Empathy was once associated with behaviors we expected from our parents, teachers, and other authority figures. As businesses become more aware of the importance of the customer experience they deliver, they’re also realizing the importance of infusing empathy across every stage of the customer journey.

The relationship between empathy and customer experience was clear in the latest Salesforce Connected Consumer Report, which suggested many firms have a gap that needs to be filled.

According to the research, a majority of 86% say the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services. This marks the highest percentage since Salesforce began tracking this sentiment.

A great experience is about more than simply providing the right products and services at the right time. The report showed that 68% of consumers want brands to demonstrate empathy, too. Based on a similar study from consulting firm PwC, however, only 38% of consumers believe brands truly understand their needs.

Empathy is defined as understanding how another person feels – and articulating the fact they understand. This is what makes it different from sympathy, where you might share the same feelings as another person.

In a customer experience context, this means a brand’s employees should behave empathically when customers are frustrated that a product they ordered wasn’t delivered on time. They should be equally empathic when customers experience anger or disappointment when a product doesn’t work, or when they didn’t realize the terms of the return policy.

The difference with ‘digital empathy’ and your customer experience

The need to infuse empathy within the customer experience becomes more complicated when you consider that so many of the ways people engage with a brand happens through digital channels. It’s one thing to use your body language to help convey empathy during a face-to-face encounter. How can employees do the same via phone, video, e-mail, or chat?

The size of a digital empathy gap between what a brand offers through its customer experience and what consumers expect can have dire consequences. It could mean customers will switch to a competitor, and that they’ll spread the news to their family and friends. This in turn can lead to lost revenue and missed targets.

3 ways to build digital empathy across your team and culture

Fortunately, any company – including small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can strengthen digital empathy among their team using the right combination of technology and strategic thinking. These are some of the steps you need to take:

1. Assess your ability to develop empathy at scale

Like almost every other facet of successfully running a business, the quality of your data will have a big impact on your ability to offer the kind of empathy customers expect as part of their experience. Only by having a platform to centralize and analyze data across your customer base, for example, will you be able to learn where they’re experiencing moments of friction or discontent, and their core values.

This might require thinking about how you make better use of first-party data versus third-party, and how you can collect more of it. It will also take unifying data from across different departments, including not only customer service but marketing, sales, and more.

2. Identify the moments where human knowledge can be used to express empathy

It’s hard to feel much empathy from an auto-generated e-mail. Customers may long for human connection, rather than a recorded message on a phone line. An empathetic approach ensures they get the person-to-person experience they need.

This could lead to business rules that trigger interventions from human contact centre agents, for instance, when customers hit a wall amid a self-serve experience like a chatbot. In other cases it might mean having marketing team members craft their own responses to questions or comments to social media, or sales agents to follow up on a form the customer filled out with a phone call.

Sometimes the best way to demonstrate empathy is a willingness to listen. Offer up surveys or other feedback mechanisms when customers first complete a purchase, after they reach out for support, and any other key moments of contact.

3. Collect and celebrate examples of digital empathy in action

Companies may need to offer training to help show employees how to respond to customers with empathic statements like “I understand how you must feel.” This kind of education shouldn’t be limited to those on the front lines directly dealing with customers. It should also be part of the thinking that goes into everything from product design to operations.

Of course, digital empathy is still a relatively new area, and we’re all in a constant state of learning best practices. Why not encourage practices where employees and managers actively look for instances of digital empathy done right? These could be showcased on a company intranet, a dedicated Slack channel, or even recounted in a video shared at company town halls and off-sites.

Conclusion: Empathy is core to customer experience

Most of what we’ve discussed in this post relates to moments where empathy needs to be explicitly communicated between a brand and its customer. There are also ways, however, in which empathy can underpin the customer experience in a more subtle way.

Having an experience that is simple, easy, and consistent across channels is just one example of how a brand can show it empathizes with all the competing demands for a customer’s time and energy. The same is true for policies that make it easy to pay, to click and collect when they pick up products and hassle-free returns.

No matter how digital-first customers engage with brands, they are quick to realize which ones will offer them empathy throughout their experience. You can understand why they feel motivated to give their loyalty to the ones that do.

The post How To Close The Digital Empathy Gap And Build Customer Loyalty appeared first on Salesforce.

Sometimes the change in mood comes from helping resolve a misunderstanding over how a process works, like returning an order or getting a credit.

There are other situations where service agents talk customers through features they couldn’t figure out how to use on their own, despite frequent attempts.

In the worst scenarios, service agents can still offer value when there’s nothing else to be done by offering taking the time to truly listen to customers and demonstrating empathy.

Agents are in a much better position to bring this level of humanity to the work they do when they are not bogged down by all the other customer service tasks that don’t make the best use of their time and talent.

This not only includes all the information they once had to scour through disparate databases and filing systems to find. They also work at their peak when they’re not being given low-level, repetitive kinds of service requests that, quite frankly, customers would probably rather tackle themselves.

Automating your customer service operation can take many forms, but building your business case to do it should be predicated on achieving two different goals at once.

First, service automation should be part of a strategy to enhance the customer experience you offer. It should help anticipate and address all the potential issues that come up after a customer has made a purchase and before they make their next one.

Secondly, customer service automation should lead to a positive transformation in your agents’ employee experience. It should allow them to channel their energy and experience into the requests that require a deeper level of problem-solving, allow them to build upon their skills and add the human touch to customer service where and when it matters most.

This is just a partial list of customer service automation opportunities the average business should consider:

1. Rewrite your FAQ pages

This isn’t considered “automation” in the classic sense but it can be a great way to begin understanding where your customers truly need to engage with an agent. Make sure you’re leveraging the data from service interactions to update and provide more detailed answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ) and you might deflect a number of calls to your contact center.

2. Standardize E-mail Auto-Responses

Agents shouldn’t need to write an immediate reply to every e-mail that comes into the support account. In many cases customers simply want confirmation their message was received and an estimated time for when they can expect more detailed assistance.

You can go even further with e-mail auto-responses by including links to blog posts, user manuals, explainer videos and other resources related to the most typical problems customers have.

3. Publish A Knowledge Base

The first thing many of your customers probably do when they’re looking for help is to enter a query into a search term like Google. They might find what they’re looking for that way, but the risk is that they’re directed to misleading or false information. Having your own knowledge base avoids that and can become the first links they discover in their list of search results.

Companies used to find writing and updating knowledge bases onerous and time-consuming, but today the information culled from service interactions can help streamline the process considerably. A great knowledge base is always a work in progress, but it can reduce customer service costs considerably.

4. Deploy interactive voice response (IVR)

There are few phrases that can make a chill run down customers’ spines like, “Hold on, I’m going to transfer you.” They know there is a chance the agent needs to keep them waiting while they look up the best colleague to assist them, and that their call might even be dropped. IVR offers completely different scenario.

When customers reach out with a problem, IVR acts like an expert tour guide, routing them directly to the agents with the right training or seniority level to provide the right level of service.

5. Offer chatbots and virtual assistants

As we see more customer experiences increasingly shift to digital channels, it no longer makes sense to assume that everyone is going to pick up the phone and reach out to a contact center when they’re looking for help. If they’re visiting a web site, for instance, they would probably rather be able to have their complaint handled or their questions answered directly and immediately. Enter the chatbot.

While some chatbots are linked to live agents, they can also offer considerable self-service capabilities by being trained in the data about routine issues and fixes. This can be a simple, intuitive way for customers to pursue self-service with your brand, while still allowing the option to transfer them to a human agent as required. When chatbots are fuelled by artificial intelligence (AI), they can even “learn” through each interaction and continuously improve.

6. Send instant feedback surveys

Service agents have traditionally wrapped up a lot of customer interactions by asking the same list of questions to ensure they’ve addressed the request and perhaps to have the customer rate the quality of their experience. This can add more time on the agent’s end, without allowing for them to offer any additional value.

When feedback surveys can not only be automated, they save agents time while providing an ongoing stream of data that can provide even more actionable insights to companies that want to take their customer service operations to a new level.

Regardless of what kind of customer service automation you use, make sure you’ve determined the right goal and the best way to measure your results. Want to reduce customer churn and increase sales? Customer satisfaction (CSAT) might be the right metric to pair with your automation solution. For those that are more focused on agent productivity and performance, it might be better to track the number of tickets resolved but correlate it with CSAT.

Best of all, customer service automation isn’t reserved for the world’s largest organizations. The technology can work for businesses of all sizes that want to make customer service a core pillar in building long-lasting relationships with their team and those who purchase from them.

The post 6 Ways To Use Automation To Improve Your Customer Service Team appeared first on Salesforce.

Although the rate of inflation has declined over the past two months, the Bank of Canada noted its peak of 8.1% this past June has made life difficult across the country. This includes the many people who have had to weigh the costs of everyday purchases like groceries to the untold numbers of businesses that are adjusting to shifts in supply and demand.

There is little most small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can do about the impact of interest rates as a result of inflation, or how inflation is affected by economies of our neighbours like the U.S. Sitting on the sidelines and hoping the news will get better is not an option either, though.

The traditional consequences of high inflation – such as rising prices, shifts in employment activity and delays on exports – are all customer pain points.

Even if your business was never designed specifically to deal with kinds of pain points, you can continue to focus on all the other areas where your customers need support. If nothing else, this ensures they recognize you’re invested in their interests as people and don’t merely see them as a series of transactions that become part of your bottom line.

Many SMBs, for instance, provide products and services that help their customers save time, save money, be more productive or to have more fun. Those products and services could continue to hold a lot of value for people, whether they’re living through a period of high inflation or not.

Then there is the customer experience that surrounds those products and services.

If it’s easier, quicker and more pleasant to engage with your company, you’re providing them one less thing to worry or get frustrated about as they make difficult choices due to inflation.

Customer retention at a moment like this will depend upon the following:

1. Prioritizing The Right Metrics

There is always plenty of areas to measure within a business, whether it’s output in a factory or time spent browsing a web site. They might all be important in one way or another, but a maintaining loyalty should lead you to focus on a few key metrics in particular.

Customer satisfaction (CSAT), for example, can be a strong indicator of whether those who buy from you will continue to do so, or whether they’re shopping around for an alternative. Net Promoter Score (NPS) is particularly effective in the business-to-business (B2B) because it indicates whether a customer is so loyal they’ll talk positively about your company to their colleagues and peers.

Another good metric to help understand the current state of your customers’ loyalty is Customer Effort Score (CES). This delves into how much work it takes for your customers to do everything from make a purchase to get customer support or manage a product return. If any of these metrics are trending downward, remedy the root causes of problems before inflation pushes customers to re-evaluate where they spend their money.

2. Marketing With Empathy And Encouragement

Nobody wants to receive an e-mail blast that suggests we’re living in a golden age where budgets are a thing of the past. While brands naturally want to use a tone of voice that emphasises the positive aspects of life, you can’t risk coming across as tone-deaf when your customers are up against challenges like inflation.

Fine-tune your messaging to show you understand that every dollar customers are spending with you now has to be carefully considered. Help them do the math so they can see more clearly than ever the kind of return on investment (ROI) they will see if they continue their relationship with you.

Whenever possible and as appropriate, look for ways to develop content that inspires as much as it informs and educates. This could go beyond talking about your products and services but ideas to help customers cope with anxiety and uncertainty, or even content that gets their mind of the impact of inflation for a while.

3. Leveling Up Your Loyalty Program

Retention and rewards go hand-in-hand. Particularly now, customers will appreciate being recognized for maintaining their relationship with your company. This could translate into additional discounts for loyalty program members, or a special promotion aimed at those joining your loyalty program for the first time.

Many people might be grappling with inflation by planning out their financial decisions farther in advance. You could help by providing loyalty program members a more detailed look at your product roadmap, or provide an early look at new products and services that are coming out soon.

If it’s possible to offer loyalty program members greater flexibility in product returns, free shipping on select items or a similar benefit, this could be a great time to introduce them. Overall, your loyalty program should also be a focal point for your personalization efforts, where you use data to engage with them in the most relevant and contextually accurate manner possible.

4. ‘Being There’ For Customers In Challenging Times

One final, and often overlooked, tactic during times of high inflation is simply checking in with customers without any agenda other than listening.

Use all the digital channels where customers spend time and – either through a survey or similar tool – ask how they’re managing with the recent fluctuation in the economy. What are they looking for from the companies with whom they do business?

These are simple questions that anyone can answer, and in many cases customers might appreciate being asked.

When you’re sensitive to the situations customers are going through, they begin to see the relationship with a company as more than the sum of the purchases they’ve made. They realize the company will truly be there for them in good times and in bad. And that means they might stick around with that company during those periods, too.

The post How to Maintain Customer Loyalty Amid Inflation appeared first on Salesforce.

They’re investing their time, because most purchases will involve at least some degree of research and consideration before a buying decision is made.

In business-to-business (B2B) transactions, customers are investing their reputations, because they’re making a purchase on their employer’s behalf. Even consumers put their reputation on the line if what they buy for their family doesn’t live up to expectations.

Ultimately, customers are really investing their trust with you when they make a purchase. They’re trusting your company to offer a quality product and a great experience that will lead to a long-term relationship.

Keeping this in mind helps explain why customers need to see value for money – and why having to raise your prices requires careful thought and consideration.

On some level, of course, customers come to expect periodic price increases. It’s easiest to manage it when the increases are incremental over a long period of time, to the point they barely pay attention. That isn’t always possible, however.

Sometimes companies have to raise prices because their costs to produce products or services has gone up. The issue may stem from their suppliers or manufacturing partners, who face financial or economic challenges of their own.

At other times, pricing may need to be adjusted in order to stay competitive with the rest of the market. Instead of constantly lowering prices in a race to the bottom, for instance, companies may have to recognize they will be in a better position to lead the market if they can achieve a profit margin on par with brands providing similar products and services at higher prices.

Whatever prompts the decision to raise prices, the risk is the same: that even customers who have proven loyal for years get so upset that they walk away. Even worse, a price hike can become fodder for conversations about the company on social media, or simply bad word of mouth passed on to family, friends and colleagues.

None of this should stop you from raising prices, necessarily. Instead, think about some of the strategies you could use to maintain customer retention and loyalty, such as:

Create Transparency Through Omnichannel Communications

The earlier you can let customers know about a price increase, the better. They are less likely to be angry or outraged if they don’t learn the news the moment they make an additional purchase or are near the time to renew their contract.

The communications around a price increase should be treated like a marketing or public relations campaign. Have a clear, succinct rationale for your price increase and when it will take effect. Bring this message to customers wherever they might choose to engage. This could include e-mail, a pop-up on your web site, social media posts and even direct mail.

Besides ensuring you raise awareness about the price increase across all relevant channels, make it easy for customers to share their feedback, whether it be an e-mail address or a number to call. Even if they’re not angry, they may have questions that you need to address amid this transition.

Enhance The Customer Experience Associated With The Price Increase

You may have to charge customers more, but you can make that process faster or simpler than it was in the past.

As you prepare a price increase, review the journey your customers typically take in order to do business with you.

Perhaps you can consolidate or eliminate one of the steps involved in buying online.

Maybe you could offer additional forms of payment, such as paying with a digital wallet or from services beyond traditional bank accounts and credit cards.

Depending on your company or industry, you might be able to couple a price increase with policies that let customers pay by installments, or connect them with third parties that offer them additional financing options.

Remember that taking their money should never be the most memorable part of the customer experience. It’s one area where there should be as little friction as possible.

Offer More Value For The Money

If you’re asking customers for more, perhaps you can give them more, too.

A price increase could come at the same time that you introduce new features and functionality in a product, for instance. Within some categories, it could mean offering products in additional colours or sizes.

Customers may also appreciate additional resources to help them enjoy or make use of your products and services. This could be a collection of content you create and publish online, or self-service tools you launch in conjunction with the price increase.

Maybe you could throw in accessories or create product and service bundles, where the additional items are offered at a discount.

This is where taking the pulse of your customers on a regular basis can prove extremely useful. Gather any survey data or other information you’ve collected about their unmet needs or ideal enhancements to the customer experience you offer, and think about what you can do.

Develop A Loyalty Program

There’s no better positive reinforcement than getting some kind of reward. That’s been the essence of loyalty programs from the very beginning, and they can be a great way to offset any negative feelings about a price increase.

A loyalty program doesn’t have to focus on racking up points to redeem for free purchases. You can build membership tiers where they receive specialized consulting, early access to new products and services, or exclusive invitations to events where they can connect with your team and their peers.

Raising prices doesn’t have to be positioned as bad news. It represents a change – one that you can manage in order to ensure it means good things for your customers as well as your bottom line.

The post How to Keep Your Customers Loyal After a Price Increase appeared first on Salesforce.

According to a recent survey sponsored by Salesforce and conducted by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, the majority of consumer firms have recognized their future lies in how they can reimagine customer experiences based on what they learn from data.

This is because shopping and providing goods has become more complex as consumers embrace digital-first lifestyles. They’re researching, shopping and talking about the brands they care about through digital channels and services. They reach out for service and support via chatbot rather than trekking back to a store. And they post reviews and ratings across a vast array of third-party sites and apps.

Why Consumer Goods Companies Are Considering New Business Models

As a result, the study found 42% of consumer goods firms are adopting new business models. This could mean expanding beyond traditional retail partners and setting up a direct-to-consumer division, for instance. In other cases, consumer goods firms are adapting their product mix: nearly half, or 48% said they are focusing on value items and essentials in order to attract high-end and cost-conscious shoppers at the same time.

These sorts of decisions can pay off, but only if they are made with a solid underpinning of data. When you see that your existing customers are spending more time online, for instance, investing in e-commerce capabilities can be a way of meeting them where they are. Technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) can take that historical data even further, analyzing past purchase histories to predict what will become popular (and at risk of a stockout) during the upcoming holiday season.

In many cases consumer goods firms may have a wealth of this data already at their disposal. They just lack the right platforms to synthesize and make sense of it. Even as they move away from legacy applications to modern tools, however, they have another challenge to consider: where that data might be locked away.

Unifying The Team Around A Single Source Of Truth In The Consumer Goods Sector

It’s not uncommon for data silos to spring up, almost unnoticed, across the various lines of business over time. These silos are dangerous because they mean customer data might be duplicated, where one set is more accurate or up to date than another. Worse, a patchwork selection of data means those in senior leadership teams aren’t seeing the full picture of what’s going on in their business, and where they could introduce meaningful improvements.

The survey drove this point home: the 57% who are investing in customer data are specifically looking to unify data management (via a CRM, for instance) across all key functional areas. This encompasses:

• R&D: They need to create the consumer goods shoppers will pay for, but they can’t do so in a vacuum. They need insights from customer data, which may be captured through the following functions.
• Sales: When certain products drive more revenue than others, it’s a good indication of the features or additional items they might want. The problems or aspirations top-selling products align with can then inform:
• Marketing: Creating demand for new and existing products becomes much easier when campaigns are based on data around customer preferences. Marketing firms can also enrich the work they do and tell stories about the experience a brand is trying to create through data from:
• Service: Customers don’t tend to be shy when they have an issue with a company and its products. Analyzing and acting on this feedback can influence everything from the logistics of fulfilling orders to the overall budgets the finance department needs to set.

Platforms like Customer 360 were designed with his kind of holistic approach to customer experience design in mind. It doesn’t have to be a chore to become a data-first consumer goods company. The alternative – doing nothing – poses much greater risks.

Another research study from consulting firm EY found that 69% of Canadian consumers plan to repair goods rather than replace them, while 25% are looking for second-hand products. This means competing on the quality of the customer experience you deliver will make all the difference in gaining share of wallet among frugal consumers.

What Outstanding CX in Consumer Goods Looks Like

Whether they’re buying clothes, groceries or a large kitchen appliance, Canadian consumers are like shoppers the world over in that their expectations have changed. They still want and need to make purchases, but making the payment is just one stage in the journey they undertake. The customer experience they’re looking for includes:

• Choice: Not only a choice in the consumer goods they buy, but the channels they can use to discover and make purchases. Even those who are coming back to stores are also shopping online, via social media platforms like Instagram and with mobile apps.
• Relevance: Consumer goods brands may entice shoppers with promotional offers, but they can’t be random offers. Data will allow them to personalize everything from the ads they see to how their personal information is used to streamline the buying and shipping process.
• Simplicity: It should be as easy to connect and communicate with consumer goods firms through digital channels as walking into a retail store and talking to an associate. Conversations need to move fluidly from text messages and calls to social media posts and e-mail messages. Systems that recognize customers should simplify not only browsing products, receiving recommendations and shopping, but returning items and managing account profiles as well.

Check out the full study, Consumer-Goods Firms Dig Deeper into Data for Superior Customer Experience, for more highlights from the survey and practical takeaways to begin transforming your business for the better.

The post Why 57% of Consumer Goods Execs Plan To Invest In Consumer Data appeared first on Salesforce.

Just as organizations across Canada and around the world have embraced hybrid models that help employees work successfully from anywhere, Dreamforce 2022 has been designed to offer a virtual experience that complements the one in-person attendees will enjoy.

Thanks to Salesforce+, even those who didn’t manage to get full conference passes to Dreamforce in San Francisco can binge on 72 hours of live broadcasting and more than 200 sessions they can watch on demand. In doing so, you’ll be unlocking access to critical insights and learnings to address some of today’s toughest challenges.

Among many Canadian business leaders, for example, the path to growth has become a complex juggling act. There are concerns about changing macroeconomic conditions, such as inflation and an impending recession, that could influence customer demand. Supply chain disruptions haven’t fully been solved yet. And even if employees aren’t officially resigning, they may be among the “quiet quitting” phenomenon where they put in as little effort as possible.

Dreamforce can provide a foundation for developing a strategy to contend with these headwinds. It’s not just a typical technology conference but a place where the greatest minds in business collaborate and share ideas. This includes those leading well-known brands as well as high-profile achievers such as Matthew McConaughey, Jane Goodall, Bono, Al Gore, Jennifer Hudson, and more.

Data from a 2022 survey of past Dreamforce attendees makes a strong business case for registering and participating via Salesforce+. A majority of 87%, said they learned something during keynotes and breakout sessions that helped accelerate business growth. That’s probably because 86% said they walked away from Dreamforce with a plan to solve business challenges by driving innovation. Even more, or 89%, said they discovered efficiencies that saved them time and money.

You can follow in the footsteps of these business leaders by registering for Dreamforce today, and creating an agenda for yourself to maximize the value you get from participating. This includes:

1. Redefine What Success Looks Like In Your Role

Today, everyone in the company is expected to be data-driven and customer centric, at least ideally. The reality is that many traditional roles are still going through a process where automation is replacing manual tasks and processes, creating opportunities to focus on higher-value activities. This is true whether you’re leading a functional area within the business, or are part of a team.

Use Dreamforce as the place you draw a blueprint for taking your role to the next level. This is easy to do based on breakout sessions that hone in on the specifics of working in sales, marketing, service, commerce, IT, development or architecture. Even partners can get professional development to become a bigger part of their ecosystem.

Remember that success in any field requires breaking down silos and working across functions, though. Think about recommending attending Dreamforce via Salesforce+ to collages in other lines of business to drive greater alignment company-wide.

2. Discover Innovation and Insights to Move Entire Industries Forward

Depending on the kind of customers you’re serving or the products and services you’re selling, delivering an outstanding customer experience requires particular expertise. Dreamforce offers programming that includes tactics applicable to any company, as well as those operating within the nuances of a certain vertical market.

Many of the latter sessions are led by practitioner Trailblazers who can speak in a relevant way to their peers. Within the Manufacturing Track, for instance, experts from Sonoco will talk about how they are boosting efficiency with an automated supply chain, onboarding renewables faster with grid computing and future-proofing the company’s revenue stack.

For car makers, meanwhile, there is an increased urgency to build direct-to-consumer businesses while driving customer and partner loyalty at the same time. Dreamforce’s Automotive Track will cover it all with speakers from firms like Volkswagen, which is building on its move to a Digital HQ by rethinking supply chain management.

There is a similar sea change happening within the companies that make and sell the items we shop for as consumers every day. If you’re running stores that need to tap into APIs or extend your brand into Web3 with NFT cloud software, VF Corp. will be on hand to walk you through its journey in the Retail Track. Closer to home, DECIEM will be speaking in the Consumer Packaged Goods about creating extraordinary omni-channel experiences for consumers based on their feedback.

3. Stay Current and Recapture Your Creative Spirit

Bringing your best self to work is a multi-faceted endeavor. You need to be aware of the latest trends that matter to your employer and its customers, but you also have to avoid being so heads-down that you ignore possible sources of inspiration.

Dreamforce 2022 will kick things off for those watching on Salesforce+ with a daily show that provides the latest news from Salesforce and its partners, featuring celebrity hosts and special guests. After hours, though, Dreamforce Tonight provides a virtual connection to the magic that has been the event’s hallmark for the past 20 years. It will be a good reminder that some of our best ideas come to us when we’re having fun.

Best of all, the Dreamforce 2022 experience doesn’t end when the in-person conference wraps up after three days. You can continue to log into Salesforce+ and catch up on any and all of the content you missed that could further your success.

Dreamforce is no longer confined to a single space – just as there’s no limit to what you could do with what you learn if you attend from afar. Register now.

The post Didn’t Get Tickets to Dreamforce in Person? Experience the Magic from Salesforce+ appeared first on Salesforce.

“Since when?” could be the customer asking (with surprise and delight) how long you’ve been stocking a product they’ve been searching to find elsewhere. It could also mean they’re thrilled to discover you’ve introduced a promotion that will save them money, or that you’re now offering free shipping on some items.

However “Since when?” could also mean they’re frustrated to find out they need to input more information to create an account profile on your e-commerce site. They might be unpleasantly surprised to discover that they should have downloaded your mobile app to have a faster, more streamlined experience. If you operate physical stores but some items are now only available online, there may be a sizeable segment of customers who ask “Since when” with indignation.

Regardless of whether they’re happily taken aback or irritated, the “since when” question reflects a change management problem – or more specifically, a problem in how digital transformation affects some of your most common customer-facing processes.

This may be understandable when you consider the myriad ways in which everyday operations are enhanced by digital technologies. From artificial intelligence (AI) tools that make it easier to market and sell products online to an ever-growing number of channels to offer customer service, the scope for potential digital transformation within most companies is vast. But so is the risk of overlooking the fact that customers may be used to traditional ways of engaging with your company, even if some of them were manual and time-consuming.

Customers often develop new, more effective habits using digital tools in less time than to you think. Managing the transition, however, is key to ensuring the long-term evolution of your customer experience isn’t introducing some unnecessary friction in the short term. According to market research firm IDC, for example, 35 per cent of companies with an ad-hoc approach to digital transformation report that their top challenge is getting customers to adapt to new processes.

Fortunately, there’s a better way to set your company and your customers up for success in adapting to new processes from the outset:

Pretend You’re The GPS For A New Digital-First Customer Journey

If you operated physical locations and set up a new one with a completely new layout, you probably wouldn’t force customers to find their way around unassisted. You’d set up signage and even station a few employees at strategic locations to ensure they’re ready to answer questions and provide any necessary guidance.

The same thing applies to processes that may have changed or moved online as you pursue digital transformation. Think about all the potential journeys they might take, such as:

· Creating an online profile or account

· Looking for a product or service

· Making a purchase

· Reaching out for service or support

· Returning a product and asking for a refund

· Making changes to their address or payment information

Think of these as trips your customers are taking, where you’re acting as their GPS. What kind of directions can you offer that only get them from A to B, but teach them how to find their way without you next time?

Treat Process Changes With The Same Marketing Approach You’d Apply To A Product Launch

Whether your company develops its own new product or adds one to its portfolio from a third party, there is likely a lot of work involved to make sure the news is well communicated to your customers. They not only need to know that the product exists, but why they should buy it, any customizations available and of course the price.

These details usually get fleshed out by marketing departments who use ads, press releases and even social media to get the word out. You’re doing your customers a huge favour by being just as proactive with process changes.

This can really just be about building on marketing best practices you already have in place. For instance, you might:

· Provide the rationale for a major process change in a blog post

· Produce a video that shows a fictitious customer successfully executing a changed process

· Promoting updates about process changes via social media, your e-mail newsletter or even on a branded podcast

Approaching this as a marketing campaign is also smart because that means you’ll be sure to track how customers engage with this content and actually learn what they need to know.

Make The Incentives And Rewards Behind The Changes As Visible As Possible

It may customers a moment to get used to the new steps involved in paying for their items in line, but is it faster than before? Is it an order of magnitude better than asking them to stand in line at a physical location? Don’t assume this will be obvious. Tell them.

Though content posted around menu buttons as they fill their shopping cart for example, briefly describe how the process change takes shopping from “quick” to “instant.” When they check out, add details in their receipt about how fast it really was, and compare it with benchmark data based on the previous process.

Do the same thing when you’re deploying a chatbot to deal with some of the most common troubleshooting questions rather than forcing your most skilled agents to do the same thing by phone. If you’re able to offer a tangible reward for trying a new process out, make sure that’s part of your customer marketing campaign.

Bonus Tip: Revisit Your Process Change Uptake

As digital transformation unfolds, it’s easy to focus on the most recent process changes and assume (or hope) that previous ones have taken hold. That’s a mistake.

Instead, take a periodic step back to assess your progress in helping your customers transition the way they engage. Data collected by your customer service team could provide a reality check here: if you’re continuing to get a lot of outreach from customers who are confused or upset by changes you’ve made to existing process, there’s clearly more communication that needs to be done.

Process change – like all change – is a constant. So make sure you’re constantly leading your customers towards the better experience you’re aiming to provide them through digital transformation.

The post How to Help Customers Navigate Changes in Processes appeared first on Salesforce.

Those on the manufacturer’s marketing team might have videoconferencing calls throughout the day, but not necessarily with an actual customer.

Even those on the fulfillment and shipping side of a manufacturing operation may only get as far as a customer’s doorstep with a product, which is only answered after they drive back.

It might not be easy, therefore, to spot the manufacturers that prioritize customers’ needs over those who don’t.

The first big clue? The ones who do tend to be great at forecasting demand, and aren’t left with excess inventory or a shortage of what customers want.

When a manufacturer is customer-centric, it also tends to tailor its business processes with an eye to providing a great customer experience, rather than cut costs at their expense. They are easy to do business with, including when it comes to customer service or having products sent back.

Here’s the real test, though: which manufacturers can make a significant pivot in their operations when a customer needs change?

We’ve gotten some answers to this question over the past few years. When the COVID-19 outbreak began, for instance, there were a number of manufacturers who found themselves in a position where their regular business nearly ground to a halt. Unless they did something different, they would be sitting with idle factories and a slew of difficult financial decisions.

Fortunately, several manufacturers rose to these challenges by being squarely focused on customers’ needs in the moment. Instead of creating perfumes, manufacturers in the beauty sector began producing hand sanitizer. Some of the fashion industry’s leading apparel manufacturers switched to making much-need personal protective equipment (PPE) like masks and face shields.

Though the pandemic unleashed considerable disruption – including to the traditional ways many employees worked – it also created opportunities for manufacturers to build upon their customer-centric efforts as lockdown restrictions began to lift.

Beyond leaning on technology to keep us connected and collaborative, for example, manufacturers can harness digital tools to meet many other kinds of customer needs. Just consider:

The Need To Purchase And Place Orders With Ease

Being a manufacturer’s customer used to mean working with a lot of paper, whether it was filling out a purchase order or filing away an invoice after it was paid. Meanwhile, in other sectors customers have grown accustomed to searching for products and buying it with a few clicks of a button.

Manufacturers can quickly and easily make the transition to e-commerce that streamlines the ordering and purchase process for customers. They can also create centralized sources of customer data to spare their sales team from digging through myriad systems to get what they need to serve larger customers.

The Need For Relevant, Personalized Information

When manufacturers refer to “customers,” they know each one is probably a little different in its product preferences, its budget and other factors. Yet there can be a tendency to treat them as one homogenous group, particularly in terms of marketing content that gets sent their way.

By using tools like marketing automation, manufacturers can slice and dice their list of customers based on all the criteria that make them unique. That way, they can move towards segmented campaigns, with e-mails that speak directly to what those customers want to hear about.

The Need To Be Heard

“Your call is important to us,” a robotic voice repeats over and over again when customers call into a contact centre. Yet those customers might not feel very important, especially if there is not a simple way to share details about whether or not a manufacturer is providing a great experience.

Instead of waiting for customers to come forward with complaints, manufacturers can send out proactive surveys that seek out actionable feedback from their customers. There are other tools that be used to track how engaged customers are with digital content, their sentiment and how experiences could be improved.

The Need To Be Understood

A data-driven approach to running a manufacturing firm means customers are never truly invisible, even if they aren’t physically present. Companies can use analytics to sift through purchase patterns, common customer service questions and other behavior to paint a clearer picture of why some customers stay loyal and why others turn to competitors.

This is made easier by ensuring those within manufacturing sales teams can quickly update customer data from wherever they are, using mobile devices and monitoring performance on a continuous basis.

The Need To Be Helped In Advance

Customers appreciate it when they send a request to a manufacturer and get a timely response. When that manufacturer reaches out before they even realize they’ll need assistance, the relationship becomes even deeper.

Artificial intelligence (AI) goes beyond a historical view of data and can help manufacturers to predict future business conditions, including the ability to anticipate customer demands and expectations.

Conclusion

Manufacturers are like those in many other sectors in that they are bracing for ongoing challenges. This could include economic uncertainty, the need to hire more people, and even the impacts of climate change.

It’s easy to feel a little bit lost amid all these issues. That’s why centering upon customer needs as a North Star provides a proven way to navigate your way into the future.

The companies that do this not only differentiate themselves from competitors – they become more productive, more efficient, and more agile no matter what happens next.

The post Prioritizing Customers’ Needs Helps Manufacturers Stay Ahead of the Competition appeared first on Salesforce.

The ability to provide great customer service literally has no boundaries, thanks to technology that has provided agents with remote work options. Instead of cramming as many people into a cubicle farm as possible, companies that operate a digital HQ can allow customer support staff to access all the applications and data they need to do their jobs from anywhere.

Of course, this represents a significant change for the way many businesses have managed their customer service teams, much as it has in other areas, like marketing and HR.

Training that might have once been set up in a separate boardroom can now be done virtually. Updates about returns policies and other issues can be delivered via Slack or other digital channels rather than asking everyone to huddle in a crowd before a shift.

On the flip side, customer service managers might be concerned about agents missing announcements because they’re working somewhere off site. They also can’t physically monitor their on-the-job performance by walking past them (and, when necessarily, pulling them aside for an impromptu coaching session).

It’s critical for businesses that the move to remote and hybrid work policies are rolled out in a way that doesn’t create any negative impact on the customer experience they deliver. The key performance indicators are clear: if customers spend more time waiting for help, or aren’t given the answers they need, satisfaction drops. Customer churn increases. And negative word of mouth could discourage friends and family from becoming customers too.

Make sure to develop a plan for remote customer service that aims for a standard of excellence that will ensure your customers never wonder where your agents are. This includes:

1. Review and update all support resources

Imagine an agent who looks up how to fix a product failure in the company’s knowledge base and finds the proposed solution is out of date. Before remote work became the norm, they might have walked over to simply called out to a more experienced colleague to see if they had a better answer.

Though digital channels can allow for quick communication among teams, avoid making them do any extra leg work that could be addressed by the resources you give them. Conduct a content audit of knowledge bases, product documentation, video explainers and anything else that should empower agents to do their best work. If you haven’t already, deploy a platform that offers a single view of customer information that streamlines the way you serve and support them.

2. Create a predictable structure that echoes in-person experiences

You can still have that huddle that used to happen in the physical contact center. The only difference is that you might use a video call to kick off a shift, or even just a group chat to go over any urgent announcements.

Encourage the use of emojis to facilitate common responses, such as a thumbs-up to show they’ve understood the announcement, or a clapping emoji to convey that they feel excited and ready to dive into the day’s queue.

3. Offer guidance on communication channels and behaviours

Should agents send a detailed e-mail every time they need to sort through an issue with their manager? Or should they simply send a “Can we hop on a call” message in Slack instead? If you don’t clarify this, they’ll have to figure it out on your own. The result could be inconsistent approaches that don’t contribute to a great employee experience.

Talk internally with the team about the common kinds of conversations that typically happen in person, and what digital channels that could be used to yield the best outcomes. Be specific about real-life scenarios of when these channels should be used, and how they should escalate their issue if something goes awry.

4. Budget time for both scheduled and random check-ins

Customer service managers are often stretched thin, but connecting with team members is one of their most important responsibilities. Working in a remote or hybrid model means being a little more intentional about how to balance standing meetings and still leave enough wiggle room for an unexpected need to chat.

If you already have a one-on-one-with each agent, this might just come down to putting a handful of spots in the calendar each week to check in on an agents’ overall well-being. These aren’t really “random” so much as appointments that are there to be used in the moment as you see fit. And they don’t have to be long – sometimes 10 minutes is all it will take to turn someone’s day around.

5. Let technology address the most common or first-line service issues

Many companies have considered adding more self-service options to help their customers, but haven’t quite followed through. With agents now adjusting to new modes of working, now is the time to take routine or lower-level issues off their plate.

There are plenty of options to consider here. You could set up an online customer community where people can get the answers and assistance they need from their peers. Chatbots can also automate many typical service interactions, and artificial intelligence features mean they continuously improve. Even a well-designed FAQ page could deflect a lot of inbound activity in the contact center.

6. Explore social activities that maintain culture and morale

As hard they work, customer service professionals often enjoy the relationships they form with their coworkers in the contact center. There’s no reason those relationships can’t deepen in a remote or hybrid work setting.

Try to make moments during daily digital standups to ask about everyone’s weekend plans, their reaction to a major sporting event or whether they’re going to check out the latest blockbuster movie. Carve out a few minutes for people to share their latest photos of pets or children. See if there’s any appetite for after-hours fun that can be conducted online, even if it’s just a simple game of “Two truths and a lie.”

Instead of calling it “remote work” or “hybrid work,” maybe we should call it “connected work” – because when customer service teams are truly connected to data, applications and each other, excellent performance is bound to follow.

The post 6 Ways Remote Employees Can Deliver Excellent Customer Service appeared first on Salesforce.

All this adds up to the fact that understanding customer satisfaction is necessary for your company’s success. You need to harvest accurate, actionable, relevant data while making it fast and easy for your customers to supply it. A survey can be a great way to do just that — when you create a good one.

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What Is a Customer Satisfaction Survey and How to Get Started

A customer satisfaction survey is a balancing act between generating accurate, relevant, actionable data and being sensitive to your customers’ privacy concerns. To find the right balance, answer the following four questions.

What’s your goal?

Pick one specific goal, and make sure it aligns with what stakeholders on and off your team expect. It’s tempting to throw in a ton of questions while you have a customer’s attention, but that’s how you wind up with long, grueling surveys that respondents don’t finish. Possible goals can include getting insights into a specific metric, such as customer service call times or upsell conversion rates.

Who should take the survey?

Knowing who you want insights from can help you narrow your target audience. Are you looking for feedback from a broad group of customers, or just those who needed help troubleshooting your product and reached out to your customer service team? Knowing who you’re targeting can also help you determine what kinds of questions to ask.

How will you distribute the survey?

More and more, companies are creating online surveys because they’re convenient, inexpensive, and flexible. But, if you already have phone or in-person touchpoints, you may see higher response rates through these channels. Meanwhile, mailed surveys have the lowest response rates, which could result in a nonresponse bias.

How will you use survey results?

Depending on the kind of data you collect, making it shareable and actionable could mean creating a spreadsheet, graphs and charts, customer experience maps, and more. Make sure you can create these deliverables quickly and accurately so you can act as soon as possible.

How to Write Screener Questions

Your first question should be a screener question, which will act like the sorting hat in Harry Potter, placing respondents into the “target audience” house or “not target audience” house. Those not in your target audience should be thanked for their time without further questions. Those in your target audience should continue on through the rest of the survey so you can collect their answers.

Your screener question will depend on who your target audience is. Here are three examples:

• Have you shopped for a [product] in the last six months?

• Have you used our service in the last month?

• Have you used our customer service in the last three months?

Your target audience may be more complex than “a recent customer.” In that case, you may need more than one screener question to keep each question simple.

Instead of:

• Are you a parent of at least one child under the age of 18, and you use our product at least weekly and have spoken to a customer service representative in the last three months?

This could be two screener questions:

• Are you a parent of at least one child under the age of 18, and you use our product at least weekly?
• Have you used our customer service or help desk in the last three months?

In some cases, you won’t need any screener questions. If a purchase or service interaction auto-triggers a survey and you can tie that back to a ticket or CRM (customer relationship management) record, it may already be obvious that the respondent falls into your target audience. Don’t waste time with questions you already have the answer to unless you absolutely need to verify the information.

Customer Satisfaction Questions

The bread and butter of customer satisfaction surveys is a data point called CSAT, or Customer Satisfaction. As the name implies, this score measures whether a customer is happy with your product, service, company, or a specific experience. For example:

• How satisfied are you with our company?
• [Product or service] made it easy to [accomplish my goal]
• Strongly agree
• Agree
• Neither agree nor disagree
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree

Many companies create quick, easy surveys with a single CSAT question in the form of a website pop-up or automated phone survey. This allows them to ask the question quickly and often with less risk of intruding on customers’ time since it’s a small ask.

Avoid biased phrasing.

If you want to get accurate answers, avoid phrasing survey questions that express a bias. Examples of biased CSAT questions to avoid are:

• How much do you love this product?
• What do you like most about our company?
• How would you rate our award-winning customer service?

Net Promoter Score

While CSAT asks about satisfaction, Net Promoter Score (NPS) takes it a step further. It asks whether the customer would recommend your company to someone else.

• How likely are you to recommend this product to a friend or colleague?
• Based on your interaction with our support team, how likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?
• How likely are you to recommend this app to other small business owners?

Answers should be single-selection multiple choice or on a Likert scale. You can ask respondents to choose a number from one to five, with five being the highest, a phrase (such as likely, not likely, very likely), or even an emoji.

Many surveys ask just this one question, which people can answer in a few seconds. Other surveys ask a follow-up, open-ended question in order to attempt to get more information from the respondent.

Keep it neutral or make it dynamic.

Keeping your follow-up question neutral will make it seem natural, whether the customer has indicated they recommend you or not: Why or why not?

If your survey platform can respond dynamically based on their answer to the first question, you can ask a more specific follow-up question.

For example, when a respondent indicates they’d recommend your company, consider these follow-ups:

• What would you say to your friend to recommend us?
• What do you like about our company?
• Which features of [product] do you value the most?

If they wouldn’t recommend you, consider these questions:

• What can we do better?

• What was missing from our service?

Deeper Questions

Open-ended follow-up questions are a great way to dig deeper into a customer’s experience, but answers can be hard to quantify and more challenging for customers to answer. If there are specific products, services, or experiences you want to know more about, you could also consider including some closed-ended questions, which generally require a yes or no response, that dive a little deeper.

• Are you considering future purchases from our company?
• How did you learn about us?
• Is this service priced fairly?
• Did anyone help you make this purchase?

Keep it short.

The longer, more challenging your survey, the more likely people are to exit partway through and leave some questions unanswered. This may leave you with too little information. Instead, think of every question like it’s taking up valuable real estate — because it is.

Demographic Questions

Often, you’ll want to learn more about how well you’re serving different customer segments or who your best customers are so you can find more of them. That’s where demographic questions come in. When these are helpful, you could ask about topics such as gender, age, location, profession, education level, religious affiliation, or income.

Be inclusive.

Help respondents give accurate responses or answer in a way that makes them comfortable. When respondents feel included, they’ll often continue to the next question. Conversely, if a respondent has to answer a demographic question that’s not entirely accurate, then continues answering your questions, your data may be inaccurate.

For example, if you’re asking about gender, don’t stop at male or female. Adding “non-binary” or “Other gender identity” will help make these customers feel seen and not force them to choose an inaccurate answer to move forward in the survey.

• What is your gender?
• Man
• Woman
• Other gender identity

Give them a way out.

Some demographic questions are uncomfortable for some customers. Some people may not want to reveal their income, exact age, or location, for example. To prevent customers from dropping out to avoid sharing more than they want to, give them a way out by including “Prefer not to say” or “I’m not sure.”

For example:

• What is your Zip code?
• [Key in response]
• Select “I’m not sure or I prefer not to say”

Avoid ambiguity.

To avoid confusing or frustrating your respondents, make sure they can only choose one answer for single-select multiple-choice answers. For example, if you ask about income or age and provide overlapping ranges in the answer options, customers won’t be sure which one to select. Make sure your answers don’t overlap.

• What is your annual income?
• $25,000 or below
• $25,001 to $50,000
• $50,001 to $75,000
• $75,001 to $100,000
• $100,001 or above
• What is your age?
• Under 18
• 18-24
• 25-34
• 35-44
• 45-54
• 55-64
• 65 or older

Conclusion

Creating a survey that’s easy on your customers and provides great insights for you is no easy task. It’s even harder if you try to do it all on your own. Lean on your colleagues or a small group of customers to test your survey before distributing it widely. You may go through a few iterations, but the result will be a better experience for respondents and more accurate, reliable, and actionable insights for you.

The post Create a Customer Satisfaction Survey: Examples & Best Practices appeared first on Salesforce.