Salesforce Bolsters Its CCaaS Solution with New Automation Features

New automation capabilities and an upcoming Service Catalog are the latest additions to Service Cloud

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Salesforce Bolsters Its CCaaS Solution with New Automation Features
Contact CentreCRMNews Analysis

Published: September 15, 2022

Charlie Mitchell

Salesforce has added many automation capabilities to its Customer 360 portfolio, strengthening Service Cloud in the process.

While enhancing its CCaaS solution, the vendor packaged several AI-driven innovations within a new “Service Catalog”, which it will release later in 2023. saaThese aim to support contact centers in automating transactional contacts faster.

These contacts include refunds, returns, and subscription-related tasks, with bots removing agents from the equation and supporting the modern, autonomous customer.

In doing so, Salesforce eases the agent workload with AI, a common theme within its latest Service Cloud release wave.

Consider how the vendor aims to boost agent productivity through its unified desktop. Now, it offers AI-powered recommendations and spotlight customer information pertinent to the call.

Furthermore, the addition of Flow Automation Packs allows contact centers to mechanize many manual processes relating to customer onboarding and managing tickets.

Finally, Salesforce has added new routing features, which direct customers to the most appropriate channel as per their activity navigating the company website.

In releasing all these new features, David Schmaier, President and Chief Product Officer at Salesforce, hopes to help businesses cut costs.

“In times of uncertainty, it’s critical for companies to focus on greater intelligence and efficiency while staying flexible and resilient to external pressures and changes in customer expectations,” stated Schmaier.

With Salesforce Customer 360, businesses can automate to save time and money so they can spend their valuable resources on what matters: driving intelligent and personalized customer and employee experiences.

As Schmaier infers, the new Salesforce releases extend beyond its CCaaS offering, with further AI-driven enhancements added to its Sales, Marketing, and Commerce Cloud solutions.

Other New Customer 360 Innovations

An Einstein Bot for the Sales Cloud is in the pipeline for later in the year. The solution tee-ups customer engagements with sales reps during customer journeys that cross the company website.

Typically, these bot solutions pop up as soon as a customer visits a website, asking: “How can I help?” Such offerings often cause frustration, adding another unnecessary click of the cross button to every online journey.

However, the Einstein Bot for Sales offers greater sophistication. It appears at specified moments to answer queries, connect customers to sales reps via Slack, and schedule meetings automatically.

“Enablement” bots are also now available on Sales cloud as an agent-assist option, using data to suggest tasks to reps, preventing sales opportunities from slipping through the cracks.

Some of this data may come from Salesforce’s Customer Data Platform, which it is pulling closer to its Customer 360 portfolio to help break down data silos.

Marketeers may now harness the CDP alongside external segmentation tools, thanks to new API options that offer greater flexibility and scalability. As a result, it becomes easier to create and share segments within the platform.

By adding more detail to customer accounts and bringing that into Marketing Cloud, new personalization opportunities come to the fore.

Finally, advances to the Commerce Cloud include a new Store Associate app. The innovation aims to recognize in-store customers. In doing so, it funnels their purchase history and relevant recommendations to associates, paving the way for more personalized in-store interactions.

Alongside this, Salesforce recently added a new composable storefront to the platform. It is split into a front and back end, enabling developers to quickly customize the customer view without altering the buying journey’s mechanics.

However, perhaps this is not the full extent of Salesforce’s fall innovation, as many will anticipate many more announcements ahead of its upcoming Dreamforce event. So, stay tuned!

 

 

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