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Creating Deeper Customer and Partner Relationships in Manufacturing with Salesforce

Miles Sims

Jul 23 2019

3 min read

Business customers today are empowered more than ever by the ability to leverage technology in their search for new products and services. With a few clicks someone can find a new vendor, request a quote or quickly purchase goods and services online. As a result, manufacturers are increasingly looking for new ways to personalize customer service, strengthen relationships, and build loyalty with their partners and customers.

In order to tackle these challenges and deepen the overall relationships smart manufacturers are turning to cloud based solutions such as Salesforce to transform the customer experience. By leveraging the Salesforce platform, manufacturers are able to extend the experience for customers and partners beyond the product and into data driven service results. Let’s look at three best practices for deepening the relationship with partners and customers as well as improving the bottom line through Salesforce.

Develop Expertise Through myTrailhead Learning Experiences

The myTrailhead program leverages the award-winning Trailhead training platform by allowing companies to provide a branded, self-guided learning experience for their partners & employees. Users can earn badges and points on their way to developing new skills or polishing up existing ones. On-going training is crucial to providing a consistent customer service experience and ensuring that new products and services can be launched and sold by your partners quickly. The myTrailhead program provides a fun, gamified approach to learning and gives your business insight into the overall progress and effectiveness of specific programs and initiatives.

Leverage Salesforce Partner Communities to Solidify Partner Loyalty

A Salesforce Partner Community can help extend the service, sales, and marketing support needed by Partners in order to support and sell your products. A partner community can provide a real-time, measurable way for companies to collaborate on key products and services, deliver new product offerings, and identify the right market opportunities for your business. By using a partner community, you can ensure partners are engaged with your company and track overall performance.

Provide Personalized Service in the Field with Field Service Lightning

By utilizing Field Service Lightning manufacturers can empower their teams in the field to deliver timely, informed service experiences to customers. With access to historical customer data, job-site directions and product specific warranty information technicians can increase first-call resolution and keep customers informed all through the Salesforce platform. The platform can also help automate scheduling based on availability, experience and location delivered “in-hand” to the technicians smart phone or tablet. By making Field Service Lightning a key part of your field-service strategy, your business will be able to meet the ever increasing demand for great customer service.

Most manufacturers today have a fully realized understanding of each step in the process to produce their products and get them to market. By utilizing Salesforce, they can also gain an equally powerful view into a customer’s lifecycle and ensure that they receive a consistent experience from partners, field-service teams and beyond.

Have questions about how Salesforce can transform your manufacturing organization? Please contact us at any time.

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About the Author

Miles Sims

Based in Dallas, TX, Miles is a 9x Certified Salesforce consultant with over 10 years of experience working with the platform. He's been a featured speaker about Salesforce at both Dreamforce and SXSW. Miles has extensive experience working with Fortune 500, Enterprise Nonprofit, and Professional Association organizations.