Salesforce Customer 360: Its Features and Benefits for Businesses
Last Updated: October 10, 2024
It’s right there in the name: if delivered the right way, an unforgettable customer experience will work its magic. How can your business do the same using Salesforce? The platform has various tools to help you understand customer behavior and deliver personalized customer engagement. One of these tools is Salesforce Customer 360.
Simply put, Salesforce Customer 360 takes after a revolutionary customer relationship management (CRM) platform that provides a single view of the customer across all touchpoints. But you shouldn’t mix these two notions (we’ll explain more in a minute). Keep reading to find out all the benefits and challenges you can expect from implementing Customer 360.
What is Salesforce Customer 360?
Salesforce Customer 360 is a special technology and a customer data management platform that helps businesses connect with clients and optimize business processes at every step of the customer journey, providing personalized experiences and enhancing customer satisfaction.
It unites your marketing, sales, commerce, service, and IT departments, allowing them to collaborate seamlessly and achieve greater productivity, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.
Besides, Customer 360 makes you have customer’s name, address, contact info, gender, and behavior at your fingertips.
How Does it Work?
To lay our finger on the whole idea, let’s imagine a possible situation. A user is navigating an online cosmetics shop. They then top up their cart, fill in all their customer data (email, phone, even occupation details), and eventually sign up for the shop’s newsletter.
Here is when the shop’s sales team steps in.
Thanks to the integrated CRM platform the shop adopted, sales and customer service teams know the customer’s name, occupation, and preferences. This is what Salesforce Customer 360 is about. With data integration from multiple sources, Salesforce Customer 360 creates a single, unified view of the customer. It includes customer information, transaction history, engagement data, and more.
Having this data, businesses can gain insights into customer behavior, preferences, and needs, using this information to tailor their marketing and sales efforts.
Salesforce Customer 360 Architecture
It’s a cloud-based solution that is highly scalable and secure. Unlike other software products that function as a single product, Customer 360 is a complete suite of Salesforce products, including Experience Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and more, all offering a range of features. Traditional software products work independently to collect and use data for specific departments.
Salesforce Cloud Services: A Deep Dive into Specifics
With Salesforce Customer 360, sales, marketing, service, commerce, and IT teams can connect and access unified data. This shared data structure enables different teams to use the data according to their use cases and take further steps accordingly.
The clouds we discussed above aren’t the only ones that come with Customer 360. Among them, you can also find Salesforce apps and other integrated products such as Salesforce Tableau Analytics – a data visualization tool and predictive analysis, MuleSoft – used for automation of IT processes and API integrations, and Slack – used for better customer communication, app integration, and so on.
Salesforce Customer 360 Features
Salesforce Customer 360 offers a wide range of features designed to improve customer engagement and drive business growth.
These include customer data management, segmentation, personalization, marketing automation, sales forecasting, and more.
The platform also incorporates AI-powered tools that enable businesses to automate routine tasks. Let’s look closer at three main features.
Unified Data and Improved Consent Process
Salesforce Customer 360’s greatest strength lies in consent management and its ability to unify data.
With this solution, businesses can collect data and gain insights into their customers to create a comprehensive profile of their preferences and behavior. You can manage customer data in the form of cookies for first-party members, whether known or unknown.
With the framework’s consent received, the business can give their employees access to this information to help them make better-informed decisions.
AI-powered Einstein Analytics
Salesforce has already become an association for all things AI. Its Customer 360 product isn’t an exception to the rule. By leveraging artificial intelligence, businesses can gain a deeper understanding of consumer behavior and develop better relationships with their customers.
For instance, AI algorithms can analyze what ads users have clicked on, and what products they usually buy, as well as information from customer profiles so they can make personalized product recommendations to customers.
Personalization Options
Use client data to create a personalized customer experience. The thing is that personalized engagement is crucial in closing more deals as it focuses on the specific problems or challenges that customers face and the solutions they seek.
For instance, if a customer segment purchases products in a specific category, like kids’ items, sales reps can offer discounts on this product category to encourage them to complete the purchase. This personalized engagement can lead to higher conversion rates and increased customer satisfaction, ultimately benefiting the business.
Salesforce Customer 360: Key Benefits
Sure thing, Customer 360 brings excellent advantages. Everything from better employee efficiency to higher revenue counts. But is there anything more to the story? Of course, there is! We connect all the dots and break down the main Customer 360 benefits right here, so dive in.
Improved Employee Productivity
If you decide to opt for Customer 360, be ready to unburden your team. The platform takes the guesswork out of the collaboration between the company’s departments, minimizes data silos, and automates a dime a dozen of routine tasks.
Scalability
Customer 360 represents a scalable platform which means it grows as your business does. For instance, your value proposition has just been topped up with additional products or services. That has led to new hires, more interested customers, and more data. With Customer 360, you can forget about processing this info manually: it accommodates increasing client and data volumes.
Reduced Churn Rate
We have already talked about the personalization options that Customer 360 provides. This is directly connected to the next benefit – reduced churn rates and better retention. Thanks to the personalized approach you can take with this platform, your clients will get a tailored experience. For instance, a business using Customer 360 can detect that a client is at risk of churning based on the purchase history and engagement levels. Consequently, they can be proactive to retain that customer (suggest a special discount at the very least).
Higher Revenue
Struggling with upselling and cross-selling? Customer 360 can help you address this problem. Thanks to a unified customer view, a business can identify opportunities to offer additional products or services. Where’s the catch? It’s based on the customer’s preferences and behavior. Let me elaborate on this one. If a customer has recently purchased a smartphone, your system that has Customer 360 integrated may offer a compatible case, a screen protector, or a headphone set. Easy!
Enhanced Customer Loyalty
The rule of thumb is that loyal customers are more likely to recommend a company to their friends and family. And it works not only for the Salesforce world! Anyway, that often brings about new customer acquisition and, of course, greater revenue streams. So why not use that with Customer 360? The scheme is as simple as ABC. You deliver a personalized customer experience, your customers are wowed by it, and, as a result, word-of-mouth marketing is activated.
Stronger Compliance
It’s all about GDPR or CCPA compliance now. Customer 360 helps organizations comply with these and other data privacy regulations. It can securely delete customer data when requested or required by law, support PIAs (Privacy Impact Assessments) by providing data insights and risk assessment, and implement role-based access controls that ensure that only authorized employees have access to sensitive customer data.
Competitive Edge
If implemented smartly, Customer 360 makes your business ready for any challenge on the market. It helps you adapt to the ever-changing conditions in the industry and customer preferences, without any additional calls.
What Makes Salesforce Customer 360 so Useful to Businesses?
As you can see, Salesforce Customer 360 offers a range of benefits to businesses, including personalized customer experiences, scalability, usability, unification, integration, collaboration, productivity, and customer satisfaction. Using customer data, the platform can help create tailored messaging and provide a single source of truth.
With a low code interface, it has a small learning curve and can be scaled up or down to meet the business needs. It connects teams using different capabilities, breaking down information silos and allows for more integrated customer engagement. Automated enablement and simplified data intake enhance sales rep productivity, leading to faster and more detailed responses to customers.
Which Teams Can Benefit from Salesforce Customer 360?
Isn’t it awesome having company’s customer data stored in one place? In fact, you can use it to your advantage in every department:
- Marketing: you can create marketing campaigns and target your audience based on that data, leveraging the results for further activities. Your marketing teams will only thank you for that opportunity.
- Sales: a sales team can enjoy Salesforce Customer 360 as well. While marketing automation tools can be a lifesaver for both marketing and sales, they can achieve more in combination with Salesforce Customer 360. Your sales crew can improve lead qualification thanks to a comprehensive overview of potential customer profiles, enhance customer engagement (which leads to higher conversion rates), and manage customer data for streamlined processes and task automation (for instance, for sending follow-ups after the deal).
- Service: as Salesforce Customer 360 offers a complete picture of customer profiles, involving their journey, which provides quicker problem-solving. Plus, the Salesforce platform made it easy to deliver proactive support with Customer 360. Service teams can identify potential issues before they arise and come up with preventive solutions.
- IT: do you know that Salesforce Customer 360 can help you simplify integrations? You can connect Customer 360 with other systems and apps for seamless workflows and better security when it comes to customer information.
- Commerce: customers expect only relevant suggestions when they surf the company’s website and choose a product. Data integration in Salesforce Customer 360 allows you to market relevant, personalized recommendations based on your user preferences. Besides, you can improve retention and nurture loyalty with rewards, special gifts, discounts, and any other elements your marketing campaigns contain.
How Much Does Salesforce Customer 360 Cost?
The cost of Salesforce Customer 360 depends on the specific features and services that a business requires. Pricing is based on a subscription model and provides two primary options: Editions and Add-ons.
- Editions includes packages of our most popular features, tailored to suit different business sizes and requirements.
- Add-ons offer tiered functionality to customize your CRM solution, so you can select any products to help your organization get exactly what it needs. To learn more about our products and pricing, please visit the Salesforce Products Pricing page.
For nonprofit, education, or philanthropy organizations, Salesforce offers a special version of the integrated CRM platform, and other reduced or no-cost solutions, through salesforce.org.
Salesforce is More Than Just a CRM
The Potential Challenges Businesses Face Implementing Salesforce Customer 360
No doubt that Customer 360 delivers significant advantages for companies striving to shape unforgettable and consolidated customer experience. However, it’s not a bed of roses. Let’s break down some common implementation challenges:
- Data quality and consistency issues may become a barrier for the platform’s effectiveness. That will lead to scattered customer view and data silos;
- Data integration from various sources may be complex and time-crunching which requires careful planning and execution;
- Employee adoption may be a potential hindrance as they should receive all the necessary training to be able to support and use the platform to the best extent;
- Ongoing maintenance and related costs may seem sky-high, especially for companies with gigantic customer bases, complex operations, or the ones that are on the budget;
- Data privacy is paramount in this day and age. That is why Customer 360 may present a steep learning curve at first blush. However, when implemented wisely, there’s no need to worry about data leaks and other mishaps.
Final Thoughts
Salesforce Customer 360 is a powerful platform that enables businesses to build customer relationships in new and meaningful ways. You can equip your marketing, support, and sales team with the tools they need to save time, simplify their work, and achieve their full potential.
This powerful platform includes features like business opportunity management, sales collaboration, lead management, sales projections, email tracking, and much more. All designed to help take your company to new heights of productivity and meet customer expectations to the greatest extent.
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Q&A
1. What is Customer 360 in Salesforce?
Salesforce Customer 360 is a bundle of Salesforce apps that are designed for businesses to receive a bird eye view of their customer data at every point of interaction. It combines the CRM functionalities Salesforce generally provides with extra tools for marketing, sales, service, and commerce.
2. What is the Difference Between a CRM and Customer 360?
The difference between a CRM (customer relationship management) and Customer 360 is that the former acts as an umbrella term for any system or technology used to handle customer data and interactions with them. On the other hand, the latter refers to a specific type of a CRM system powered by Salesforce. Customer 360 offers a comprehensive view of each customer across all touch points, from marketing and sales to commerce and support.
3. What are the Features of Customer 360?
The features of Customer 360 are extensive. Among them, there are a unified customer profile, personalized customer engagement, increased operational efficiency, high scalability, and data-driven insights. Plus, you can also think of them as benefits – they all aim at managing customer interactions, build stronger relationships, and augment satisfaction.
