How Salesforce is helping enterprises bond with customers amid pandemic

The San Francisco-based customer-management software maker is providing AI and ML for a variety of enterprises, from tyre makers, adhesives manufacturers to sports apparel and footwear firms

As businesses across India navigate how to engage with their customers in the new normal, Salesforce is playing a key role in digitally transforming the way businesses connect with their customers. 

The San Francisco-based customer-management software maker is providing technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for a variety of enterprises to build a better relationship with customers amid the Covid-19 pandemic. These range from tyre makers, adhesives manufacturing companies to sports apparel and footwear firms.

“It is a customer-centric digital transformation. When we look at organizations, senior leaders and CXOs talking about the pandemic, it is absolutely pushing digital initiatives to the forefront,” said Sunil Jose, senior vice president, Salesforce India, in an interview. “We have had conversations with CEOs who are saying that (instead of)  next 3-4 years for digital transformation they want to get it done in the next 6-8 months.”

Jose said that out of India’s 35 million small and medium businesses, only about 10 per cent are digitally tuned. “Majority of them are all thinking in the same direction about how we make digital transformation happen at a speed which has never happened before,” said Jose.

One of the customers is CEAT, which is India’s leading tyre manufacturers, producing over 35 million tyres annually. Salesforce is helping the firm to use technology to become a truly customer-centric organisation.

A roadblock in CEAT’s journey to customer-centricity was their existing customer-relationship management (CRM). It lacked several functionalities vital to the success of channel operations. The organisation’s data was spread across disparate systems. CEAT sales team lacked visibility into channel operations data and struggled to work efficiently with their vast network. Dealers could not access the information they needed to enable strategic decisions. This is when Salesforce played a key role.

CEAT deployed Salesforce ‘community cloud’ to build a portal for its vast dealer network. By digitising all dealer-related processes on a single portal, it created a self-service platform that delivers a frictionless experience to channel partners. With the ability to manage their orders more efficiently through the portal, CEAT has seen a 1.2 per cent improvement in sales.

Rich features, such as e-claims, e-catalogues, and warranty registration, help the firm deliver a transparent and consistent customer experience. 

“Using e-claims, a dealer can instantly settle a customer’s claim through the app,” said Ritesh Arora, chief digital officer at CEAT. This has reduced the claim settlement time from two working days to instant settlement in 50 per cent of cases across the channel.

With complete dealer information now available on Salesforce, CEAT is using all that rich data to create a customer 360 dashboard for their sales teams. The dashboard offers them the convenience of staying updated on everything from dealer performance to financials, achievements, targets and upcoming visit dates.

“Our dealers tell us that everything they want is now available at their fingertips. They have clear visibility into stock, performance, and transparency into financials,” said Arora.“With information available on their mobiles, our salespeople no longer have to carry their laptops around, and look through multiple, lengthy reports to get a clear picture of dealer performance.”

Salesforce is also leveraging ‘commerce cloud’ in the retail sector in India. One such customer is sports apparel and footwear major Puma India which has partnered with Salesforce. The aim is to provide its digitally-savvy consumers with an unmatched user experience online that reflects the brand’s high-quality in-store presence.

E-commerce has always been a big priority for Puma. However in the current pandemic situation, online is a more convenient option for consumers to shop. With the vast volumes of customer data now available in a single view, Puma is able to better understand what consumers are buying and personalise their experience accordingly.

“The new normal has also catapulted the number of first-time online shoppers,” said Jackson Fernandez, associate director and head, B2C e-commerce, Puma India. “Salesforce ‘commerce cloud’ has enabled us to handle the surge in volume and meet consumer demand consistently.”

Jose of Salesforce said e-commerce has become an integral part of all businesses as ‘the store that never closes.’ He said that empowering companies to create personalised commerce experiences initiated anytime and anywhere and spanning multiple channels is an incredibly important part of how to keep an edge in the current scenario. “Puma has chosen Salesforce ‘commerce cloud’ to enable their teams to deliver a truly 24/7 online customer experience,” said Jose.

Salesforce is also assisting Pidilite Industries Limited to sustain its growth and form new bonds with customers. Pidilite is a leading manufacturer of adhesives and sealants, automotive and construction chemicals and craftsmen products. With a global presence across Asia, the UAE and Africa, Pidilite’s Fevicol brand has become synonymous with adhesives to millions in India.

Pidilite is adopting innovative methods for marketing products to consumers. It has a growing range of hobby products under the Fevicryl brand which also engages with influencers, teachers and others interested in crafts. It is an effective strategy as the influencers organise workshops to share their knowledge of Pidilite products and demonstrate them to consumers.

The only challenge was that, until recently, signing up influencers, organising workshops, and reimbursements were manual and involved lengthy processes. For Pidilite to grow its network of influencers, it needed to streamline onboarding and facilitate a speedy hassle-free workshop booking process. Pidilite has built an app that does both, using Heroku, a cloud platform as a service (PaaS) supporting several programming languages and which is part of Salesforce.

The ‘Team’ app - a workshop management solution for Teachers - was built in just two and a half months. It is already saving hundreds of hours a month for everyone involved in the programme. 

“It has reduced the cycle time from 45 days to just five and helped Pidilite to increase influencer-enrollments by around 10 per cent. Influencer connect is a key component of our marketing programmes,” said Kavita Jagtiani, chief for marketing – consumer products division at Pidilite. “The ‘Team’ app has seamlessly integrated the touchpoints in our influencer connect program, driven efficiencies and solved real business problems of reach and impact. The app has also helped in further improving our engagement levels with the influencers.”