According to the State of Women Entrepreneurship in Canada Report, for example, an estimated 18% of businesses here – including small, medium and even large businesses – are majority owned by women. The vast majority of Canadian female entrepreneurs (90%) are self-employed.

The same research also found that between 2021 and 2022, Canadian women entrepreneurs showed a greater increase in total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA) compared to men. That means they were busy writing business plans, testing for product-market fit and connecting with investors looking for promising new ventures.

Part of the surge in women-owned businesses stems from Canadian public sector initiatives such as the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy (WES) launched by the federal government in 2018. WES represents nearly $7 billion that’s going into programs such as business loans, as well as resources to help women business leaders connect with mentors and other ecosystem partners. Business Development Bank Canada (BDC) and Export Development Canada (EDC) have also launched financing and insurance solutions for women-owned SMBs.

Another contributor to the rise of female business owners is a greater effort to recognize the success stories in our midst. This includes the 2023 inaugural Canadian Women Entrepreneur Gala, which celebrated dozens of inspiring leaders who are spearheading the development of a more diverse workplace ecosystem. Organizations like RBC are doing something similar with its RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards.

However there’s a third, and possibly overlooked, factor that is helping drive more women in Canada to start and grow their own businesses. Advancements in automation and technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) are opening up new opportunities for women to scale companies faster and easier than ever before. They can be more productive, efficient and customer-centric using the right digital channels and tools without the kind of overhead that would have been the norm even a few years ago.

Technology is also allowing women to run companies wherever they are in Canada. This not only includes a specific province or city but locations that span the office, their home or somewhere in between. For those who need to balance entrepreneurship with parenting or caregiving, technology is allowing women business owners to thrive.

If you’re a Canadian woman considering making the leap from employee to business owner, here are some essential steps you should take to help get your vision off the ground:

Make your marketing scroll-worthy

Most small businesses, women-owned or otherwise, don’t start off with budgets that allow them to commission 30-second TV spots or billboard campaigns. Instead, you need to be strategic, making use of digital channels where your target market is likely to visit and ensuring you have a presence there. Social media is the obvious example.

This still means coming up with social posts and social ads that will resonate with a wide variety of customer types, and managing campaigns effectively. Marketing automation takes care of the latter, allowing women to track clicks and other engagement metrics from the convenience of their smartphone.

Generative AI, meanwhile, allows them to iterate multiple versions of the same concept or idea based on a relevant prompt. This can accelerate and streamline the process of content creation.

You don’t just have to be scroll-worthy on social media. The same creative approach needs to inform your mobile website or mobile app. Automation and AI not only makes it easy to develop marketing assets for these channels but to continually refine and improve them as you get to know your customers better.

Take a one-to-one approach for landing your first customers

It can be hard to win over buyers when you’re a relatively unknown entity, which is why you shouldn’t sell like an entity. You should sell like a person who has something of value to offer another person.

This is only possible when you base your sales processes around a CRM that lets you collect, store, and manage all the specific details about each of your customers and prospects. Every time you connect, you can use your CRM data to stand out from the crowd by making a pitch or responding to questions in a personalized manner.

Of course, you’re only one woman, and drafting sales outreach and follow-up emails can take up a lot of time. That’s why the most advanced CRMs now incorporate generative AI capabilities to tailor sales emails and conversations based on your real-time data. The result is that you become more trustworthy, which is the best way for any entrepreneur to establish strong relationships with their first customers.

Build a reputation as a women-owned SMB with best-in-class customer service

“I love her company because they’re so responsive.” That’s the kind of comment you want your customers to be making to their peers, friends and family.

This comes by using automation to ensure you’re ready to deal with troubleshooting issues or questions the moment someone comes forward. An automated customer service platform brings all the right information into a unified view so you can also treat everyone in a way that makes them feel recognized.

You can also make use of chatbots on your website and mobile app to provide customer service round the clock, which can be essential for women who are not only leading businesses but are juggling multiple responsibilities in their personal lives.

We still have work to do to help remove some of the historical barriers that have prevented women from realizing their entrepreneurial dreams. As Canada creates better programs and policies, however, coupled with powerful technologies that anyone can use, the outlook for women-owned businesses is getting brighter every day.

The post Small Business, Big Impact: Women-Owned SMBs Continue to Grow appeared first on Salesforce.

Manufacturers, logistics firms and Canadian businesses all need to be able to get products “from to sea to sea,” whether it’s a customer in Victoria, B.C. or in St. John’s, Newfoundland. For many firms, the supply chain extends far beyond Canada’s borders, to a slew of international suppliers, partners and customers.

Moving goods across the country and globally comes with considerable complexity, in part because of how varied all the players are. At any given moment, for example, an automotive manufacturer might be trying to bring in parts to produce a fleet of vehicles, while a health-care firm is shipping perishable medications to hospitals with patients in need.

What flows through the supply chain not only has to travel without being damaged, but arrive at the right destination in a timely manner. There are many forces which can make this much more difficult than it sounds, from geopolitical events to weather hazards and more.

Supply chains can also be costly to maintain. This not only includes equipment and vehicles but people. Even when labour market shortages aren’t an issue, manufacturers and other companies are recognizing they need to hire candidates with a more sophisticated set of skills than ever before.

The Canadian government is already playing an active role in addressing supply chain issues. A good example is the recent announcement from the Ministry of Transport of $10 million in funding to eliminate congestion and support commercial movements in critical supply chain touchpoints in Saint John and New Brunswick.

Businesses, meanwhile, need to consider how they can contribute to supply chain modernization through the adoption of advanced technologies. This includes tools that can foster greater collaboration among supply chain stakeholders, as well as solutions that provide greater insight into where goods are at any given moment.

Automation and artificial intelligence (AI), for example, open up opportunities to transform many supply chain processes and achieve gains in productivity, efficiency and cost optimization, including:

Streamlining the process of supply chain data ingestion

Before manufacturers and other supply chain stakeholders can improve the flow of goods, they’ll need to put data in systems to analyze it. That’s difficult when data is spread out across many different parts of the supply chain – and when employees have to put it in manually.

Tools to automate data entry could be a first step in helping ingest greater volumes of supply chain data into systems of record that can identify areas for improvement. It also means employees can spend more time on the analysis than merely inputting information.

Increasing visibility with intelligence at the edge

Supply chain management often comes down to a single question: Where are the products? Historically, it wasn’t always easy to know when a crate was taken off a ship and loaded onto a truck, but technology has changed that.

With technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), for instance, sensors can be fixed directly on equipment to give a clearer view of what’s happening across the supply chain. This enables supply chain partners to track items, and also to get ahead of operational issues. Data about the status of a piece of equipment or part can let companies be more proactive in repairing or replacing parts before they encounter problems, which furthers supply chain resiliency.

Forecasting supply, demand and potential bottlenecks

When data is more accessible and easier to ingest, the real work begins.

Using AI, manufacturers, suppliers and their customers can start to study trends and patterns that could affect what happens along the supply chain.

Modelling these patterns and their potential outcomes can serve a number of purposes. First, it means manufacturers can get a clearer and more accurate sense of customer demand, which means they’ll only order the supplies they need and minimize costly waste.

Second, AI modelling can study supply chain performance to provide early indications of risk. It will help supply chain partners know, for example, where volatile weather might create delays or disruptions as goods are transported from one location to another.

Older technologies took a “rules-based” approach to supply chain automation. The idea was that you could specify that if a particular event took place, equipment and people could pursue a specific action to deal with it. This was undoubtedly helpful, but it fails to take into account all the exceptions and anomalies that business rules might not cover.

AI provides a superior solution because the technology allows businesses to get recommendations based on the specific, unique conditions that might be affecting the supply chain. In some cases they might increase production. In others, they might dispatch more vehicles, or at the very least alert customers that goods won’t be arriving on schedule as expected.

Digitizing business functions for a better customer experience

Although a lot of what happens in the supply chain feels “behind the scenes,” companies should also think about how they can improve the way they indirect on the front lines with customers.

As supply chain operations improve, for instance, everyone from manufacturers and suppliers to retailers benefit from bringing automation and AI to more traditional areas of business. This includes using digital technologies to automate the way they market their brand, sell to customers and provide service and support afterwards.

The potential to transform Canada’s supply chain is broader than the space “from sea to sea.” The opportunity spans everything companies do internally and externally to bring customers the products they want and need.

The post How AI and Automation Can Help Improve Canadian Supply Chains appeared first on Salesforce.

Allowing customers to submit an insurance claim via an online form is a lot easier than forcing them to scrawl on pieces of paper and mail them in. It changes how the claims process begins.

Processing invoices via automation means your finance team can stay on top of more complex tasks like consolidation and reporting. It changes how quickly the process happens.

In sectors like retail, automating inventory management can ensure you have enough product in stock at the right location to serve customers. It changes how companies work with greater accuracy.

The next stage of automation will go beyond the “how.” Instead of merely automating the way tasks get done, the opportunity now is to combine robotic process automation (RPA) with artificial intelligence (AI) to better understand the “why.”

This includes answers to questions like, “Why are customers behaving the way they do?”

Within functions like HR, the question might be, “Why are employees struggling to achieve maximum efficiency?”

At the most senior level, leaders might be wondering, “Why can’t we find greater cost savings to combat the impact of economic challenges like high inflation?”

Bringing RPA and AI together leads to intelligent automation to help small and medium-sized businesses not only get tasks done, but gain context to help them improve the way they’re done. The result is a better employee and customer experience, which in turn leads to greater long-term growth.

Research from Deloitte and Blue Prism has found intelligent automation can cut business process costs by anywhere from 25 to 40 per cent on average. That makes it a great place to begin thinking about how you can build upon the digital transformation your company has done so far.

After all, reducing or eliminating manual work was a great start, but the biggest value comes from being able to continually adapt and enhance operations in a cohesive fashion across the business.

These are just some of the areas where intelligent automation could be woven into your digital transformation strategy:

1. Building greater flexibility within critical IT processes

Lots of companies have automated the way their IT department provisions virtual machines to run cloud-based applications. Depending on the business needs, though, the workloads those servers need to handle can cause lag times or delays.

Intelligent automation goes beyond merely ensuring a virtual machine goes live. It would analyze the typical highs and lows that put pressure on compute workloads (such as a spike in e-commerce activity amid the holiday shopping season, for example).

Intelligent automation would then manage compute workloads to ensure they meet business demands and not hamper customer or employee experiences.

2. Reducing the need to hire additional IT specialists

As critical as technology is to business success, many Canadian companies aren’t in a position where it makes financial sense to add headcount to their IT department. Even if they want to hire more people, they might have their work cut out for them. Just look at a report from the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC), which estimates that Canadian employers will need to fill an additional 250,000 tech jobs by 2025.

The truth is that a lot of the analysis that needs to happen within many businesses is beyond human capabilities. Intelligent automation can work faster, and at greater scale, to solve problems and even avoid them from happening in the first place.

This means that when Canadian companies do hire more IT people, they can focus on those with advanced skills in areas like machine learning that can help them fine-tune their intelligent automation solutions.

3. Boosting customer retention through better service

Customer service agents often have their work cut out for them. They’re expected to get through large volumes of calls or other forms of customer outreach within a short time frame. They’re expected to troubleshoot a wide range of issues. And traditionally, they’re expected to piece together what went wrong with a customer’s purchase as though the data were part of a jigsaw puzzle.

Customers are a lot happier when they connect with an agent who already knows their purchase histories and account profile details and is ready to get to the problem at hand. That’s the result of intelligent automation, where data is routed from disparate sources to provide a clear picture of every customer and their needs.

4. Developing greater autonomy over business operations

There is no end to the range of third-party services available to help companies manage payroll processing, logistics and other business functions. Many of these services work great, but they come at a cost, and can become a complex web of relationships for companies to navigate. They also pose the risk of keeping data in silos, rather than integrating it into a single source of truth.

One of your goals with intelligent automation should be to take back control of processes and the insights that technology can provide you about what’s working, what’s not and why. You’ll save money by having rules-based automation in place, and greater agility when it’s time to change processes.

5. Avoiding costly errors

You might have automated tasks such as sending customer orders from an e-commerce site to a system that handles shipping information, but what happens if there’s a disconnect when the data is sent to a transportation firm that keeps it in a silo?

The end result is that it becomes difficult to explain to customers why their package arrived late (or in some cases not at all). That same customer may decide to shop elsewhere the next time around, and you’re stuck finding a new customer instead of gaining more business from an existing one.

One of the best aspects of intelligent automation is the ability to deal with exceptions and anomalies that crop up in the day-to-day course of business. It makes the technology can address those mistakes and help stop the threat of customer churn.

Intelligent automation deserves an important place in your IT budget. When you leverage the best of what RPA and AI has to offer, the payoff includes lower costs, happy customers and employees focused on what they do best.

The post 5 Ways Intelligent Automation Can Help Businesses Lower Costs appeared first on Salesforce.

Today’s world is moving faster than ever, and 2023 is already proving to be another complex year for businesses. As leaders continue to navigate macroeconomic headwinds and workforce instability, mission-critical priorities increasingly include cost cutting, efficiency, and productivity. With customer expectations also rising, companies are being forced to do more with less.

The good news? Times of disruption present opportunities for reinvention.

“Now is the time to redefine success,” Emma Chalwin, Salesforce’s EVP of Global Field Marketing explained as she welcomed over 500 Canadian Trailblazers to the keynote. “The saying ‘what got you here, won’t get you there’ has never felt more relevant. At Salesforce, we love a good playbook, and what we’ve seen in our 24 years is that while the world is always changing around us, our customer focus remains.”

The thread of ‘customer focus’ was woven throughout this year’s World Tour Toronto. Businesses of all industries and sizes walked away with an understanding of what it means to be a customer company in 2023, paired with a playbook on how to achieve it.

Check out four actionable takeaways from the event that can help inform your business strategy this year.

1. Employee wellbeing isn’t just a perk – it’s a business strategy

As companies look to rewrite their playbooks for success in a world where change is the only constant, the first step is reimaging the core of your business: the employee experience.

Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive Global, sat down for a fireside chat about the productivity paradox and the need for leaders to recognize the deep connection between employee wellbeing and organizational performance. After all, employees are the keepers of the vision and values that are painted on the company wall. They have the potential to be your best brand ambassadors, and can make or break the customer experience they deliver.

Arianna explained that during hard economic times, there is a tendency for C-suites to view wellbeing as a nice-to-have benefit instead of being a modern business strategy. “Employees shouldn’t have to decide between quiet quitting and burnout. When you put humanity at the centre, work gets better… If your employees are thriving, your business will thrive. The employee experience drives the customer experience.”

What does this look like? According to research by Thrive Global, implementing micro-steps, such as taking three 60-second breaks during the day, can go a long way in improving mental health and productivity. Technology platforms with built-in data analytics can help organizations understand employee behaviours, likes and dislikes, and then provide automated, personalized recommendations to help them make wellbeing a priority. She emphasized that the future of employee experiences will see increased augmentation from automated technology solutions, and further integration of wellness and productivity platforms, like Thrive Global and Slack.

In a breakout session later in the day, Tiffani Bova, Salesforce’s Chief Growth Evangelist, doubled down on how a good employee experience (EX) drives a good customer experience (CX) referencing a recent report by Salesforce and Forbes Insights that revealed C-suite teams with high EX and CX scores see 1.8x faster revenue growth. The magic, Tiffani says, is “when companies do both right.”

2. The future of business is AI + Data + CRM.

While equipping employees with the right technology is integral to wellbeing, it is also the beating heart of any modern customer company.

Meghan Gendelman, Salesforce’s SVP of Americas and Financial Services CMO, spoke about why unlocking the power of AI + Data + CRM will set the good customer experiences from the great, ultimately leading to company growth. “Connecting with customers is harder than ever,” she explained. “They want us to meet them where they are – and to personalize every experience. They want to feel like more than just a number.”

The data shows just how complex the customer journey has become. Canadian consumers are now engaging with brands across 15 channels compared to just 10 last year. With 88% of customers saying the experience a company provides is as important as its product or services, 92% say they will switch brands after just two bad experiences.

The stakes for loyalty are high, but the trifecta of AI + Data + CRM can help create what we call Customer Magic. AI can help you unlock real-time insights and stay ahead of your customers’ needs, connecting your data in one platform gives the entire business – from marketing to sales to commerce – a single view of all of your customers at the same time, and a CRM can help you automate and scale your efforts. In other words, this technology hat trick equips your workforce with the tools to make more informed decisions faster that will drive your costs down, productivity up, and your business forward.

The message from Meghan’s keynote was clear: The Trailblazers of today are leveraging modern technology to unlock their data and become true Customer Companies.

3. Innovation and Trust need to go hand-in-hand

While data-driven innovation is at an all-time high, leaders must take note: the amount of data created by humans globally is doubling every 12 hours and nearly 50% of organizations are seeing an increase in threats.

From the shift towards remote work and digital shopping experiences during the pandemic, to the increasing importance of first-party cookies, companies are relying on data more than ever before.When it comes to compliance, leaders need to plan ahead while also being prepared for reputational risks.

Security experts John Commacchio, SVP and CIO at Teknion, and Khaled Hawasli, Canada Lead, Data and AI Security at Accenture, shared how compliance goes beyond company fines. It also has a major impact on customer trust.

While thoughtful long-term data governance has a huge ROI because it future proofs companies for new regulations, there can be tension between innovation and compliance. Companies need dedicated teams working together to stay up-to-date with the ever-changing privacy landscape while also providing personalized, connected customer experiences at scale.

Having the technology in place to help your business protect sensitive data, build securely, and manage evolving compliance needs is an imperative. Reduce risk while you innovate so that your brand can continue to preserve and build one of your most valuable assets–customer trust.

4. Drive innovation and efficient growth with automation

You’ve reimagined employee experiences to benefit your workforce and your bottom line, created Customer Magic with AI + Data + CRM, and have a data governance strategy in place to build customer trust. What’s the last chapter in this business playbook?

Finding a way to continually exceed customer and employee expectations at an almost infinite scale, all while lowering costs, increasing productivity and driving efficient growth for your business.

According to Salesforce’s latest State of Marketing Report, ​​91% of CMOs have identified the need to continually innovate to remain competitive, and 70% of marketers who invested in process/workflow automation view this as a long-term strategy shift.

On the World Tour Toronto keynote stage, Akif Unal, TD’s VP of North American Digital Marketing and Personalization Strategy, explained there are more than 26-billion customer touchpoints throughout his organization alone. “It’s not feasible to manage it all manually, so we need automation,” he explained. TD has automated communication to send at the right time, doubling the number of personalized triggered emails and increasing engagement by 3x. “Leads have gone up by 5x because we’re using data to make it personalized,” he explained.

McCain Foods has seen similar results with personalization and automation, explained Caroline Morissette, VP of Digital & Data. In some cases, such as chefs requesting samples for new offerings, they’ve seen lead times be reduced by 50% and delivery to customers 50% faster. “We’ve innovated this process with Salesforce,” she added.

Watch the World Tour Toronto keynote on-demand, featuring a fireside chat with Arianna Huffington and stories of customer success with Trailblazers TD and McCain Foods. Click the link here.

The post Becoming a customer company: The magic of AI, Data and CRM at World Tour Toronto 2023 appeared first on Salesforce.

The relationships that HR leaders influence include those between managers and their team members, those between peers at the same level and even the connection between senior leadership and front-line workers. Their role doesn’t stop with recruitment and onboarding, however.

HR teams are now at the forefront of a host of critical issues that affect small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) across Canada. This includes:

• The need to develop diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies that attract and retain a wider range of talent.
• Working with senior leaders to establish the best approach to hybrid work based on employee expectations and business needs.
• Striking a balance between practices that boost productivity and efficiency, and the need to support employee health and wellness.
• Exploring strategies to boost employee engagement and avoid the risk of “quiet quitting,” especially during challenging economic times.

As with any other area of business, the actions HR professionals take can’t be based on speculation or guesswork. They need data, whether it’s about employees, organizational performance or both. This can create challenges when HR teams have to dive in and out of a wide selection of tools to get the data and insights they need. They need a single view of the truth – which is exactly what a CRM can provide.

CRMs first became known as a transformative tool for sales departments, helping reps centralize and gain a better understanding of all the customer data that can influence a deal. HR may be working with a different kind of data set, but the same kind of benefits apply. A CRM can help identify what employees want and need as well as the areas where an SMB can empower them to do their best work.

Just as a sales rep might use a CRM to nurture prospects and get more business out of their best customers, HR professionals can leverage CRMs to enhance the entire employee journey. This includes the moment they’re hired, to ongoing career development, and any support they might need along the way.

Ultimately, a CRM provides the foundation for data-driven HR, with a number of key benefits:

Automation of key HR processes

The moment someone in a company needs to hire a new person, confusion often sets in. It can start with a search through filing cabinets for the right form to request a hire, followed by additional paperwork that can go missing between one office and another.

A CRM accelerates this kind of process, making it easy to create digital forms to request a new hire and specify details such as their role, the rationale for the hire, and so on. Approval processes become easier too, when all the information is contained in a cloud-based CRM which can be accessed from anywhere.

Other steps in this process – from posting the job to a company intranet to wider distribution on job boards – are similarly turnkey when they happen through a CRM.

The same goes for processes like onboarding, where alerts and notifications can go out immediately before a new hire starts so that they are equipped with everything they need from day one.

Capturing the voice of employees

As companies adopt hybrid work models, it’s more important than ever to ensure that leaders are able to understand what managers and frontline employees are going through on a daily basis. This can happen through formal status meetings or more impromptu check-ins. In both cases, though, the feedback leaders receive should become the subject of deeper analysis about morale and culture.

This is not unlike the way sales reps have standardized on CRMs, capturing notes about their customers’ key objections and pain points. The technology works just as well to store, manage and analyze employee data, including their sentiment.

Employee surveys and performance reviews are other rich sources of data that a CRM can help manage, informing everything from coaching techniques to company-wide policies.

Establishing a platform to connect self-service tools

Generally speaking, employees don’t like having to come to HR on a regular basis. It’s nothing personal. In fact, it’s akin to how customers often prefer to get answers or assistance on their own without having to pester a company.

Thanks to products like Salesforce Lightning, it’s now possible for HR to take the lead on developing simple apps that let employees make changes to their benefits plan, submit travel requests and other tasks. Low-code tools like Lightning means even non-programmers can provide these kinds of experiences. There are also plenty of options on AppExchange that would be highly useful in HR.

Traditionally, the risk of deploying self-service HR tools is that it would become complex and challenging to keep them all up-to-How date. The data that runs through them, meanwhile, could become siloed and therefore less reliable for HR and employees to use.

Those worries go away when self-service apps are integrated with a CRM. All data becomes part of a unified whole, where HR and business leaders can keep on top of usage trends and even discover opportunities to digitize other employee processes.

CRMs can also connect with customer service tools, which have similar capabilities that could enhance HR processes and employee experiences.

A strong employee experience has a direct impact on the quality of the customer experience a company can deliver. Just as CRMs played an integral role in customer experience by transforming sales, HR can now harness a CRM platform to help employees be more engaged, motivated, and happier to fulfill the company’s key business objectives.

The post The Rise of Data-First HR: Using CRMs to Build a Better Workforce appeared first on Salesforce.

Smart companies know that rising prices signal potential dips in customer demand, as well as increased costs for raw materials and the everyday supplies they need. That’s why they often take steps to quickly optimize their expenses while seeking opportunities to drive extra revenue. Although this can be a difficult balance to strike, a customer relationship management (CRM) system can help in both areas at once.

The rise of CRMs led to a sea change in the way many businesses operated. It meant sales reps that once worked in silos could now collaborate effectively as a team. It meant managers and senior leaders could gain greater visibility into key performance indicators (KPIs). When CRMs became available as software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, those benefits became accessible by firms of every size.

Investing in a CRM can certainly help companies accelerate their growth in a strong economic climate, but it also puts them in a great position when more challenging headwinds start blowing. In some ways, it’s those periods where small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) realize just how powerful the combination of streamlined sales processes and comprehensive analytics can be.

Whether you’ve had a CRM in place for some time or are still considering whether to deploy one, make sure you maximize the potential of these platforms to combat inflationary pressures.

1. Update strategic plans with improved forecasting

The impact of high inflation is not always easy to predict. The risks to your bottom line mean relying on gut instinct is not the best idea.

Instead, tap into the vast historical knowledge captured in a CRM, and couple it with analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to make a more accurate prediction of what sales will look like over the next few quarters. This in turn can guide decisions around everyday expense management and even hiring plans.

2. Calculate customer LTV and opportunities to increase share of wallet

Even during periods of inflation, there will be some customers willing to spend, especially if they see a lot of value in the products and services you’re providing. These customers may represent a fraction of your overall base, but using a CRM allows you to see exactly who they are based on lifetime value (LTV) calculations and other data points.

Prioritize your best reps to see if these customers might be willing to send more business your way, which can reduce the revenue fallout that can happen amid inflation.

3. Cut back on expenses by digitizing key processes

How much paper, pens and other office supplies are you ordering on a regular basis? If you’re making those purchases to equip sales reps, it may represent an unnecessary expense. A CRM is packed with features that allow reps to stop using sticky notes to remember client’s contact information, or spreadsheets that track their progress on a deal. They can even input notes directly into the platform rather than scribbling something that will be difficult to read and understand later on.

4. Offer insights that help reps close more deals, faster

There can be a lot of back-and-forth that happens between a rep and the people they’re selling to. Some of their questions or objections will come out of the blue, but many of them follow predictable patterns and trends.

CRMs can guide reps to anticipate how their customers and prospects might respond to a pitch, and allow them to get ahead of any issues. These insights can be useful at every stage of the customer journey, from when they’re initially researching and considering a purchase to overcoming the final hurdles to getting a deal closed.

5. Avoid miscommunication and mistakes that cost companies money

Duplication of effort and failure to follow up on action items can torpedo a deal that looked like a sure thing. It usually happens because the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing – a manager doesn’t review a quote a rep needs to get signed off in time, for example, or two reps reaching out to the same prospect at once.

Using a CRM allows companies to better coordinate their efforts and ensure reps, managers and other team members are not working at cross-purposes with each other. Particularly when inflation is high, you can’t afford these kinds of missteps.

6. Safeguard (and enhance) the customer experience you’re delivering

Customers are probably already dealing with their own challenges amid inflation. They shouldn’t have to take on any more due to friction they have as part of the experience they have with your brand.

The only way to avoid or remove those areas of friction is by keeping a close eye on customer data. Your CRM is critical here, because it can not only store but share that data with departments other than sales.

When you embed a CRM in a platform like Customer 360, for example, everyone from marketing teams to customer service teams have a single unified view of customer data. That means everyone can act cohesively to provide the most consistent customer experience possible, and even spot areas to enhance it.

7. Boost employee engagement and lower the risk of turnover

It can cost companies a lot of money to replace a single sales rep. This not only includes financial costs but valuable time that could be devoted to driving more revenue. You may not be hiring a lot during periods of inflation but that doesn’t mean you want to lose your best talent, either.

SMBs that use a CRM are by definition taking a modern approach to empowering sales reps with the very best technology available. It’s a way to put reps in greater control over their ability to develop themselves professionally and increase their win rate. This gives them one more reason to stick with you, even when inflation strikes.

A CRM is a must-have when inflation is high. And when the economy inevitably improves, you’ll be able to gain even greater return on investment as you use it to propel your growth to the next level.

The post How A CRM Can Help Manage Inflation And Improve The Workplace appeared first on Salesforce.

Next came Web 2.0, where technology advanced to support more user-generated content and interactive features.

Web 3.0 opens up a new wave of opportunities, and it’s important to understand what they are and how to pursue them.

What is Web 3.0?

The rise of the term “Web 3.0” doesn’t mean online experiences as we know them are necessarily going away. Much like other transitions in technology, it’s best to think of Web 3.0 as an evolution in how businesses operate on the Internet – where everyday users could have a lot more control.

The underlying foundation for Web 3.0 is a technology known as blockchain, which allows data to be decentralized and transactions recorded on a sort of shared digital ledger. This happens across many computers, which means it is easier to verify transactions and difficult to make changes to records independently.

What this means, in simple terms, is that people using the Web 3.0 could do so without having to work with intermediary services from a large tech company like a search engine or social media service. Instead, decentralized applications could be governed more directly by the people who use them, and areas like privacy could be strengthened.

The full definition of Web 3.0 is still something of a work in progress, through. The most common use of blockchain has been in transactions involving cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, but that’s just the beginning. The same technology can support a wide range of decentralized applications, including contracts that “execute” their terms by themselves to more targeted forms of advertising.

The need to begin planning for Web 3.0 now

Canadian small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) could benefit from Web 3.0 technologies in a number of ways, including an ability to develop more innovative customer experiences. If you’re tempted to sit on the sidelines while it all comes together, here’s a word of advice: Don’t.

Unlike previous iterations of the web, companies that are quick to harness the power of Web 3.0 could gain a competitive advantage over others in their industry. In fact, the eighth edition of Salesforce’s State of Marketing report suggested it could be a means to grapple with the challenges brought on by the deprecation of third-party data services.

“For the 46 per cent of marketers who don’t yet have a Web3 strategy, unique digital assets like cryptocurrency, the metaverse, and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) could present new opportunities for brands to collect first-party data as the end of the cookie nears,” the report said.

If you’re not sure how to get started with Web 3.0, you’re probably not alone. Fortunately, the best approach follows the same kind of strategic thinking that has always defined the most successful SMBs:

1. Tap into trusted sources of insights and expertise

Your business may not be on the cutting edge of Web 3.0 today, but you’re likely working close to other companies that are.

This includes vendors whose products make up your existing tech stack. Ask them for a briefing on how they see decentralized applications transforming their product roadmaps, and what it will mean for companies like yours.

You can also reach out to partners, suppliers, and even some of your best customers to see where they’re exploring or applying Web 3.0 in the short and long term. This is a great way to benchmark yourself against other companies and inform a more tailored strategy for your business.

2. Reimagine what ‘customer experience’ could mean in a Web 3.0 world

You’ll never go wrong by walking a mile in your customer’s shoes, even if few of them have begun the journey to Web 3.0 yet.

Consider a day in their lives and, based on what you learn about Web 3.0, how the way they spend their time might change. How could Web 3.0 offer more use cases for technologies like augmented reality (AR), for example? Where might the use of Web 3.0 lead to more dynamic peer-to-peer interactions within communities of customers? Could you create NFTs that integrate some kind of value to change the way you reward customer loyalty?

Don’t forget what Web 3.0 means for the work that happens behind the scenes to deliver these experiences. Your strategy should think about the impact on employee journeys as well as customer experiences.

3. Evaluate the connection between Web 3.0 and your most important KPIs

One thing that doesn’t change with Web 3.0 is the old adage that you can’t manage what you don’t measure.

Think about your biggest business goals and the key performance indicators (KPIs) you’re using to track your progress today. These could include customer acquisition cost, churn, Net Promoter Score (NPS) or customer satisfaction (CSAT).

Your strategy for incorporating Web 3.0 technologies could contribute positively to these sorts of KPIs. This means not only thinking about the products you’ll adopt or the applications you’ll develop. You’ll also have to consider business process changes that will happen and ensure your team will see gains in areas from productivity to collaboration and efficiency.

You may not be ready to have your business develop a defined Web 3.0 strategy. Instead, you might simply pick and choose decentralized applications and related technologies as a way to support or build upon your existing strategy.

We’ll all likely be living in a Web 3.0 before you know it – which is why it’s a good idea to begin thinking about how this next iteration of online experiences could fuel your future growth.

The post How to Build a Winning Web 3.0 Strategy appeared first on Salesforce.

Even when the economy is at its strongest, companies need to justify ROI – otherwise known as return on investment – for every technology purchase they make. Calculating it may vary from one company to another, but the essential formula remains the same. IT should always give back more than you spend.

That “more” could be time savings in the case of some technologies. Others forms of automation may yield efficiencies that lead to greater output per employee, or stronger employee engagement. There are also a number of IT purchases that can lead directly to cost savings, allowing money to be reallocated elsewhere.

ROI is just one aspect of cost optimization, however. Even if you’re getting a lot back from your existing tech stack, you may need to take more steps to ensure operational expenses adjust to changing conditions. Some factors that lead to cost optimization include a slowdown in customer demand, a rise in price for critical supplies, or a need to divert financial resources toward business expansion.

IT costs can sometimes get off track because of a failure to communicate between the stakeholders who matter. Those in the IT department may have deep expertise in the latest tools, for instance, but those at the business function level may have a better sense of what will matter in terms of operational performance or the customer experience.

There are two risks to IT cost optimization, even when it’s clear that it has to be done. You never want to cut back in such a way that your organization will be left behind when competitors take advantage of emerging innovations. You also don’t want to cut back in a way that leaves your business more exposed to the ever-growing range of cybersecurity threats such as malware or DDoS attacks.

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to strike the right balance between getting IT costs in line while also keeping your data protected and your business open to harness the next big thing:

1 . Review alignment between business and IT KPIs

Hopefully when you made some initial IT investments you had some goals that were tied directly into things that matter to the company as a whole. IT-specific metrics like uptime are important, but they don’t matter much if technology isn’t serving your business.

Review your tech stack and how it’s contributing to areas such as customer acquisition cost, churn, Net Promoter Score, or even productivity metrics. If it’s not moving the needle as expected, it might be time to halt your subscription (if it’s a software-as-a-service or SaaS tool), or end an annual contract. You could always invest in something better – and possibly less costly – later on.

2. Assess your product tier decisions

Many SaaS tools are priced with a few different options. At the bottom may be a “basic” tier with essential functionality. This may be at a low cost, or even free. Next up is often a mid-tier, sometimes called “Business” or “Pro.” This will have a more substantial cost but has more features. There are many SaaS products with a third, premium tier, which allows for more users and may have still more features.

Companies are sometimes convinced they should take the business or pro tier first, and might have moved to the premium tier before it was really necessary. Take an audit of the applications being used across each department and see if there are any apps where the basic version will suffice. Changing back to an upper tier should be easy in most cases.

3. Complete your journey to the cloud

There are a surprising number of companies that continue to run on-premise software that isn’t doing them any favours from a financial perspective. These applications can be expensive to replace, difficult to keep updated, and can expose businesses to hackers.

Moving more of your tech stack, on the other hand, means you’ll always be current with the latest version of an application, which bolsters security and lets you take advantage of the latest innovations. Even if there’s an upfront switching cost, it may be worth it in the long run.

4. Move from a buying model to a DIY approach

The next app that transforms the way you do business may not have to come from a third-party developer. In fact, it may not come from a developer at all.

The rise of low-code or even no-code platforms allows people with no programming background to create highly sophisticated tools. This includes people who work in hands-on roles within marketing, sales, and customer service teams. You can wind up with apps that are a better fit for your business but are more cost-effective to create.

5. Consolidate and simplify by embracing a single, trusted platform

Tech stacks can become complicated because there are just so many applications being used. This is as trusted in SMBs as it is in large enterprises. The same solution works for companies at either end of the spectrum: take a platform approach instead.

Businesses that use Salesforce’s Customer 360, for example, have seen 25% lower IT costs. They also get a unified view of customer data that helps bring their whole team together.

IT cost optimization shouldn’t be treated as a short-term project. Think about how you can develop an ongoing process that brings IT and line-of-business team members together to regularly evaluate what’s being spent, and whether something should change. It will leave your business in better financial shape, more secure, and more future-ready than ever before.

The post 5 Cost Optimization Ideas That Won’t Hinder Innovation Or Security appeared first on Salesforce.

It’s okay if it feels like this area of technology has evolved so quickly it’s difficult to keep up. Artificial intelligence (AI) has been discussed in business circles for years now, and many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have been actively learning about how it can be applied to address their needs. This includes sifting through large quantities of customer data to detect trends and predict future customer behaviours.

Those uses of AI continue to represent an incredible opportunity for SMBs to gain a deeper understanding of what’s going on inside and outside their companies. AI can also turbo-charge processes that were previously manual and error-prone, from analyzing shopping cart abandonment rates to spotting fraudulent transactions. Generative AI, however, brings an additional layer of potential value.

The word “generative” means the ability to produce (or reproduce) based on an input. In the case of AI, this means taking language learning models that have been trained on a large data set of online information.

Algorithms can then use this data and create something, such as a piece of content. Depending on the algorithm and the application supporting it, generative AI can develop everything from written answers to questions in a chat to graphic designs.

These kinds of capabilities are bringing AI into areas that few of us might have imagined it could ever play a role. Generative AI can now act as a complement to those writing blog posts or social media copy, for instance, or helping customer service agents quickly formulate the best response across multiple digital channels at once.

The versatility of this technology helps explain findings in a recent Salesforce survey of more than 500 senior IT leaders where 67% said they’re prioritizing generative AI for their business within the next 18 months.

The urgency to capitalize on the promise of generative AI is probably driven by a need to grow customer relationships and drive revenue, as well as a fear of finding themselves at a competitive disadvantage with other firms in the same sector.

Whatever the reason, it’s time to think through some of the customer experience moments where generative AI can provide fast and meaningful enhancements:

1. Bring greater empathy to automated customer interactions

Chatbots have become a staple of many business websites, and with good reason. Whereas it can be costly and impractical to have people on hand to answer customer questions 24/7, chatbots are always-on. Chatbots are also a great use of self-service technologies if they are trained to address FAQs and common customer complaints.

Where things sometimes break down is the tone chatbots take with customers. A frustrated or anxious customer will only feel worse, for instance, if their interactions with a chatbot feel like they’re trying to get help from a robot.

Generative AI can be developed to offer a more nuanced kind of conversation with customers. Based on what customers say to the chatbot, for instance, algorithms can detect the emotional cues to guide more empathetic responses. Just recognizing that a situation has made a customer upset can help them feel heard and better understood, which puts a company in a position to offer improved service and support.

2. Brainstorm a more dynamic mix of content to choose from

Even the most creative business professionals can only produce a limited number of options. No one is going to write a dozen different versions of a first draft of a blog post, for instance. The same is probably true for designing a graphic element to be shared in a social media campaign.

By offering generative AI tools the right “prompt,” marketing teams can quickly produce extra versions of the same idea that can then be A/B tested. This in turn can help hone how an SMB shows up in a given digital channel, or how an idea can be developed over the course of a marketing campaign.

We’ll still need people to conceptualize ideas and vet what generative AI tools produce, but it’s a force multiplier in terms of quantity that can turbo-charge brainstorming and execution.

3. Summarize large documents and files to accelerate time to action

SMBs are often sitting on a treasure trove of data that they simply don’t have the bandwidth to wade through. There are often reams of data captured in surveys, for example, that aren’t used to their fullest potential because it means parsing a huge number of responses that were written in text fields.

This is another area where generative AI can be an ideal fit for the job. It can digest and produce a quick summary that SMBs can then use to inform important business decisions. It can do the same thing with piles of resumes that may contain information about their next best hire, or even books that could assist employees in their professional self-development.

Generative AI is still new enough that those developing the technology probably have a lot more in store that SMBs can use to exceed customer expectations. This is a time to experiment, consider all the pain points your customers and your business might have, and to begin putting it to work.

The post How Generative AI Can Help You Exceed Customer Expectations appeared first on Salesforce.

When a company goes all-in with AI, for example, that means it is leveraging technologies such as natural language processing and machine learning to sift through data at a quantity and scale that would have been unimaginable in the past. In doing so, they are also poised to dramatically enhance their ability to analyze data to develop their business plan and personalize customer experiences.

If there’s one reason companies hesitate to go all-in on AI, it’s probably a fear of the unknown. Unless you have a background in computer science, the inner workings of AI can seem mysterious. Until you’ve begun experimenting with it yourself, it’s not always clear how much you can rely upon AI for business purposes. Some small businesses may assume AI is also something they have to develop internally.

The reality is that AI is quickly being woven into existing technology platforms, including Salesforce’s Customer 360. That means the capabilities that were once reserved for larger entities are now being democratized so that companies of all sizes can take advantage of them.

Bringing AI features into tools small businesses already know and love also reduces the learning curve for employees, and business leaders can have greater confidence because they know the AI they’re using is backed by a partner they already trust.

The key thing to remember is that AI doesn’t have to be confined to some special project, like trying to forecast everything about the future of your small business and its surrounding ecosystem. You can make it a part of your day-to-day operations, so that it becomes deeply wedded to the processes that improve your team’s employee experience along the way.

These are just a few of the AI trends that you help get you closer to going all-in:

1. Improve the hiring process by identifying and removing bias

Finding, bringing on, and retaining the best people is a core part of running any successful business, large or small. Sometimes, though, despite the best of intentions, companies can wind up looking in all the same places for talent – and for all the same kinds of people.

AI can be trained to evaluate potential candidates from specific data and criteria, which means there is a greater focus on appropriate qualifications and experience. This is also a way of supporting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that many companies are recognizing as a critical priority to stay in line with their values and those of their customers.

2. Analyze customer behavior to enhance experiences

Many business processes are designed to become as turnkey as possible. This includes which products and services get featured in marketing campaigns, the steps involved in e-commerce purchases and how product returns are handled. It’s not always clear where these processes might be disappointing or frustrating customers.

It’s impossible for most small businesses to keep an eye on every area that affects customer experiences. AI, on the other hand, can monitor everything at once, and at scale across your entire customer base. That means it can analyze interactions on your web site, your social channels, contact centre and any other channel. It will spot when customers abandon their shopping cart – or stop shopping entirely.

Instead of relying on guesswork or instinct, the customer data that AI analyzes gives you the ability to make changes to policies and practices with greater confidence. In turn, those changes reflect what customers really want.

3. Set up an automated way to create a great first impression

Many retailers have known for years that customers often appreciate being greeted the moment they enter a physical store, where they can explain what they’re looking for and ask for some expert advice. Doing a great job at this stage of the relationship can bode well for the lifetime value you can expect from those customers.

There was no easy way to replicate this kind of greeting online until the advent of AI. Now, however, tools like chatbots can act as dynamically and helpfully as a highly experienced store associate, or even the way a small business owner would with a new prospect. One of the most “intelligent” aspects of this use of AI is the ability to train such chatbots to route customers to a live human when needed.

4. Protect customers from the risk of fraud

There are obvious advantages in developing a digital experience where customers can create detailed accounts and profiles to manage their purchases and wishlists. There’s always the danger, however, that their personal information could be compromised by a third party that somehow got a hold of their access credentials.

AI takes fraud detection to a new level by being able to look through a treasure trove of historical data on each customer, including what they’ve bought in the past and when they tend to log into their account. This can be coupled with business rules that immediately block a suspicious login or a transaction using stolen usernames and passwords.

5. Brainstorm more (and better) ideas for marketing assets

A lot of small businesses want to do a better job of updating their blog, newsletter or social channels with compelling content. They often lack the time to come up with topics and themes that will work, though. Recent developments in AI can help here too.

Generative AI, for instance, can respond to prompts where you ask about the common pain points or priorities of a particular customer persona. The technology can provide a slew of concepts, or make it easier to develop outlines and even rough drafts of a content marketing asset. This can also become highly personalized, which is a huge opportunity: In fact, Salesforce Canada’s Consumer Experience in the Retail Renaissance report found that 40% of the business leaders surveyed use AI to personalize content across all channels.

Are you ready to go all-in with AI? There’s no question the technology is ready for you.

The post 5 Artificial Intelligence Trends To Focus On To Take Your Small Business To The Next Level appeared first on Salesforce.