According to Salesforce, businesses that adopt the world’s most ubiquitous CRM (customer relationship management) software can expect to drive thirty-two percent more leads and win twenty-six percent more deals.
For these reasons and more, Salesforce is by far the most adopted CRM by small businesses -- and for good reason. At Edison & Black, we help small to medium sized businesses use Salesforce like the highest-performing sales organizations in the world.
If you're a small business interested in leveraging Salesforce, get in touch with one of our Salesforce Consulting experts and we will walk you through the basics. Furthermore, we are also able to put you in touch directly with Salesforce. Salesforce’s Small Business push encourages small and medium sized businesses to utilize their popular CRM solution for fast, seamless communication.
It’s no secret that a brand’s recognition and reputation is formed the moment consumers meet the owner, team or product. According to the most recent LexisNexis Consumer Reports, over 65% of consumers say they trust businesses who provide direct customer service. That is why all small business owners want to make sure they are delivering first class service to their customers.
Companies that focus on servicing their customers, rather than offering products and services, are more likely to achieve loyalty, and that’s why Salesforce Small Business UK, has launched a new campaign called “Real-time Communication and Relationships.”
This campaign is reminding small business owners of the importance of customer engagement in order to maintain a positive reputation and long-term customer relationships.
Real-time Communication and Relationships
Small business owners are starting to get more creative with how they are able to provide quick and easy customer engagement. Some are following the service industry’s playbook of focusing on delivering a quality product to the end customer.
These businesses are offering an experience to their customers that go beyond good service, because they understand that consumers don’t buy because of price, they buy because of the positive experience they’ve had with the business.
There are several ways small business owners can improve their customer experience and to maintain a positive reputation and relationship with customers.
Small Business Customer Relationship Management
When a customer makes a purchase from your small business, there is always the question, what happens next?
In the past, brands have used a telephone or chat chat service to connect with their customers. But CRM has taken this business practice to the next level by becoming the tool small business owners use to not only keep in touch with customers but to engage them in real-time.
CRM tools are able to store customer information to make it accessible to the right person at the right time. According to Engagement Labs, one in three consumers are likely to consider buying again based on experiences such as: Personalization, Instant responsiveness, “Easy to use”, Responsive, Service that is accessible, and Responsive support.
Real-time communication and relationships mean business. There’s no need to manually collect customer information. CRM can store it, and make it accessible to the right people at the right moment. CRM tools, such as Salesforce are also providing the opportunity for customers to ask questions, request a refund, provide feedback or respond to a social media post.
The next step for small businesses is to upgrade their CRM system with Salesforce Service Cloud Lightning Platform. Lightning gives small businesses the ability to create personalized customer journeys, and have one platform to store customer information and make it available to the right person at the right time.
The Service Cloud Lightning platform empowers small businesses to build the kind of customer experience that allows them to build brand loyalty and long-term relationships with their customers.
For Small Businesses Speed Matters
The last essential technology to small business success is speed. With real-time communication and relationships, the world is moving at lightning speed. It’s difficult for many businesses to keep up with the industry. For the last several years, Salesforce has been working to reduce the amount of time it takes for small businesses to launch and deploy new features.
When it comes to deploying new user experiences, small businesses have never faced greater challenges than now in competing with larger, more established companies. Small businesses further face additional challenges measured by the rate of speed for which they are able to respond to both prospective and existing customers.
This is why Salesforce is releasing Salesforce Customer Success Platform Lightning Middleware so that small businesses can harness the power of Lightning. With Lightning Middleware, you can quickly build highly configurable, customer-centric apps for iOS, Android, and Web without any code writing.
No matter what the industry, small business owners know that if they don’t provide a great customer experience, customers will go somewhere else. To improve the customer experience and the customer relationship and the chance of a new customer coming in, there are a few key technologies small businesses need to implement today, including Lightning, Salesforce Service Cloud Lightning Platform
Customer Success Platform With Lightning
Digital experience is the lifecycle of a business. When it comes to connecting with customers, CRM is at the heart of that experience. With a CRM system in place, you’ll be able to follow your customers through their entire lifecycle, from the time they’ve decided to buy your products, to the time they take delivery and the customer service they receive when they’re done.
But CRM isn’t only about maintaining and managing customer relationships. CRM software is changing the way we approach customer service. Instead of trying to answer questions and resolve customer issues via email, businesses are using email to communicate with customers.
This is achieved by using AI-based customer relationship management (CRM) systems, which can answer emails and use machine learning to learn as a result. This kind of system not only gives you a way to have automated customer service conversations, but also allows you to see the behavior of your customer and which responses are most effective, helping you save on customer support costs.
Lightning for Loyalty
While we have mentioned the importance of small businesses driving customer retention by adopting Salesforce, a customer’s true loyalty can only be extended by providing them with a great customer experience, so having a CRM system is the key to creating the next generation of customer experiences.
For Salesforce, it’s all about driving deep customer relationships. The goal is to have everyone, from marketers to customer service agents, all in one place. With lightning, this is now possible. With lightning you’ll be able to connect data from your customers’ products to their customer service interactions, enabling you to learn what’s most effective for engaging with customers, how to contact them, and how to resolve issues before they escalate.
Salesforce Service Cloud Lightning Platform
Customer success has become integral to a business’s operations. With the goal of saving customers money and improving customer loyalty, it makes sense to have a customer success program, which aims to create personalized, business-tailored solutions.
Service Cloud is the key to this service program. It includes service bots, which allows businesses to create services that add value and scale customer experience. With service bots, small businesses can increase customer service efficiency while reducing costs.
Salesforce Service Cloud also includes Lightning, which is now being released as a new product in the Salesforce Customer Success Platform. Lightning is a responsive, real-time interface that allows for improved employee productivity and service experience. It also enables you to create automated customer