Last month, I was invited to speak on a panel at the Marketing&Tech Innovation Summit in New York, an innovative conference dedicated to exploring ways in which technology enhances marketing performance. One area in which technology is making a huge impact is the ability to break down barriers between sales, marketing and service to enhance customer experience – the critical differentiator in today’s marketplace. Customers expect integrated and seamless experiences across all touch points and interactions with your brand. To be competitive, you must meet this expectation by providing consistent, personalized and compelling customer experiences throughout their buyer journey – across all channels and interactions with your brand. That means marketing, sales and service.
The alignment of these customer-facing processes was the focus of the Summit panel I participated on alongside Orion Global Solutions Director James King, Shannon Chenoweth, Market Research Manager at Stanley Black & Decker, and moderator Elyse Dupre. We know that exceptional customer experience relies exceptional communication and information sharing between your marketing, sales and service. But we also know, that this doesn’t always happen naturally. These teams traditionally work in silos rather than looking at the customer and experience in an end-to-end context.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology connects the dots between marketing, sales and service and marries all customer-facing processes. Unifying processes through a single Cloud, CRM & marketing platform, such as Salesforce, not only provides a more complete profile of the customer and prospects, but it can also enable more effective lead nurturing, improved sales enablement and customer service. For example in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry, Salesforce’s Pardot/Marketing cloud is a dynamic sales and marketing tool that features lead qualification, lead management, more targeted messaging, and a costumer journey. Automating the process frees up your sales and marketing team to focus on prospects that are further along in the sales cycle, marketing teams to spend more time creating innovative campaigns, and support agents to solve customer challenges faster.
How can you leverage the cloud CRM platform to enhance customer experience?
A 360-degree view of the customer’s needs across all areas allows you to create personalized customer experiences
Maintain brand consistency across channels on a single platform
Automate your processes throughout the buyer journey and deliver the right message at the right time
Empower your people with customer information sharing and actionable insights
Customer segmentation based on rules and triggers, such as by geography or industry, allows you to build targeted marketing lists or campaigns
Encourage better collaboration with shared goals and common milestones
Standardize metrics allow you to measure the true ROI of campaigns and efforts
Transform your strategy with automation and streamline processes to optimize efficiency and respond quickly to requests
CRM platforms are a powerful solution that can help companies connect and engage with their customers in new ways, and ultimately higher win rates. Aligning the right technology solution with the right experienced implementation partner can increase your company’s revenue, profitability, and long-term brand value. The return on investment is huge, if done right.
Orion Global Solutions is a registered Salesforce partner with expertise in implementing sales, marketing and services solutions. We transfer your business process and goals into custom solutions that reflect and enhance the way you do business. Our focus on user-adoption will ensure the technology is as turn-key as possible and your investment is leveraged to its full potential. Speak to us about improving your customer-facing processes.
Read ‘6 crucial steps to align customer-facing processes with CRM’