The manufacturing landscape is a broad environment, home to everyone from sustainable energy companies to producers of major healthcare technology. Sometimes, the CX strategies implemented by companies in this sector don’t just improve customer relationships, they can also help organisations in making the world a better place.
When leading energy and manufacturing brand, ENGIE decided it was time to do its part in delivering a zero-carbon future, they knew they needed the right CX tools to drive results. By implementing CX technologies, ENGIE ensures it can help its customers reduce their own carbon footprint.
CX tools allow team members to provide personalised advice on the kind of renewable energy, smart technology, and energy-efficient solutions each client might leverage. With help from Salesforce, ENGIE has been able to successfully build its brand-new business model of “zero carbon” solutions as a service – making the world a cleaner, more sustainable place.
Let’s take a closer look at how ENGIE and Salesforce are working together.
Building the Perfect Customer Service Strategy
French manufacturing company, ENGIE, decided in 2016 it was time to eliminate any business processes which weren’t sustainable in a zero-carbon world. One of the pioneers in the clean energy movement at the time, the brand chose to focus more of its business operations on solutions capable of saving the planet and reducing energy waste.
With the rise of this new strategy came a new business model “Zero carbon transition as a service”. According to the CEO of ENGIE, Isabelle Kocher, the new mission of the brand homed in on supporting global, innovative, and tailor-made solution needs of customers making the transition to a more energy-efficient landscape.
A Salesforce customer since 2010, ENGIE has a long-standing relationship with the leading CRM and sales company. Salesforce was a clear choice for the company’s technology needs when it began to introduce the new zero-carbon business model, as it could offer a 360-degree view of each customer.
With Salesforce, ENGIE can effectively track and understand customer journeys across more than 70 countries. By gathering information on a regular basis, the company can create services specifically tailored to the needs of its diverse audience.
Making a Revolutionary Idea Successful
According to Isabelle Kocher, the team believed the future of energy began with a new commitment to decentralisation in energy production, digitalisation, and decarbonisation. These concepts have only grown more relevant over the years. With the introduction of zero-carbon transition as a service, ENGIE had a revolutionary idea and value proposition. However, the company also knew it needed tools that were just as revolutionary to make the concept a success.
Building on an existing investment in the Salesforce environment, ENGIE decided it needed a common customer relationship management system capable of supporting the global needs of individual customers in their ecosystem. The Customer 360 platform from Salesforce was the obvious choice, according to Kocher, as it allowed the company to maintain a completely client-centric and global approach with their operations.
Ensuring continued client-centric operations was a significant focus point for ENGIE. They believed the only way to deliver suitable solutions to companies making their transition into more sustainable processes, was to go bespoke. By understanding a client’s energy usage, the ENGIE team could better determine the best way to sustainably reduce it.
According to ENGIE’s EVP, Yves Le Gelard, if there was one company ENGIE trusted to put the customer first with their technology, it was Salesforce. It didn’t take long for the team to confirm that Salesforce was the ultimate strategic partner for their needs at a defining time in their roadmap.
Everything the ENGIE brand does today can start with the customer in mind, thanks to the central and focused technology of Salesforce Customer 360. The technology allows ENGIE business units to share intelligence about what customers want and need, developing a deeper understanding of the target audience overall.
A Comprehensive Salesforce Deployment
While Customer 360 from Salesforce forms a central part of the ENGIE strategy for CX success, the company has also deployed a number of other tools from the Salesforce portfolio over the years. To drive sales for zero-carbon solutions as a service, ENGIE also uses Tableau CRM and Sales Cloud to provide sales teams with insightful information in a convenient single pane of glass.
Employees can get immediate information on which customers need new energy solutions to meet sustainability targets. CPQ for communities and marketing cloud also allows the brand’s marketing team to create seamless experiences for customers across every touchpoint.
When the company decided to launch a new consultancy business, to help companies in executing their sustainability strategies, they also leveraged the AI features of Salesforce Einstein Analytics, to help cross-sell and up-sell to existing customers.
Service Cloud and Field Service Lightning are two other crucial parts of the Salesforce toolkit leveraged by ENGIE today, empowering more than 100,000 field technicians with instant access to useful information and team support.
Looking Ahead to a Brighter Future
ENGIE’s long-standing relationship with Salesforce has only grown more powerful over the years, as the company has invested in a host of new technologies to strengthen CX across a variety of new market offerings. The company is now forging ahead with its goal to be a leader in zero-carbon transitions for companies looking to contribute to a more sustainable world.
With Salesforce technology, ENGIE is reaching its goal of aligning organisations around a deeper understanding of the customer, and intelligent, data-driven strategies for encouraging positive change. In addition to a successful customer-centric transformation, the company is also using Salesforce technology to enhance employee-centric digital transformation too. ENGIE uses service and sales cloud technology to align teams and give them access to more of the information they need in the moment.
According to ENGIE, the values of Salesforce resonate with their own. Salesforce is bold, forward-thinking and caring – all aspects that are important to ENGIE’s own identity.
