by Mike Walsh | Jan 2, 2019 | Blog, Salesforce Tips
Happy New Year to everyone! 2018 is in the books and 2019 is officially here. It’s been a big year for Salesforce, and of course, for us Salesforce experts and consultants. As always, the platform is growing to service a bigger audience but also working to provide better solutions and functionality for those already using it.
Last year saw tremendous advances in the areas of AI, Security (GDPR), automation, big data and the Internet of Things. So what can we expect in the world of CRM in the coming year? Well if, its anything like last year, quite a lot!
The growing trends in just about every area of business and sales revolve around the ever-increasing amounts of information and data out there, and how they are used, analyzed and processed. People want to make sure their data isn’t being manipulated, but they also want better and more relevant interactions from brands. Companies are challenged to not only collect as much data while maintaining trust but then needing to figure out how to understand that data to grow.
According to Salesforce’s fifth annual “State of Marketing” report, released in December 2018, 84% of those polled said that being treated like a person rather than a number is essential to winning their business. With all of this in mind, it should come as no surprise that Salesforce is likely going to focus on Customer Experience (CX) in the following year.
What is the idea behind CX?
In a nutshell, you can think of it as a new piece of the value proposition. Customers are finding how they are treated to be increasingly more important, and purchase decisions are not just on the quality of product or service alone.
So how will Salesforce likely move in this direction? There are 3 main areas that come to mind:
- Customer Data and Personalization
- Connecting with customers and making them feel valued. Giving them a curated experience and not just a one-size-fits-all response. This is what people are looking for. It’s all about personalization, and the more personal you can make the customer’s experience, the better.
- Collecting customer data is how companies are able to customize each customer’s experience. Not just the obvious things like their name and address, but minute data points that begin to tell the bigger picture of their needs, wants and habits. Look to Salesforce to roll out many different tools and add-ons that make that customer experience ever more personable
- AI
- In 2018, Salesforce pushed pretty hard to get their AI software, Einstein, into the minds of customers. Watch for it to really begin to take root in 2019. Relying on computer analytics to give quality recommendations naturally takes time to adjust to, but sooner or later, it will take hold. Or at least, this is the bet that Salesforce has gone all in on.
- AI can allow companies to get ahead of the game and be proactive with regards to their customers’ needs. Some new areas you may begin to see AI in are voice-to-text functionalities, spam filters, sales forecasting, smart searches, and sentimental analysis.
- Marketing Automation
- Automation is not a new buzzword. But it sure is important in just about every area. Who wouldn’t want to take a 10-hour manual process and reduce it down to a couple of simple keystrokes?
- Increased marketing automation means companies can interact with their customers not only more, but at the right time! So when you really need a new bottle of shampoo and an add comes up reminding you, well that’s pretty good customer experience.
- Salesforce has been working diligently with both Pardot (B2B) and Marketing Cloud (B2C) in the last few years to continue adding features and streamlining their marketing automation options. 2019 should continue this trend.
Read more here about the shift toward Customer Experience
As an added bonus, (and to back up the point that Salesforce is very much thinking about Customer Experience), we found a great article on their own blog, with some of their 2019 predictions, in regards to retail.
Some of their predictions include:
- Integration of customer data across systems will become imperative
- Subscription commerce will get a big boost
- And purpose-driven brands will thrive!
Read the full article here
-Ryan and the CloudMyBiz Team
CEO of CloudMyBiz Salesforce CRM consulting services with a deep knowledge in the lending industry. Taking keen interest in the project management side of operations, playing a vital role in the 31% YOY company growth. Strategic leader, mastering the ability to problem solve at every level of the business, providing effective solutions for clients.
by Mike Walsh | Dec 19, 2018 | Blog, Salesforce-Apps-AppExchange
Sales and service calls come with their share of built-in challenges and stresses. From calling leads to dealing with current customers, it can be challenging enough to properly solve the issues at hand. So why would you use a dailer and call service that only makes it more challenging? With the InGenius app, you get all sorts of features to make your calls smoother and integrates a number of the most common phone systems directly to Salesforce.
InGenius CTI helps contact centers increase productivity and provide a better customer experience with features like click-to-dial, screen pop, call logging and Omni-Channel integration.
Check it out here!
CEO of CloudMyBiz Salesforce CRM consulting services with a deep knowledge in the lending industry. Taking keen interest in the project management side of operations, playing a vital role in the 31% YOY company growth. Strategic leader, mastering the ability to problem solve at every level of the business, providing effective solutions for clients.
by Mike Walsh | Dec 5, 2018 | Blog, Salesforce Tips
At CloudMyBiz, we are in the business of providing the best possible solution to our clients for the best possible price. That usually means one of two things.
First is that for any client who has a specific need, particularly in the niche market of Alternative Lending, the best solution may be to build out the necessary functionality on top of our FUNDINGO frameworks.
The second option is implementing and integrating 3rd party apps. After all, if we can leverage an already built app, and take advantage of that company’s unique knowledge and specialization, why would we want to re-invent the wheel?
Conga
In regards to 3rd party apps, one of the highest rated and recommended apps, built on the Salesforce platform, is Conga. We recommend Conga over and over to our clients, and in particular FinTech companies, because, simply put, Conga delivers fantastic results in areas that FinTech companies need a reliable option.
Conga is a suite of AI-powered solutions that focus on automating documents, contracts and the processes surrounding them. Conga solutions include:
- Contract Lifecycle Management
- Document Generation
- Data and Process
- eSignature
- AI
Benefits for FinTech
To put it into a nutshell, when FinTech companies use Conga, they can speed up processes, automate workflows, reduce overhead, and reduce errors. Below we overview some of the best options for FinTech:
Contracts in Salesforce
- Conga allows the users to quickly and seamlessly draft and send out contracts, with essential data pulled directly from the account in Salesforce. The signed contracts can them be sent back directly to Salesforce, and the account updated.
- For FinTech companies, where deals need to be made with a matter of hours or days, this is an essential time saver and ensures contracts won’t fall through the cracks. Turnaround times on deals decrease by 80%
- These are some of the most popular Conga products and used by many CloudMyBiz clients. They help you create professional looking documents, in just about any format, including email, Word, and PDF. Of course, because it is connected to Salesforce, you can easily populate your docs with your hard earned business data. Conga also offers the option for online collaborative documents, so you and your team can work on them together, from anywhere.
- FinTech relies heavily on documents, for just about all parts of the business. You not only need professional, easy to read and use documents but in order to manage risk, you need to make sure those documents are error free! You can send out essential emails, pulling aggregated data from multiple sources, and focus on selling, rather than admin tasks and creating docs.
- In addition, Conga offers add-ons to their core document apps for:
- Simplifying mass mailings
- Creating & sending batches on a custom schedule
- Generate docs from event triggers
Data and Process
- Data, workflow, and processes are some of the trickier products to build. Conga, however, has done a great job with theirs. Admins can embed automated, repeatable processes in Salesforce to increase record keeping, reduce administrative tasks and encourage user engagement. In addition, you can automatically log activities, create follow-up tasks and even update fields with a click of a button.
- Data entry and manual processes are the number one complaint we hear from FinTech companies.Whether it is reviewing/analyzing bank statements, calculating deal terms or populating borrower information, there is a lot of data to process, and it all has to be done flawlessly. The Conga data and workflow tools are an easy way to help companies streamline their processes.
eSignature and AI
- While not part of Conga’s core offering (their bread and butter is documents), it only made sense for Conga to expand and handle related processes like eSignature and AI.
- For any business, FinTech or otherwise, if you can easily integrate eSignature to your documents, it will save you a lot of time. Document review AI is another big time saver. If you need to analyze your documents, organize and ensure you aren’t missing out on valuable insights, AI systems are the way to go.
So in conclusion, no matter what business you are in, but particularly FinTech, Conga can help your business. After all, documents, contracts and processes are central to most companies out there, so why wouldn’t you want one of the best solutions to handle this essential part of your business?
-Ryan and the CloudMyBiz team
Want to discuss adding Conga to your Salesforce solution? Need to get started with Salesforce?
Contact one of our Salesforce specialists now and see how we can find the right solution for you
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CEO of CloudMyBiz Salesforce CRM consulting services with a deep knowledge in the lending industry. Taking keen interest in the project management side of operations, playing a vital role in the 31% YOY company growth. Strategic leader, mastering the ability to problem solve at every level of the business, providing effective solutions for clients.
by Mike Walsh | Dec 5, 2018 | Blog, Salesforce-Apps-AppExchange
Any app or tool that can help a salesperson contact more leads and increase conversions is a good thing. How do you do that though? One way is with a Sales accelerator like Ring DNA. Ring DNA is a predictive dialer, that helps you quickly cycle through call lists, automate voicemail, and prioritize better leads. What’s more, RingDNA Local Presence enables you to call prospects using local area codes, greatly improving the likelihood that your hottest leads will answer the phone.
Have 4X more conversations with RingDNA’s outbound sales acceleration & inbound CTI & call tracking. Dial more leads, have more conversations & more revenue.
Check it out here!
CEO of CloudMyBiz Salesforce CRM consulting services with a deep knowledge in the lending industry. Taking keen interest in the project management side of operations, playing a vital role in the 31% YOY company growth. Strategic leader, mastering the ability to problem solve at every level of the business, providing effective solutions for clients.
by Mike Walsh | Nov 29, 2018 | Blog, Salesforce-Apps-AppExchange
Remember back when IBM’s Watson became the champion of Jeopardy! Sure, it almost seems unfair to pit humans against data storage machines, but we did it anyway. Now, Watson has moved beyond trivia and is working to make our businesses faster, and smarter. Designed for Service Cloud users, Watson Discovery for Salesforce proactively identifies case resolving content and improves search results through continuous relevancy training, powered by machine learning.
Watson Discovery for Salesforce is designed to give your agents the information they need to resolve customer cases quickly and efficiently, no matter where it lives, right from within the Salesforce Service Cloud
Check it out here!
CEO of CloudMyBiz Salesforce CRM consulting services with a deep knowledge in the lending industry. Taking keen interest in the project management side of operations, playing a vital role in the 31% YOY company growth. Strategic leader, mastering the ability to problem solve at every level of the business, providing effective solutions for clients.
