Top Reasons Manufacturers Are Leveraging Salesforce to Stay Competitive

Meeting customer service requirements was the greatest concern among manufacturing executives according to the 2019 Sikich Annual Manufacturing and Distribution Report. Manufacturers are making a shift from product-focused businesses to people-focused businesses in order to stay competitive. How can the Salesforce platform can ignite manufacturers’ client experience transformation? Let’s take a look at the top reasons.

Top Reasons for Manufacturers to Switch to Salesforce

1. 360 View of the Customer: The Salesforce platform puts the customer at the center of everything the business does. It helps break down the siloed teams and ensure that each team is looking at a single source of truth. Even when the critical data resides in an ERP solution or another legacy system, the APIs allow Salesforce to integrate to any platform to ensure everyone has access to all the information in one location.

2. Pro-actively serve customers with Artificial Intelligence: Einstein AI gives manufactures access to predictive analytics without the need of a data scientist. By providing actionable insights to ensure that employees know what to do next, manufacturers will deliver on improving both the customer and employee experience. The outcome could be as simple as providing a Salesperson a suggestion for up-selling or as complex as using AI chatbots to provide on demand support.

3. Leverage IoT to deliver personalized client service: With Salesforce IoT manufacturers can allow their products with sensors to talk directly to Salesforce and initiate alerts and actions. An example could be a sensor detects an issue with a customer’s product. This error could automatically open a service ticket or send the client an article on how to fix it. This capability can certainly improve productivity but more importantly the overall customer experience. When an organization moves from a reactive support model to a proactive support model they improve customer loyalty and increase the lifetime value of the customer.

4. Create a Commerce Experience for Customers: The Salesforce platform offers a B2B commerce and ordering solution for customers. The customer is changing, and they want options. Some may like a high-touch sales purchasing option, but others want a seamless self-service buying experience. This capability allows organizations to offer customers flexibility in how they buy. Manufacturers can allow key customers to browse stores with contract pricing and get personalized product recommendations. They can even offer visibility into order fulfillment and logistics with self-service capabilities.

5. Personalize Marketing and Communication: Customers want companies to make it easier for them to consume what they want, how and when they want it. Instead of comparing customer expectations to that of a close competitor, manufacturers need to think in terms of the customer experience customers are receiving from leaders such as Amazon or Uber. By leveraging Pardot, manufacturers can deliver personalized touch-points along all stages of a customer’s journey. It is important to stay top of mind with key prospects and clients. With Pardot, personalized ads on digital and social sites can be setup as part of the overall strategy.

6. Improve Sales Effectiveness: By giving sales teams a 360 degree view of the customer, they are empowered with the right information to connect with the right buyer to win. Einstein Analytics takes it a step further and provides sales reps with recommended actions based on customer data. The Configure, Price, and Quote (CPQ) functionality will enable sales professionals  to configure the right solution for each customer and accelerate the sales timeline. With Salesforce Communities, the team can effectively collaborate in real-time to help close business. With mobile functionality, the team can continue serving the client effectively when they are on the road.

7. Improve Channel Management: Many manufacturers leverage a dealer network for a large portion of their sales. Salesforce can easily be extended to allow manufacturers to extend their sales, service and marketing capabilities to all their partners, vendors, and dealers. The functionality can also be used for onboarding new partners and to provide additional support.

8. Improved Employee Experience: Manufacturers are competing for talent in a tight labor market. It is critical to improve the overall employee experience to increase retention. With the Salesforce platform manufacturers can offer their service teams easy to use mobile apps with off-line capabilities. In addition, Salesforce offers Trailhead, a complimentary, world-class self-learning platform, ensuring that teams are empowered with training on the platform.

Sikich works with many manufacturers and we can help you figure out if Salesforce is the right fit to successfully meet your business goals. Have questions? Let’s chat.