Pushing the Boundaries of Your Business Potential: Salesforce’s Impact Beyond CRM

Even if a business is not using Salesforce, it’s quite likely they’ve heard of it before. After all, it has taken the entire Customer Relationship Management (CRM) industry by storm. When businesses think of Salesforce, the first thing that pops into their head is CRM. Salesforce is indeed the most sought-after CRM to streamline customer interactions and drive sales. In the fiscal year 2024, Salesforce generated an annual revenue of $34.85 billion and held 21.8% share of the CRM market, more than the combined share of its four leading competitors. However, designating Salesforce as “only a CRM” won’t be fair, since it is just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, it offers a complete suite of applications focused on marketing, commerce, analytics, sales, service, application development, and more. Salesforce CRM serves as a holistic business platform that enables organizations to do much more than just manage consumer data. It also helps them improve operational efficiencies, and spur innovation and growth.

To leverage the various functionalities of the Salesforce CRM, a business needs the services of a Salesforce consulting partner. This allows organizations to cater to their customers’ needs and leverage the CRM’s comprehensive ecosystem of services and tools to attain operational excellence. Salesforce consulting services help maximize ROI from Salesforce investment and align the CRM with the business strategy. Now, let’s dig deeper to find out different ways to use Salesforce beyond as a default CRM.

1. Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Without having a robust marketing strategy in place, a business can’t sell a product to its customers. With Salesforce Marketing Cloud, businesses not only devise a result-oriented marketing strategy, but also target the right customers on the right avenues at the right time. Marketing Cloud of Salesforce CRM comes with both B2C and B2B marketing capabilities and allows businesses to target potential customers through email marketing, push messages, and marketing through other channels including social media, text messages, chat, etc.

Leveraging the Salesforce Marketing Cloud helps a business accomplish:

• Customer acquisition
• Upselling opportunities
• Lead generation

By using Salesforce Marketing Cloud, businesses also optimize customer experiences by keeping a tab on their buying behavior, resulting in more upselling opportunities and enhanced customer loyalty. A Salesforce consulting partner also helps an organization leverage the full potential of Marketing Cloud by automating a slew of operations, freeing up more time for vetting lead generation, lead nurturing, and lead qualification strategies.

2. Salesforce Service Cloud

Once a business gets customers on board, it must deliver an unparalleled experience. With Salesforce Service Cloud, organizations offer quick and customized services to their customers. Know that personalizing customer experience not only converts existing customers into loyal ones, but also makes them brand advocates. The best aspect of Salesforce Service Cloud is its ability to help businesses exceed customer expectations by personalizing conversations, irrespective of the point of contact.

3. Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Many online store merchants are on the lookout for proven ways to accelerate their sales and profits. Salesforce commerce cloud is engineered exclusively for such businesses. Whether the business has a B2B or B2C online store, it can leverage the potential of Salesforce Commerce Cloud to promote growth and offer tailored shopping experiences across all channels. Commerce Cloud is used for purposes such as the following:

• Automate repetitive processes
• Offer better product recommendations using AI to drive conversions
• Keep content personalized and updated with a hybrid CMS
• Incorporate modern technology to scale up their business
• Build personalized campaigns to offer seamless commerce experiences

4. Salesforce Custom App Development

Indeed, Salesforce plays a vital role in improving the customer experience, but it’s not just limited to customers. In fact, a business can leverage Salesforce as a platform to empower every employee in the organization. By using Salesforce for custom app development, businesses can build intelligent applications that automate key processes and foster collaboration, resulting in enhanced productivity of the workforce.

Diverse Ways in Which Salesforce Goes Beyond a CRM

1) Process Automation

By automating routine processes, Salesforce goes beyond its functionality as a mere CRM. It allows companies to build custom workflows to automate operations like approval processes and lead assignments. This automation minimizes manual errors and boosts efficiency, allowing employees to devote their time to more strategic tasks.

2) Customer 360

Salesforce Customer 360 goes well beyond typical CRM in terms of managing customer interactions. The Customer 360 platform offers businesses a comprehensive view of customers across various departments, ranging from sales to marketing, service, and commerce.

3) Salesforce Analytics

Salesforce implementation equips businesses with advanced analytics tools to make informed decisions. Leading data visualization tool Tableau, now a part of Salesforce, gives companies real-time insights into their data. This facilitates the identification of patterns, comprehension of customer behavior, and formulation of strategic decisions.

4) Salesforce Einstein

Industries are being revolutionized by AI and Salesforce, with its AI platform called Einstein, is leading the pack. By analyzing data patterns and making predictions, Einstein enables companies to provide tailored customer experiences.

Parting Thoughts

Salesforce started as a CRM tool but has since developed into a comprehensive business platform that addresses every aspect of a business. It has become a go-to platform for businesses embarking upon their digital transformation journey. However, enterprises looking to enhance the efficiency of their operations and leverage Salesforce beyond a CRM tool should opt for Salesforce consulting services from a certified partner. A certified Salesforce partner has the right expertise and experience to deploy and optimize a Salesforce instance while empowering businesses to garner the optimal ROI.