While many have heard of Salesforce, they may get confused when they hear us talk about Sales Cloud or Customer Communities or Salesforce CPQ. The way we like to think of it is that Salesforce as a whole is an ecosystem and different products like Sales Cloud or Communities naturally grow out of that ecosystem.
Salesforce offers many products built on its powerful platform (you can find a complete list here) and we’re going to help by providing an overview of them as well as some of our favorite features.
So for starters…
Salesforce Communities
Salesforce communities are awesome and can be used in many different ways depending on the needs of your organization. You can use them entirely as an internal communication platform, but they’re also incredibly helpful as a platform to communicate and share information with your customers and partners. They give a small glimpse into your Salesforce world by granting them access to a subset of data to make their lives and your agents’ lives better.
Before You Implement this Cloud
Before you implement this cloud, the only thing you really need is the licenses for the community. However, depending on the type of community you are building, you’ll want to make sure you have the correct processes in place to get the most out of your community. For instance, if you’re building a customer community, you’ll need case processes in place so you can give your customers the best experience possible. Additionally, for customer communities, in most cases, you’ll want Salesforce Service Cloud up and running as well.
On the other hand, if you’re implementing a partner community, setting up your sales process and Salesforce Sales Cloud in advance so your partners don’t experience hiccups in the community will ensure you’re able to give them the best experience possible.
Common Use Cases
Reduce call volume to call center
One of the most common uses of Salesforce Community Cloud is reducing call volume to customer service centers. By implementing a customer community, you’ll be able to provide a self-serve knowledge base so customers can answer commonly asked questions, solve simple problems themselves or submit cases online.
Partners to share deals with
If you work with partners in the selling process, the Community Cloud provides a centralized location to communicate with your partners as well as provide the knowledge base they need to partner with you effectively.
Central platform for partners or customers to communicate
In the Community Cloud, you can offer customers or partners the opportunity to communicate with each other. Here, they can ask questions of each other and help each other troubleshoot any issues.
Sharing reporting data with partners
Salesforce Community Cloud is also an excellent place to share reports that are relevant to partners you do business with. This helps them stay on top of all real time data related to the business deals you do together.
Custom Features
CPQ collaboration with partners
If your sales team already uses Salesforce CPQ, you can use Community Cloud to offer your partners the same quoting process as the rest of your sales team. This collaboration feature keeps your quoting and sales process consistent even when you involve partners in the process.
Self-serve knowledge base
You can also leverage Community Cloud to offer your customers and partners a self-serve knowledge base so they can quickly and easily find answers to questions they have. By offering them access to frequently asked questions and articles about your product or service, you’re able to reduce the number of customer service calls you receive and free up agents to deal with more complex cases.
View other similar cases
You can also allow customers to see other cases submitted by their colleagues. This information can help them resolve their case more quickly and on their own.
Collaboration in chatter and groups
Partners, agents, and customers can all collaborate and communicate on one simple platform to resolve any issues quickly. This also allows the opportunity for customers to work together to solve problems.
Our Favorite Features
Prebuilt themes
Salesforce Community Cloud has some beautiful prebuilt themes that keep your customer experience intuitive and engaging. The drag-and-drop build feature makes it simple for you to adjust your pages on your own without code.
Customers can manage their data
Once you give your customers access to your community, you can also allow them to manage and update their own data so they don’t need to call in to make an address change or update information.
Security
Salesforce manages and encrypts logins for your customers, so the burden of storing private data is not on your shoulders. So many customization options The Community Cloud can be customized just about any way you want so that it fits your needs. This opens the door to use cases that are unique to your company and allows you to create the perfect tool for your team.
Sign up and check out these trailheads to learn more about Community Cloud!