Salesforce is the #1 customer relationship management (CRM) platform out there. Salesforce has solutions for your sales, marketing, IT, service, and commerce teams that allows you to get the full 360 view of your customers. We've helped our clients use Salesforce for a variety of different business goals and optimized the platform for a business's particular processes and teams. Here are some Salesforce Trends to keep an eye on as 2021 goes underway:
1. Advanced Analytics and Reporting
We all know a clean data set and accurate analytics have been critical for improving business processes and functions for a long time. In 2021, companies are moving to a more predictive data model so they can anticipate the future actions of their customers based off of previous behavior. By knowing what your customers do on the internet, what they like, what they visit repeatedly, and what they share (to name a few), data analysts can deduce trends and patterns of behavior to determine what a customer is likely to do in the future. This information can be used for better targeting, content marketing, and a more informed sales and customer service process.
2. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI is becoming a component of our everyday lives. Many of us have AI in our household products as a general consumer - Google Homes, Alexa, Voice-activated Smart TVs and remote controls, iRobot vacuum cleaners, etc. - so why wouldn't we use AI in our business? Salesforce Einstein is the first comprehensive AI for CRM. The main benefits Salesforce Einstein users have seen is increased team productivity, informed marketing predictions, community engagement, and uncovered insights. In fact, Salesforce experts believe that AI-CRM integration could lead to enhanced revenue globally by $1.1 trillion by the end of 2021.
3. Student Success Hub
Student Success Hub is a new platform designed to aid schools in tracking, planning, and assisting students with their overall educational and vocational needs. Student Success Hub allows teachers, parents, and administrators to holistically view students success across extended periods of time, provides success plans relating to behavior, grades, and attendance alerts, and creates advising pools and actively tracks student success against pre-defined goals.
4. Heightened Demand for User Experience
In 2020, a large part of the global workforce went entirely remote. This means more methods of remote and asynchronous communication is a priority (as is evidenced with Salesforce's acquisition of Slack). The days of walking by a colleague's desk and asking them to show you how to do something looks very different now and digital interruptions are a very real contributor to extreme multi-tasking and screen fatigue. Our Targeted UX Assessment can uncover complex workflows, unused capabilities, or time-consuming user tasks that could all benefit from simpler, more efficient user flows.
The aforementioned Salesforce trends in 2021 are feasible for almost every industry that is looking for a profitable change for the new year. The emergence of these trends are a direct result of growing user needs, especially from the digital-first environment many of us experienced in 2020. You should consider what Salesforce trends your business or school could benefit most from and make a plan for implementation for this year and into the future. For any assistance with Salesforce implementation projects, please get in touch with a member of our team.