partners, and employees in one secure space. It centralizes collaboration, support, and engagement while automating key business processes.
Below are the 4 most common use cases — plus 4 real-world examples. 

Quick summary:

• Partner portals (PRM): manage partners, deals, and co-marketing in one workspace
• Member/volunteer / donor portals: engage communities, manage events, and streamline fundraising
• Self-service portals & knowledge hubs: deflect support tickets and speed up answers
• Customer & internal communities + microsites: onboarding, learning, campaigns, and resource hubs

How Can You Use Salesforce Experience Cloud?

With Experience Cloud, you can create different types of digital experiences and online communities to help you meet your specific business needs. Such as:

1. Partner portals (PRM) for vendors & resellers

Partner portals built with Experience Cloud are ideal for companies working with distributors, resellers, or strategic partners that need faster collaboration, shared pipeline visibility, and consistent brand governance.

Partners securely access Salesforce data based on roles and permission sets, allowing them to register leads, manage opportunities, download approved assets, and follow standardized workflows within one environment.

The portal centralizes partner onboarding and enablement, supports shared deal registration and pipeline tracking, ensures co-branded marketing materials remain aligned with brand guidelines, and provides performance dashboards and analytics to monitor partner success.

Our solution, AC Partner Marketplace, can help you create a robust and impactful partner network easily. You can also empower your partners to develop their own marketing assets with their name, logo, contact details, and other elements while aligning with your marketing and brand guidelines using AC Partner Co-Branding.

Need a partner portal blueprint? Talk to our team.

2. Member, volunteer, and fundraising portals (for associations and nonprofits)

Experience Cloud enables nonprofits, associations, and membership organizations to create a unified digital hub that strengthens engagement, simplifies event management, and supports fundraising activities. With AC Events Enterprise, members can register for events and participate in organizational initiatives. AC MemberSmart allows them to manage their profiles, access relevant resources – all through a single secure portal.

The platform supports member dashboards, self-service account management, online stores for merchandise or services (with AC eCommerce for Non-Profits), and practical tools for managing donations.

Planning a member or volunteer portal? We can help map the structure and implement it.

3. Self-service portals & knowledge hubs (customer support).

Self-service portals built on Experience Cloud help service teams and SaaS companies reduce support load, accelerate response times, and lower operational costs by enabling customers to find answers independently while still allowing seamless escalation when needed.

These portals provide structured access to FAQs, troubleshooting resources, and step-by-step how-to content, while also supporting case submission, status tracking, and community discussions where users can share insights and feedback. Also, advanced article filtering options and OpenAI integration are available if you supercharge your Salesforce knowledge base with AC Knowledge Management Enterprise. You can gather feedback and insights from customers right on your Experience Cloud site with the AC Ideas Ultimate app functionality.

Want to reduce support load with self-service? Let’s design your help hub.

4. Customer communities & microsites

Experience Cloud enables organizations to build dedicated customer communities that centralize onboarding, support, education, and engagement in one branded digital space. These communities give customers secure access to product resources, training materials, knowledge content, discussions, and personalized updates, helping them get value faster while staying connected with the company and other users.

By bringing support, learning, and communication together in one environment, organizations improve product adoption, strengthen customer relationships, and provide a consistent, self-service experience throughout the entire customer lifecycle.

When this use case fits:

• You want customers to self-serve onboarding, training, and support in one place
• Your team needs to improve product adoption and long-term engagement
• You need a centralized hub for customer communication, resources, and updates

Exploring a customer community or onboarding hub? Our experts can guide the rollout. Contact us today!

The Best Salesforce Experience Cloud use cases – Examples of Salesforce Communities

You can find many Experience Cloud Customer Stories navigating the Internet, but here are four of our favorite Salesforce Experience Cloud (formerly Community Cloud) use cases that demonstrate how companies from different countries can benefit from using Salesforce.

IQS University of Barcelona

About IQS University

IQS University, founded in 1905 in Barcelona, provides engineering and management education to over 3,000 students and 200 staff. Facing outdated systems, the university adopted Salesforce to modernize operations and improve the student experience.

Challenges

• Create one integrated platform that empowers the university and drives learner and education success.
• Enhance automation processes to eliminate repetitive manual operations and remove duplicate data.
• Personalize student experiences by delivering exceptional student service.
• Make the process of sharing information more efficient for both students and faculty.

Solution

• IQS University used Salesforce Experience Cloud to create a Careers Services Community where companies can post internship opportunities for students to apply to.
• They’ve also built an Alumni Community that encompasses more than 15,000 graduates in science and management, and serves to create relationships and contacts among students.

Benefits & Results

• Created a separate, feature-rich community that enables effective collaboration and relevant communication based on a student’s activities and interests.
• Automated all processes within the community, which increased efficiency and ensured a time reduction of over 40%.
• Enhanced relationships with undergraduate, graduate, and executive program prospective students.
• Accelerated student employability with online communities to jumpstart their careers.
• Empowered student communication and engagement throughout the whole student lifecycle.

AC Knowledge Management for Salesforce: How to Use It to Increase Support Efficiency

Salesforce is an incredibly powerful CRM platform that enables organizations to manage their customer relations, and more. But keeping track of everything can be a challenge, especially if you’re relying on manual processes or outdated tools. That’s why we created AC Knowledge Management Enterprise — a 100% native to Salesforce app that makes knowledge management on Experience Cloud smooth and holistic.

Cochlear

About Cochlear

Cochlear, a global leader in implantable hearing solutions, supports people with hearing loss through advanced devices and ongoing care used by over 400,000 people worldwide. To strengthen support and connection, the company created a dedicated portal where implant users can engage with a global community of patients, carers, and hearing professionals.

Challenges

• Provide informational and personal support for people with hearing problems.
• Create a channel to interact with the company.
• Build and maintain lifetime relationships with the people who use its implants everywhere in the world.
• Connect people with hearing problems with each other to share their experiences.

Solution

• Cochlear implemented Salesforce Experience Cloud to create a global community where people with hearing problems can connect and share their experiences.
• They also launched a Salesforce-powered support community for hearing awareness, where users can access personalized information about their condition or contact a medical professional for assistance.
• In addition, they built a volunteer community where implant users share their experiences with people who are still in the decision-making stage.

Benefits & Results

• Delivered purpose-built communities aligned with Cochlear’s goals and user needs.
• Strengthened long-term relationships with implant users worldwide.
• Enhanced user experience and increased customer retention.
• Deepened collaboration with partners, including clinics, surgeons, and audiologists.
• Provided accessible, reliable information to support users throughout their hearing journey.
• Enabled mobile access so users can engage and find information anytime, anywhere their new lives.

(RED)

About (RED)

(RED), founded in 2006 to fight AIDS, expanded its efforts during COVID-19, directing 100% of funds and partners to strengthen health systems and support life-saving programs in the hardest-hit communities.

Challenges

• Build a unified platform that organizes data, captures team and partner experiences, and keeps the community informed.
• Organize complex information and centralize key knowledge to allow (RED) work faster, smarter, and more effectively.
• Enhance engagement with partners and supporters while translating complex health data into clear, actionable visuals.

Solution

• Built a centralized community that organizes data and delivers relevant information.
• Provided tools and Salesforce solutions to improve efficiency, speed, and overall functionality.
• Enhanced collaboration and interactions with partners, supporters, and the (RED) team.
• Translated complex global health data into clear, easy-to-understand visualizations using CRM Analytics.
• Created an exclusive knowledge base to capture insights and testimonials from the team and collaborators.

Benefits & Results

• Received a beautiful, feature-rich Salesforce Community portal that meets all of the company’s needs and requirements.
• Deepened trust and relationships with partners and collaborators, becoming more productive and efficient.
• Streamlined key business processes and extended them across collaborators and departments.
• Engaged with partners and increased corporate donations to the Global Fund through Experience Cloud.
• Provided customers with a place to get answers and make donations without calling customer service, reducing support costs.

We at Advanced Communities are so proud to share a tiny part of our work: our success with Greenpeace UK. This non-governmental environmental organization is passionate about defending the natural world from destruction. Greenpeace UK decided to update its existing volunteer community and move it to the Salesforce Experience Cloud platform. Let’s see what they got!

A Complete Guide on Salesforce Experience Cloud for Nonprofits

Uncover the benefits of Salesforce Experience Cloud for nonprofits: explore the platform's features & discover how it can help manage donations, events, members, and more.

Greenpeace

About Greenpeace

Greenpeace UK is a well-known non-governmental organization with offices in 55 countries. They are passionate about protecting the natural world from destruction. Relying on volunteers, they work to provide a green and peaceful future for the planet.

Challenges

• Improve operations.
• Enhance Member and Volunteer Management.
• Increase audience awareness about the company and its mission.
• Improve relationships with partners and collaborators.
• Provide better engagement with their audience.

Solution

• Implement an integrated AC Events solution to streamline event management and improve participation.
• Add AC Member Directory component to make it easier to connect and find members.
• Create customized location-aware Chatter groups to enhance local collaboration and communication.
• Implement Chatter to boost engagement and real-time interaction across the community.
• Make the main page more relevant and engaging to increase user activity and retention.

Benefits & Results

• Enabled effective tracking, management, and collaboration with community members.
• Simplified the process of finding local volunteer groups.
• Revamped the main page to feature visually appealing content, including upcoming events, recent discussions, photos, and a group map.
• Implemented Chatter to improve online collaboration and knowledge sharing.
• Streamlined the management of local and national events.
• Enhanced the overall experience for community members.

Salesforce Experience Cloud for Nonprofits: License Overview

Read the article to learn about the new Salesforce for non-profits license and its main features.

As you can see, there are many Salesforce Experience Cloud use cases to discover and use for inspiration. Advanced Communities has experience building communities for different companies across multiple industries, and we’ve created several apps designed specifically for communities. Have an idea after reading the examples above? Contact us to book a meeting with our Experience Cloud experts!

Ready to plan your Experience Cloud architecture?

If you’re exploring Experience Cloud and looking for a trusted Salesforce partner for your project implementation, our team can help design the right solution for your organization.
Contact us to discuss your use case and next steps.