Salesforce – a popular IT platform that has become synonymous with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. According to a study by International Data Corporation (IDC), nearly 19.5% of the world’s businesses use the robust suite of software applications.

This widely used IT system comes with a plethora of highly useful features, which when combined with its unrivaled user-friendliness make it the preferred CRM platform of businesses. According to a report, users of Salesforce are able to reduce the time needed to make decisions by almost 38%, increase their sales revenues by nearly 25% and improve customer satisfaction rates by approximately 35%.

7 Salesforce-enabled Trends that Will Rock the Corporate Landscape

1. Delivery of Seamlessly-connected, Fully-contextualized Experiences Across All Channels

The number of customers demanding fully-connected, perfectly-contextualized buying experiences across all channels is growing, and this trend is only likely to continue. In fact, the results of a survey conducted by Salesforce reveal more than 76% of B2B buyers expect companies to ensure seamless interactions and comprehend how they use the organizations’ products.

However, providing good contextualized buying experiences on demand can be a daunting task, as customer data is gathered at multiple touchpoints, through various channels. “Companies interact with clients using different channels – their websites, social networks, e-mails, phone calls and in-person visits to customer offices. Ensuring all this data is utilized in real-time to delight customers is very difficult,” a leading dedicated Salesforce partner. “Businesses need a powerful solution that will enable them to get a 360-degree view of the customer.”

Salesforce Commerce Cloud is the solution that businesses rely upon to get the big picture of their customers’ needs. “Commerce Cloud helps companies get a single view of customer activities across marketing, sales and service, no matter where they occur. This empowers the organizations to have the right interactions with the customer at all touchpoints, across all channels,” explains Sudhakar.

2. Efficacy of Employee Healthcare Systems Set to Improve Considerably

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has made employee health the top priority of organizations. Companies want to ensure their people are able to work together with clients, prospective customers and business partners safely. To meet this requirement, Salesforce has come up with Health Cloud 2.0, a user-friendly solution that will help firms ensure the safety and well-being of their employees.

Salesforce has developed novel products to combat the pandemic. They have released a robust vaccine management solution, which is used extensively across the world. Health Cloud 2.0 will empower companies to organize safer in-person events for their people, clients and other stakeholders. The product facilitates hassle-free management of attendee registrations and verification of COVID-19 vaccination status. The product will also be very useful to ensure effective implementation of the hybrid work model, which many firms are embracing.

The Salesforce product also allows businesses to streamline contact tracing. Companies can collect all required data from people who are infected by the virus or exposed to it. Organizations can also develop visual maps of contacts to identify and prevent likely outbreaks.

3. Development of Apps to Engage Customers Will Become Easier

Salesforce pulled a coup when it announced that it has acquired Slack, a leading provider of digital collaboration solutions. IT industry analysts across the world debated about the impact of this acquisition but everyone agreed that it was a truly groundbreaking development, for a good reason – the deal would enable Salesforce to marry the app-building capabilities of Slack with its own products that allow users to communicate and work effectively.

Salesforce’s acquisition of Slack will enable users to integrate different apps (including those developed by non-Salesforce companies) with the CRM platform in a hassle-free manner. This will go a long way in enhancing productivity considerably. Organizations will get seamless access to the largest open eco-system of business apps, as a result of the acquisition. The online collaboration platform comes with a robust architecture that enables it to connect with more than 2400 apps.

As you can see, the strategic deal between Slack and Salesforce will help users of the latter to connect more effectively. The integration of these two platforms will play a key role in giving a boost to the use of business apps in 2022.

4. Accuracy of Lead Scoring Is Likely to Increase Significantly

For decades, companies relied on intuition and guesswork to predict whether a prospect would turn into a dollar-giving customer. However, over the last few years, many firms started using predictive analytics to forecast a sale in a very precise manner, and this trend will continue in 2022 – the new Salesforce Sales Cloud Einstein Lead Scoring will help organizations forecast deals very effectively. The Salesforce product helps perform forecasts using solid data, ensuring high levels of accuracy.

“Salesforce Sales Cloud Einstein Lead Scoring leverages data pertaining to customer behaviors, actions of competing firms and engagement of prospects with high efficacy, to recognize unique patterns that enable a business to assess whether a prospective client is likely to make a purchase. You can also identify potential deals that are at risk and initiate appropriate steps to prevent them from getting lost,” says Vikas Chilimkoti, Manager (Inside Sales) of Solunus. “Sales reps can utilize their time more optimally, as they have a good idea which prospects they need to pursue.”

5. Automation of Business Processes Will Be Simpler and More Efficient

The world of business is in the midst of a major transformation – as revenues plummet due to the COVID-19 pandemic and demands of customers grow with each passing day, organizations are relying on innovative solutions to boost their efficiency levels and cut costs to remain competitive. One of the key initiatives launched by companies to combat the effects of the pandemic is automating their business processes. A report published by McKinsey showed nearly 66% of organizations are piloting the automation of at least one of their business processes. Salesforce has come up with a novel tool called Einstein Automate to meet the ever-growing demand for business process automation.

Firms need to automate their marketing and business processes in very short timeframes in the wake of the pandemic, and this can be very challenging – automation efforts executed in too short a period often fail to deliver results; companies and their employees require time to adapt to an automated environment. Einstein Automate resolves this problem, and this is why the Salesforce product is a real game-changer.

The tool can be used to automate business processes with very little or no coding. From simple transactions such as recording entries in a sales register to complex processes such as Order-to-Cash (O2C), companies can automate any business workflow with ease.