What exactly does Salesforce do?

Maybe you've seen the Salesforce cloud logo or those friendly characters without really knowing what we do at Salesforce.

To put it simply, we connect businesses with their customers.

Salesforce breaks down the tech silos between different departments in your organization. So, no matter where they are, the marketing, sales, business relations, customer service, and IT teams share a unified view of customers. This unique customer relationship management (CRM) platform helps you understand them better. We call it Salesforce Customer 360 because it gives you a complete 360-degree view of your customers.

How does this platform help your teams? With the overall view of each customer, you reduce the time your teams need to solve customer issues, eliminate redundancies in your communications, and personalize interactions to strengthen your customer relationships. Our fully digital tools allow you to respond quickly to your customers' needs, no matter where you are.

When should you consider using Salesforce?
You might be thinking, “Okay, but what can it bring to my business?”

The answer is simple: Customer 360 provides each of your teams with the essential tools to build stronger and more authentic relationships with your customers.

Marketing: creating relevant marketing messages to reach the right person at the right time on the right channel, improving lead generation, customer acquisition, and sales opportunities;
Sales: spending less time on data entry and more time communicating with customers by implementing a precise and repeatable sales process;
Commerce: crafting simple and seamless shopping experiences that drive revenue, engage customers, and connect the sales service to the rest of the business;
Customer Service: offering consistent and personalized support during every interaction with the customer, from the call center to the field, including automating services or using AI-based chatbots;
IT: developing modern applications to meet the needs of employees, partners, and customers; boosting productivity by automating key processes; enhancing scalability, transparency, and security with IT tools.

Digital transformation doesn’t look the same for every business. That’s why you can tailor the features of Customer 360 to your specific needs: from AI to training, integration, and analytics. And beyond the technology, our global ecosystem of experts, application partners, and services is always here for you, 24/7.

Sounds good... But how does Salesforce work?
We help your business deliver an optimal experience for your customers.

Let’s take a real-life example and see how adidas, the globally recognized sports brand, uses Salesforce to perform at its best.

To succeed in an increasingly digital world, adidas aims to ensure that every touchpoint conveys a relevant and consistent message across all channels. The company implemented a hybrid solution combining Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, and Service Cloud to transform these strategic functions of its business. The goal: to provide customers with the best possible experiences in marketing, shopping, and customer service. The three products share their data, giving business leaders a comprehensive view of buyers both before and after purchase. This way, the company can adapt quickly and in real-time to customer needs.

adidas has achieved remarkable results using Customer 360:

E-commerce success — in the year following the implementation of Salesforce, sales on the brand's website increased by 59%;
Efficiency is key — the 1,100 customer service agents at adidas can assist customers through their preferred channels, whether by phone, instant messaging, or email, with all interactions being known and shared among agents.
“Customer 360 was easy to roll out across all our markets. The platform allows us to deliver better experiences in shorter timelines and enhances scalability and consistency like never before.”

Jacqueline Smith-Dubendorfer — Vice President of Digital Experience Design, adidas

Why this obsession with customers?
You may have noticed that we tend to heavily focus on customers. It’s true that we named our platform Customer 360.

So why so much love for customers? Because over the past 20 years, customer expectations of companies have risen significantly. According to the Connected Customer report, 84% of customers believe that the experience a company offers is just as important as its products and services. What matters today isn’t just what you offer customers; it’s also when, where, why, and how you reach them.

In this customer-centric world, trust is what you can establish as the most essential thing as a business. Today's customers want to know you can provide what they need, when and where they need it. They want experiences with minimal effort and stick to brands they can count on.

We know this isn't easy for all businesses. A recent study commissioned by Forrester Consulting found that many business leaders face challenges related to data silos. These make it harder to deliver quality experiences to customers.

Here are some challenges business leaders are facing today:

58% agree or strongly agree that customer/prospect and account data comes from too many sources to be easily understood;
58% agree or strongly agree that the lack of a comprehensive view of customer/prospect data is a problem;
56% agree or strongly agree that organizational silos negatively impact the quality of the experience provided to their customers or prospects.
The study shows that these issues arise because companies embark on transformation initiatives in a compartmentalized way