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  • What is Salesforce Service Cloud?

    What is Salesforce Service Cloud?

    Inboxes inundated with support cases; forgotten post-it notes highlighting priority tasks; and customers with missing orders being emailed asking for reviews. Common customer service pains leading to poor ratings and reviews are alleviated by adopting Salesforce Service Cloud – a comprehensive solution designed to transform customer service operations and provide a seamless, omnichannel experience. By leveraging Service Cloud, companies can streamline their support processes, enhance agent productivity, and ultimately delight their customers.

    Features and Functionality:

    Omnichannel Support

    Service Cloud offers a unified platform for managing customer interactions across multiple channels, including email, phone, social media, and self-service portals. This omnichannel approach ensures that customers receive consistent and personalised support, regardless of the communication channel they choose. Agents have a complete view of customer histories and can seamlessly transition between channels, providing a seamless and efficient service experience – no matter the device or location.

    Case Management and Automation

    Salesforce Service Cloud simplifies case management by providing a centralised hub for tracking and resolving customer inquiries and issues. Agents can easily prioritise cases based on customisable criteria, ensuring that high-priority matters are addressed promptly. Additionally, Service Cloud offers powerful automation capabilities, allowing organisations to automate routine tasks and workflows, reducing manual effort and improving efficiency. This has been further enhanced by Salesforce’s Einstein AI capabilities, where agents can intuitively respond to customers, view the next best actions, recommend appropriate products and produce knowledge articles – all in a few clicks. Salesforce even offers fully customisable chatbots that can respond to queries and arrange bookings without the need for a live agent!

    Knowledge Management

    With Service Cloud’s robust knowledge management system, organisations can create and maintain a comprehensive knowledge base of articles, FAQs, and troubleshooting guides. Agents can quickly access this information, enabling them to provide accurate and consistent responses to customer inquiries. Furthermore, customers can access the same knowledge base through self-service portals, empowering them to find solutions independently.

    Service Console

    The Service Console is a unified desktop application that provides agents with a 360-degree view of customer information, including cases, contact details, and interaction histories. This comprehensive view enables agents to deliver personalised and informed service, enhancing the overall customer experience. Additionally, the console’s customisable layouts and screen-pop capabilities streamline agent workflows, boosting productivity and efficiency.

    Analytics and Reporting

    Service Cloud offers robust analytics and reporting capabilities, providing organisations with valuable insights into their customer service operations. Customisable dashboards and real-time metrics enable managers to monitor performance and SLAs, identify bottlenecks, and make data-driven decisions to optimise service delivery. These insights can inform strategies for improving customer satisfaction, agent productivity, and overall operational efficiency.

    Integration and Customisation

    Salesforce Service Cloud seamlessly integrates with other Salesforce products, such as Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud, as well as a vast ecosystem of third-party applications and services. This integration capability ensures that organisations can leverage a comprehensive suite of tools and data sources to deliver a truly unified customer experience. Additionally, Service Cloud offers extensive customisation options, allowing companies to tailor the solution to their specific business needs and processes. Perhaps a repair shop wants to amend Entitlements, reducing wait times for loyal customers, or a parcel company wants to provide customers with real-time order updates – Service Cloud has the power to delight the customers of any industry.

    By implementing Salesforce Service Cloud, organisations can provide a consistent and personalised experience across all touchpoints. With its powerful features, robust analytics, and seamless integration capabilities, Service Cloud empowers companies to exceed customer expectations, build brand loyalty, and drive business growth.
    To learn more about what Service Cloud could do for your organisation, give us a call on 01453 703230 or email us at hello@performa-it.co.uk. Take a look at our article ‘The Lowdown on Salesforce Service GPT’, for a closer look at Einstein functionality!

  • What is Salesforce Sales Cloud?

    What is Salesforce Sales Cloud?

    Sales Cloud was the pioneering service launched by Salesforce. Chances are, if an organisation uses Salesforce, they began their journey with Sales Cloud – but what does Sales Cloud actually do?

    In today’s competitive business landscape, sales teams need powerful tools to streamline their processes, manage leads effectively, and close more deals. Salesforce Sales Cloud is a comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) solution designed to empower sales teams and drive revenue growth. With its robust features and seamless integration capabilities, Sales Cloud has become the go-to platform for organisations worldwide.

    Features and Functionality:

    Lead Management and Nurturing

    Sales Cloud provides a centralised hub for managing leads from various sources, including website forms, marketing campaigns, and third-party integrations. Sales teams can easily capture, qualify, and prioritise leads based on customisable criteria, ensuring that no potential opportunity slips through the cracks. The platform’s lead nurturing capabilities allow sales reps to create targeted email campaigns, track engagement, and move leads through the sales funnel efficiently.

    Opportunity and Pipeline Management

    Sales Cloud offers a comprehensive view of sales opportunities and pipelines, enabling teams to track deals from initial contact to closed-won. Sales reps can access real-time data, forecasts, and customisable dashboards, providing visibility into the sales process and helping them prioritise their efforts. Automated alerts and reminders ensure that no critical task or follow-up is missed, contributing to a smoother and more productive sales cycle. Team members can also work together on opportunities, assign tasks, and provide visibility into the sales process, fostering a collaborative environment that drives success.

    Account and Contact Management

    Sales Cloud’s account and contact management features allow sales teams to maintain a comprehensive database of customer information, including notes, communication history, and account hierarchies. This centralised repository ensures that sales reps have access to up-to-date and accurate data, enabling them to deliver personalised experiences and strengthen customer relationships.

    Automation and Productivity

    Sales Cloud offers a suite of automation and productivity tools designed to streamline sales processes and eliminate manual tasks. Sales reps can create customisable templates for emails, quotes, and proposals, reducing the time spent on repetitive tasks. The platform’s workflow automation capabilities allow teams to automate routine actions, freeing up time for more strategic activities. Additionally, with Salesforce’s advanced AI capabilities, the CRM’s automation and personalisation capabilities have reached new heights, creating tailored, meaningful customer experiences with a few clicks.

    Reporting and Analytics

    With Sales Cloud, sales teams can access real-time reports and analytics, providing valuable insights into sales performance, pipeline health, and customer behaviour. Customisable dashboards and data visualisation tools enable sales leaders to identify trends, make data-driven decisions, and optimise sales strategies for maximum impact.

    Seamless Integration and Customisation

    Sales Cloud seamlessly integrates with other Salesforce products, such as Marketing Cloud and Service Cloud, as well as a vast ecosystem of third-party applications and services. This integration capability ensures that sales teams have access to a comprehensive suite of tools and data sources, enabling them to work more efficiently and effectively. Additionally, the platform offers extensive customisation options, allowing organisations to tailor the solution to their specific business needs and processes.

    Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, Salesforce Sales Cloud provides a powerful and flexible sales management solution. By leveraging its robust features and integrations, sales teams can streamline their processes, foster collaboration, and ultimately drive revenue growth and customer satisfaction. You can completely customise the out-of-the-box solution, perfectly adapting the CRM to your business processes. With this, Sales Cloud provides the tools to serve and support your business as it grows.

    To learn more about what Sales Cloud could do for your organisation, give us a call on 01453 703230 or email us at hello@performa-it.co.uk.

  • “So, what does Mulesoft actually do?” 

    “So, what does Mulesoft actually do?” 

    An introduction to the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform and its key benefits

    One of the most Googled questions of late relating to the CRM ecosystem is, amusingly, ‘what does Mulesoft actually do?’. And it’s a good question! Mulesoft is a ‘middleware’ tool, a type of software that acts as an intermediary layer between different applications. Therefore, it is a little more challenging to visualise the unique benefits of the MuleSoft anypoint platform.

    We spoke to one of our experts to understand exactly what MuleSoft offers customers.

    So, what actually is MuleSoft?

    ‘MuleSoft is a software, known as middleware, that acts as an intermediary between different apps, systems, or components to facilitate communication, data exchange, and integration. [It] plays a crucial role in connecting disparate technologies and enabling them to work together seamlessly.’

    And what would you define as ‘middleware’?

    ‘Middleware provides a standardised way for diverse software components to communicate, share data, and perform coordinated tasks… [It] can be applied in various scenarios, such as integrating applications, managing communication between systems that use different languages, and supporting the development of complex software solutions.

    In summary, middleware enhances interoperability and efficiencies by bridging the multitude of applications, tools, platforms, and systems used by an organisation.’

    Why is it important for different applications in a business to ‘talk’ to each other?

    ‘For example, imagine if your customer data is stored in a third-party marketing automation tool, your customer service database and your website chatbot. A customer might have an issue with a faulty product, and use the chatbot to address this. They may then receive emails advertising said product, and become irritated that their experience is not personalised. They might speak to a service agent to complain, and the agent may not even be aware that this is an issue as the marketing team owns the chatbot feed, causing further frustration for the customer and the team!’

    ‘As systems can speak many different languages, if they are not integrated, your customer becomes dissatisfied due to a lack of accuracy and personalisation, and your teams become frustrated due poor communication and siloed data.’

    What are the benefits?

    ‘I think the main benefit that MuleSoft provides is time. In my experience, IT teams are inundated with day-to-day challenges and requests, so lack the time to make improvements or innovate. Otherwise, I would say that the core benefits are:

    • Seamless integration
    • Uninterrupted connectivity
    • Scalability
    • Customer satisfaction
    • Low-risk deployment’

    Could you provide a use case example?

    ‘Sure. A common example is a mid-large business that has gone through a period of sustained growth. They might have up to fifty different tools for various processes such as project management, DevOps, training, marketing, compliance, customer service, etc. These tools are brimming with various data sets about employees, finance, opportunities, processes and customers. As the company grows, it adds more and more platforms and the data becomes siloed, disconnected. Not only can this affect employees in the way I explained previously, but it means the IT team are inundated with requests for support, information, new integrations and enhancements to accommodate new systems.’

    ‘MuleSoft provides the functionality for IT to quickly integrate software and convey each ‘language’ so that data is accurate and visible across all platforms utilised by the business. This ultimately saves time and improves the experience for all stakeholders.’

    What type of businesses does it serve?

    ‘Mulesoft can serve any business, in any industry, but we definitely recommend the platform to growing organisations, or those who have recently experienced growth surges, to create a single source of truth and prevent duplication, errors and silos in data.’

    In summary, MuleSoft offers users a straightforward suite of user-friendly tools and standard APIs, connectors, and pre-built templates which equip teams with the mechanisms they need to orchestrate seamless data transfer and holistic visibility across an organisation and provide a 360-degree view of each customer.

    To learn more about how Mulesoft can support organisations looking to scale seamlessly, give us a call on 01453 703230 or email us at hello@performa-it.co.uk. Take a look at our article ‘How Mulesoft Works’, for a more detailed overview of the MuleSoft functionality!

  • DPD Ireland achieve holistic customer view with Performa

    DPD Ireland achieve holistic customer view with Performa

    DPD Ireland Statistics

    • Founded 1986
    • Based in Athlone Co. Westmeath
    • Expanded from 10 to 35 depots
    • Handling over 35 million parcels per year
    • Ireland’s largest and most technologically advanced dedicated parcel delivery company

    Value added by Performa IT

    • Engaged in 2017
    • Sales process, CRM/account management, contact centre and customer comms solutions
    • On-going monthly Salesforce support
    • Major integration with parcel system planned 2021/2022

    DPD Ireland’s Background with Salesforce

    DPD Ireland’s implementation journey with Salesforce began in 2017.

    Having steadily grown over the previous 30 years to become Ireland’s largest and most technologically advanced parcel delivery company, they were investigating CRM platforms as their next logical step.

    Given the progress their sister company, DPD UK, had made with Salesforce, this was always front of mind in the selection process.

    Maeve Dwyer, who was DPD Ireland’s Head of Customer Services and Marketing, describes here the experience of sponsoring Performa IT to deliver the Salesforce implementation from 2017 to 2020.

    DPD Ireland’s Challenge: disjointed view of customer accounts

    “As our business has grown it has become more and more difficult to manage customer information on paper, in spreadsheets and on shared drives,” says Maeve.

    “With an expanding customer base it is almost impossible to keep track manually of details, events and cases that occur during each customer journey.

    “The risk of delayed responses, missed opportunities and the difficulty in reporting on service performance and customer value was no longer tolerable.”

    DPD Ireland’s requirement: streamlined processes and holistic customer view

    “Salesforce ticked all the boxes for what we required,” Maeve asserts.

    “We needed a much more robust method of gathering and managing customer and account information.

    “We wanted to centralise all our customer information for consistency, and to have accurate and reliable business intelligence.

    “Streamlining our processes to populate, maintain and update our account information in one place means that we can deliver a holistic view by customer across marketing, sales and customer support, right up to the executive decision-makers.”

    Why Performa IT?

    “We knew from our colleagues in DPD UK that Performa IT had worked very well with them in the implementation of their Salesforce programme,” Maeve comments.

    “With similar requirements, and with confidence in Performa IT’s understanding of the DPD UK set up, we wanted to leverage off what had been achieved there.

    “When I first met Performa IT I found them to be honest and straightforward and they quickly won my trust. I felt that I could rely on them to do the right thing for DPD Ireland, and I was confident that they had our back.

    “Unlike other consultancies I’ve come across they aren’t just about selling the biggest solution. They have a good way of communicating that builds the relationship, ensuring that we were fully aware of what would be required to make the project a success, and explaining in a language that suited the various audiences they dealt with throughout the project.”

    Performa IT implementation approach

    Describing Performa IT’s implementation approach Maeve says: “The team at Performa worked with us to plan the different phases of implementation.

    “Sales and CRM were the first modules over the line followed by the Customer Services piece.

    “With Brexit on the horizon we had much to do internally to bring our systems up to speed so that they could work with the new requirements of both Irish Revenue and HMRC.

    “Thankfully when Covid hit we were already ‘in the cloud’ with Salesforce so this made the transition to working from home easier.”

    Solutions

    End-to-end CRM/Sales Process/Document generation and Docusign

    The initial implementation of CRM and Sales included automated quoting, pricing, document generation and validation.

    “We now capture all the details from leads to conversions and customer interactions, which gives the account managers great information at their fingertips,” says Maeve.

    “It looks great to customers and means that the account management team can run their own reports.

    “There’s been huge buy-in to the platform and Salesforce has definitely become the bible of conversion information.”

    Salesforce Service Cloud

    Commenting on the functionality for the contact centre Maeve says: “Performa IT helped set up Salesforce to receive all customer emails and distribute them to our customer service team for action.

    “Our call centre team pick up each case and complete key fields that then link back to the account. This means that each case is categorised, and we can produce reporting that helps us trend issues and deal with the source of recurring problems.

    “Along with our Vonage telephony system, which is also integrated with Salesforce, we now have a complete picture of all customer contact and cases.”

    Pardot Marketing Automation

    DPD Ireland invested in Pardot from Performa IT primarily to assist in communications to existing customers.

    “This has been really useful with regards to price increase notifications, as well as regular comms and updates about service challenges and things like Brexit and Covid,” Maeve explains.

    “We haven’t really used it for marketing as such, but it’s been especially useful to generate an audit trail against each customer of what information and communication they have received from us. This makes account management conversations more targeted and direct.”

    Benefits of Performa IT’s implementations

    Customer intelligence

    “Performa IT have helped us achieve a great CRM solution by putting all of our customer detail in one place,” says Maeve.

    “This drives so many benefits for DPD Ireland, including increased efficiency, greater proactivity around issues and service, greater insight into customer value, and greater professionalism in the way we communicate.”

    Streamlined conversions

    Commenting on the impact of Performa IT’s integrations, Maeve says: “The introduction of Docusign definitely makes a difference to the sales process.

    “Being able to get customer sign-off quickly and securely has been a very persuasive factor in driving adoption!

    “So there’s been great uptake of the platform within end-to-end sales.”

    Ease of deployment and on-boarding new staff members

    “Since the Salesforce solution is cloud-based this makes it much easier to expand and contract our team when necessary,” explains Maeve.

    “Our peak months at DPD Ireland are October to December, so in that sense we are a seasonal business.

    “We have seventy contact centre agents operating across multiple sites. The Salesforce cloud model makes this more straightforward.”

    Better performance management across Customer Service

    “Having a standardised platform across all of our customer service teams means that we can manage performance and effectiveness better,” says Maeve.

    “This also gives us a way of controlling our outsourcing spend to ensure we’re getting value for money.”

    Proactive profitability reporting

    “Customers, Parcels and Cases are the three pillars of our profitability so it’s crucial that we can simply and easily track and analyse how these elements are performing within the business,” says Maeve.

    “Performa IT have enabled us to get the best out of Salesforce to provide this management information and support better decision-making.”

    New Possibilities arising for DPD Ireland with Salesforce from Performa IT

    Integration with parcel system

    “At the moment, our customer service teams have to swivel between two systems to track parcels for callers and email enquiries,” Maeve explains.

    “But the next big chunk of work that Performa IT will be helping us with is the integration of the customer account information with our parcel system.

    “This will mean that there will be a one-stop shop for our teams to track parcels by customer.”

    Recommendation

    “I have no hesitation in recommending Performa IT for Salesforce implementations,” Maeve affirms.

    “It’s a complex platform with enormous potential as long as it’s put together properly. Performa IT are very practical and hands-on, and their focus is on saving us time and money without forcing any particular solution.”

    Performa IT says

    “Maeve and her team at DPD Ireland are great to work with. They push ideas forward and want to get the most out of the platform – which makes our job easier!

    “It’s been a difficult time with Brexit and Covid, which have caused some delays to key integrations.

    “But the DPD Ireland IT team have made good use of the time, preparing APIs in advance, so the integration with the parcel system planned it is likely to go smoothly and guarantee very positive ROI.”

  • Get your Salesforce Cloud Back-ups handled!

    Get your Salesforce Cloud Back-ups handled!

    From £2.25 per user per month

    As an organisation powered by Salesforce you mean business.

    Your business is serving your customers and delivering the best experience for them in your marketplace.

    Your business is NOT system administration, IT management and back-up processing.

    These are things you NEED – but they are NOT things you want to be handling yourself.

    Salesforce is awesome… …but your back-ups are on you!

    While Salesforce is the beating heart of your IT infrastructure and your company and customer data, it’s your responsibility to make sure that you protect it through secure, regular, automated and on-demand back-ups.

    In Salesforce’s own words, they say: “The data recovery process takes a minimum of 6-8 weeks to complete, and we cannot guarantee 100% data recovery.”

    You’ve got a business to run. You need to have a reliable data recovery process. You need to be confident about recovering 100% of your data in minutes – not weeks.

    You need to get your back-ups handled.

    Salesforce Cloud Back-ups by Performa-IT – so what?

    You need a back-up partner who understands the importance to your organisation of Salesforce and its data. You need a back-up partner who has thought of everything you require for:

    100% confidence
    Peace of mind
    Compliance
    Ease of use
    Cost and Time efficient

    What you get

    With Salesforce Cloud Back-ups by Performa-IT you will benefit from:

    Full back-up automation daily using Amazon S3 secure storage
    Flexible back-up schedule
    On-demand back-ups
    Easy, usable controls
    Customisable settings
    Fast and secure recovery
    Full audit and GDPR compliance
    Proactive alerts and status monitoring
    Choice of worldwide AWS datacentre locations (UK, EU, Canada, US, Australia)
    Access to knowledgeable experts who understand the Salesforce platform
    Full testing, training, help and support
    Guidance on data retention policies – with an UNLIMITED backup retention period
    Opportunity to define your Salesforce Disaster Recovery plan

    No matter the size of your business…

    …Salesforce is a vital part of your enterprise ensuring you operate efficiently, effectively and profitably.

    Backing-up your Salesforce platform every day, and whenever you need to, is your business continuity insurance.

    You need a back-up partner who will not just set up the right technology and deliver the right functionality, but who will also bring you Salesforce expertise, guidance and knowledge to add value to your enterprise.

    Talk to us TODAY about getting your Salesforce back-ups handled – and achieving complete peace of mind, plus lots more, for just £2.25 per user per month.

  • Providence accelerates growth with Salesforce by Performa

    Providence accelerates growth with Salesforce by Performa

    Providence Statistics

    • Founded 2008
    • Based in Herefordshire, UK
    • Specialists in surveillance, intelligence, and equipment provision
    • Serving customers exclusively in government, military and law enforcement sectors
    • Delivering training, specialist equipment, technical solutions, managed services and consultancy

    Value added by Performa IT

    • Engaged February – September 2020
    • Health check, custom enhancements, integrations and training
    • Business process design and definition
    • On-going trusted advisor

    Background

    Providence is a small organisation of highly skilled specialists offering training, consultancy, and managed services to global clients in defence, security, intelligence and law enforcement.

    The Providence Board had invested in Salesforce to enable better insights and management decisions around their opportunity pipeline.

    However, they needed an implementation partner who would understand their business approach and the sensitivities and requirements of their customers.

    Here Chief Operations Officer at Providence Mark Pearson describes how Performa-IT have been instrumental in helping them up-level their use of the platform and maximise its value to the organisation.

    Providence’s Challenge: risk of losing opportunities

    Having worked with Salesforce in a previous role, Mark could see that the system was not being used to its full potential at Providence.

    “We are fortunate to have a good volume of opportunities at Providence,” he says, “but the development of the Salesforce system wasn’t keeping pace with the way we wanted to use it.

    “Although the intention was to consolidate our operations and interactions, this wasn’t really happening. As a small team, we were more focused on picking up the opportunities in front of us than using the system to its full potential.

    “This meant that opportunities weren’t as streamlined or organised as they should have been, and this was impacting our conversations and ability to commit to customers.”

    “Fundamentally we needed to use Salesforce as a means to focus our efforts and better manage our opportunities,” says Mark.

    “We also needed to improve the visibility of our revenue-generating activities, so that we could make better decisions about our cashflow.”

    Why Performa IT?

    Without an effective implementation partner Mark and his team at Providence knew that they would have an uphill struggle trying to improve adoption and return on investment from the Salesforce platform.

    In Providence’s search for help Salesforce put them in touch with Performa IT.

    “When we eventually met Performa IT, we found everything about them to be fantastic,” Mark affirms.

    Performa IT implementation

    Approach

    “Performa do a really good job of listening to all the nuances of business challenges,” says Mark.

    “Given the profile of our products and services our own approach is extremely consultative. It’s effective because our consultants have lots of operational experience, so can truly advise clients from their own expertise.

    “Performa are similar. They don’t just understand the software, they also understand the business context that the system architecture needs to support.

    “They work hard in the background to optimise the system and customise the platform to suit the way we work.”

    Solutions

    As well as conducting their usual trademark health check and immediately identifying some ‘quick-win’ enhancements to system configuration, Performa IT also worked with Providence to redefine and design some crucial business processes.

    “I’ve been extremely satisfied in situations where I know I’m reaching for something that Salesforce may not have – yet Performa have leveraged an API or created a way of delivering a solution within a few days,” Mark says.

    “Performa seem to enhance the platform before our eyes and make it increasingly useful!”

    Benefits of Performa IT’s implementations

    Mark makes no hesitation in attributing Providence’s growth to having a clearer lens through which to view their business.

    “Partnering with Performa IT has been a key part of our success and business decision making since we selected them in late-2019” Mark asserts.

    “We could not have progressed as we have without an effective partner helping us with Salesforce. Performa IT have made sure the platform has developed and flexed around and behind us as we’ve needed it.

    “Performa take an agnostic and rounded view,” comments Mark. “They are very helpful in highlighting how much value we can squeeze out of Salesforce and have helped inform and develop our business processes”

    Recommendation

    “Performa IT are absolutely trusted with all our Salesforce requirements,” says Mark.

    “If you’re a business leader, whatever thing is niggling in your brain that demands some dedicated systemic attention, value adding IT consultancy, or bespoke software development, you definitely need to talk to Performa.”

    Performa IT says

    “The Providence team are a lovely bunch of highly experienced and specialist professionals.

    “It has been a privilege to help and advise them with their Salesforce implementation. We’re pleased to have supported them so effectively on their journey, and look forward to assisting them with more challenges in future.”

  • DPD UK make Call Centre savings 500% more than expected with Performa

    DPD UK make Call Centre savings 500% more than expected with Performa

    DPD UK Call Centre Solution Statistics

    • 700 Customer Service Advisors
    • 6 contact centres
    • 2.75 million calls per annum
    • 1.7 million email conversations
    • 500 000 chats

    Value added to DPD UK’s Call Centre platform by Performa IT

    • Project began January 2020
    • ‘Wireframe’ approach to Customer Service path analysis
    • Complete overhaul of Salesforce Service Cloud implementation and integration using Lightning
    • Soft launch end April 2020
    • Help in reducing Average Call Handling Time (AHT) by at least 15 seconds, making £500k more savings than expected

    DPD UK’s Call Centre Background

    DPD UK has been a Salesforce customer since 2010 and has been using Service Cloud to manage emails since 2013, customer telephone inquiries since 2014 and live chat in 2016

    Prior to the use of Salesforce, with no integration between call handling and the organisation’s operational systems, Customer Service Advisors had a very fragmented view of customer, parcel and case information.

    In 2019, DPD UK took the opportunity to review their current Salesforce implementation to see what could be improved.

    ‘Using the best technology is key to DPD UK,” says Head of Salesforce Adam Hooper. “We are always reviewing our current solutions to ensure they provide the best experience for our employees and customers.”

    DPD UK’s Call Centre Challenge: poor system availability and usability

    “Salesforce is very powerful in the customer service arena, but we weren’t fulfilling the true potential of the platform,” says Adam.

    “In the previous system the information was not readily available, and our Advisers had to do a lot of scrolling,” says Adam.

    “There were also limits on the amount of refreshes we could do within the system, which meant that information was static rather than dynamic. Our Advisers had to go searching for updates, which meant that interactions were taking longer and ultimately costing more.

    DPD UK’s Call Centre requirement: flexibility, maintainability and efficiency

    “With the new features and flexibility that Salesforce Lightning in Service Cloud now offered it was an easy decision to kick off a transformation project to move to Lightning and reinvent how our call centre Advisors were using the platform,” says Adam.

    To ensure all areas of customer services were represented and their ideas fed into the solution, DPD UK and Performa IT held two full days of workshops where ideas were discussed, and a rough solution was developed.

    “We actually said to the call centre management ‘go crazy, tell us all your ideas, we are confident we can do most things’,” comments Adam.

    “Moving to lightning allowed us to build new components that would assist the Advisors in resolving queries faster and more importantly in automating many of the previously time-consuming tasks they had to do.”

    Guided Customer Service Paths

    As much as possible, and to make on-boarding new starters the most straightforward it can be, DPD UK wanted the platform to guide and prompt Customer Service Advisors through their workflow, from parcel tracking enquiries, complaints, changes and collection issues, to credit management and exports. The new system would tell advisors the available options and the questions to ask, rather than advisors having to remember from their training.

    Enhanced automation

    DPD UK required emails, case comments and system field updates to be automated to make Advisors’ interactions more straightforward and ultimately reduce the time advisors spent working on enquires. At the volume of enquires DPD UK handles, any reduction in time, even seconds, adds up to meaningful savings.

    Reduced risk of processing limit breaches and improved Average Call Handling Time

    To reduce processing time there was much to do to quickly assimilate all the required information and ensure painless access to other systems. This was key in reducing the average call handling time also. DPD UK wanted to shave at least 15 seconds off each call on average, amounting to an annual saving of £150 000.

    “Strategically we want the Salesforce platform to be doing all the heavy-lifting in terms of call centre processes, so staff can just come in to work and have everything they need to do their job available in front of them,” says Adam.

    Why Performa IT?

    As DPD UK’s trusted and long-standing Salesforce Consulting partner since 2016, Performa IT was called in to tackle the Call Centre redesign and system upgrade.

    Having worked on DPD UK’s previous Service Cloud solution including the development of Entitlements, Milestones and complex custom code, Performa IT already had deep knowledge of DPD’s Service Cloud set up to draw on.

    “I had 100% confidence that Performa IT are knowledgeable enough development experts to understand what we wanted to achieve and then deliver it,” says Adam.

    Performa IT implementation approach

    Requirements Analysis

    Using “low fidelity” MS Powerpoint wireframes, Performa IT worked closely with DPD UK frontline user representatives to analyse the essential conditions and paths through the complete set of customer service scenarios.

    Depending on the answers to scripted service questions, the concept of “available actions” was used to narrow down the options facing an Agent and trigger further resolution paths.

    Design Principles

    In resolving the processing capacity issues Performa IT were keen to identify the critical success criteria of the Service Agent’s experience.

    These included the need to always stay within the Salesforce Service Cloud console, and to have automated case and task execution at the click of a button.

    Swift presentation of information, direct and seamless access to DPD UK’s core parcel delivery system as well as on screen guidance about available actions guaranteed good performance during live phone conversations.

    Code-based build

    The key consideration in development was to avoid performance issues that would jeopardise the Agent’s experience during each customer service call and incur costly processing cap breaches.

    DPD UK and Performa IT therefore made the joint decision to customise and configure as much as possible.

    This involved developing APIs and building Lightning components to execute workflows as efficiently as possible.

    Commenting on the implementation approach taken by Performa IT, Adam says:

    “Performa IT helped us understand more and more about what was possible during the implementation. This inspired us to evolve the features further to enhance what was delivered.

    “Since Performa IT work in a very fast and agile way they were able to provide an optimal solution to our Service team.”

    Results and Benefits

    “Our Salesforce Call Centre implementation was completed in four months,” says Adam. “My team in collaboration with Performa-IT delivered all of the items the Call Centre management asked for and many more.

    “12 weeks post-implementation we started to see some incredible results that smashed our original expectations.

    “For example we originally specified a AHT reduction from 5 minutes 40 seconds to 5 minutes 25 seconds.

    “In reality the AHT was slashed to 4 minutes 21 seconds – 5 times more than we’d anticipated!

    “Where we were hoping to achieve annual call cost savings of about £150 000, we’ve actually achieved a direct saving of over £500 000 more!

    “And this is without factoring in the indirect savings associated with quicker on-boarding, error reduction and customer and Agent retention.

    “These results are spectacular and have prompted Salesforce to showcase our solution. They send big corporate clients to us to demonstrate what we’ve done.”

    New Call Centre Possibilities arising for DPD UK

    “The flexibility in the new platform means that there is pretty much nothing we can’t do with it,” says Adam.

    “For example instead of incurring a weeklong development to add the option of delivering parcels to shops we were able to add it straightaway, like magic.

    “The possibilities are endless because the development cycle has been shortened drastically thanks to the platform’s flexibility.”

    Recommendation

    “Performa IT is made up of the exact calibre of people I would want to recruit,” says Adam.

    “They are smart people who make things happen and I’m constantly recommending them!

    “They are part of the entire process, from collaborating on requirements and design to technical architecture and making sure what we implement in the Call Centre doesn’t break the rest of the system.”

    Performa IT says

    “We love working with DPD UK!

    “They have been the catalyst for our growth and helped us motivate brilliantly skilled developers who really know their stuff and are passionate about our clients’ success.

    “We are thrilled that the solution for DPD UK is such a beacon for Salesforce too. It’s a useful reference point and Case Study for them. They have also adopted some of the architecture for their own products.

    “We’re looking forward to helping Adam and his team achieve more in the future.”

  • The Lowdown on Salesforce Service GPT

    The Lowdown on Salesforce Service GPT

    AI (Artificial Intelligence) is the phrase on everyone’s lips and minds in the software universe. And, of course, Salesforce is staying ahead of the innovation curve, releasing Einstein GPT, the World’s First Generative AI for CRM. Generative AI is the next gen development of predictive AI, where the “machine” is training itself within billions of parameters, rather than humans training AI with notable limitations. This means that AI can independently create new things from learned information.

    So, what is Einstein GPT?

    Einstein GPT is built around human interaction, helping the AI learn continuously as it works in tandem with service agents. The aim for this new Salesforce innovation is to reduce service costs by driving agent productivity with the help of AI. Salesforce are always leading the way for Saas enterprises, and have been investing in the benefits that AI can bring to their customers since they brought out Sales Cloud Einstein in 2016 to score leads and predict outcomes. Now, Salesforce boasts an “autonomous enterprise”, with heightened response and understanding that will elevate customer experience. Einstein will now be able to answer agent and customer questions using data from relevant sources, build landing pages, write apex code, create personalised communications and direct marketing and even live chat to customers with value adding, intuitive responses.

    With a focus on ethical development and usage, Salesforce addressed four core principles when developing their new generative AI in order to empower human users with accuracy, safety, honesty and sustainability:

    1. Trust: human centricity in automation, verifying AI suggestions and insights for continuous improvement
    2. Relevance: rooted in CRM data
    3. Security: constructed on Hyperforce, Salesforce’s latest infrastructure, purpose built across all clouds
    4. Ecosystem: partnering within the space to offer freedom of choice for customers

    How does it work?

    Salesforce has forged partnerships with AI innovators and regulators such as OpenAI, Cohere & Anthropic to ensure the highest standards of security. Built on the LLM (Large Language Model) Gateway, Service GPT thus has a central governance solution protecting Personal Identifiable Information (PII) – therefore not exposing colleagues’ or customers’ sensitive data to open AI.

    Service GPT’s mission is to fine tune CRM data with humans involved at every interaction. As the product is constructed on Hyperforce’s fully GDPR and EU Data Privacy compliant architecture, Service GPT can intuitively generate responses and answers that are even further enhanced by the insights of Data Cloud. Note that using Data Cloud is not a requirement for Service GPT. However, the more data – the more powerful your AI, and therefore your agent, will become.

    Meeting customer needs with high productivity – a use case example:

    Perhaps you are a Customer Service Agent working for a health and beauty retailer. A customer inquires about the products you offer for individuals with dry skin, once you accept the incoming chat bot query, Einstein Replies will make a suggestion using the available data. As the agent, you are in full control of the loop, you can adjust (rewrite reply), edit (amend manually) and accept the response to keep it appropriate and relevant to the customer exchange. A product recommendation is made, but Einstein also pulls in CRM insights using your company’s marketing data. This individual is a loyal customer who purchases your sun cream and tanning products every year at the start of Summer. Einstein suggests notifying your customer about a new, hydrating sun cream and sending them a discount code for their purchase to get them the best deal (using your Sales Cloud data).

    Your customer happily ends the chat and goes to browse your new sun care range. Einstein then highlights the ‘next best action’ which may fire off a marketing campaign featuring an article on the top tips for retaining your holiday tan. You will be able to access a summary of the chat and provide feedback on the Service GPT suggestions; were they relevant, helpful and intuitive? As the agent, you even have the opportunity to create a Knowledge Article off the back of this interaction. This will allow future customers to easily identify the best SPF products for those prone to dry skin without even entering a chat! You can save the draft for the Marketing department to review and publish, further enhancing your company’s productivity.

    We are so excited to see the incredible results of Service GPT when it is brought to market next month. Want to find out more about how you can personalise every customer interaction and response without sacrificing productivity? Give us a call on 01453 703230 or email us at hello@performa-it.co.uk.

  • Hyperforce: Salesforce Update

    Hyperforce: Salesforce Update

    Starting from August 13th, Sandboxes and Scratch Orgs may route to Hyperforce, the next-gen Salesforce infrastructure architecture run on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Your Production and Sandbox Orgs will also be scheduled to migrate to Hyperforce up until January 2024.

    Why Hyperforce?

    • Improved performance for Production, Sandbox and Scratch Orgs
    • Advanced agility and reliability, with zero downtime updates and faster dev and test environments, as the Hyperforce infrastructure is composed of code rather than hardware
    • Increased autonomy regarding your data residency and compliance
    • Elevated privacy standards and security

    What does this mean for me?

    Now is the time to start preparing your org for uninterrupted migration into Hyperforce. Salesforce offers a handy Hyperforce Assistant that will guide you through the process. Administrators will be prompted to open the Assistant once Salesforce schedules your org to update. Don’t worry if you don’t see the prompt but are scheduled for a mass org migration, you can manually launch the Assistant from Setup.

    You will need to ensure that your Sandbox and Scratch Orgs run effectively with the new update. Note that Salesforce Express Connect can’t provide your users with direct connectivity to Salesforce once your org transitions to Hyperforce. It is recommended that you contact your Salesforce Account Executive (and consulting partner, if applicable) to address this change if you are a Salesforce Express Connect user.

    If you are concerned about any service disruption or difficulties, email us at hello@performa-it.co.uk or give us a call on 0117 23 2390 to talk to our friendly experts!

    Reference:

    Introducing Hyperforce – General Information – Salesforce.com (May, 2023)

  • Salesforce Edge: What you need to know

    Salesforce Edge: What you need to know

    Salesforce Edge is an update incorporated in the 2023 Major Summer Release. It will be deployed to improve the network experience with accelerated download time and improved content delivery consistency.

    What’s Happening?

    Salesforce is deploying Salesforce Edge for Production and Sandbox orgs that use My Domain. This change involves updating the routing settings on the My Domain setup page, enabling auto enablement of the Salesforce Edge Network for your organisation.

    What are the Benefits?

    Salesforce Edge Network establishes secure connections, reduces connection setup time, and brings Salesforce services closer to the user on trusted infrastructure. This change will make sure that, no matter where you are in the world, your experience with Salesforce will be the same. When you use Salesforce, your requests will be sent to the closest Salesforce location, which means the information will reach you faster. Overall, it will make your experience smoother and more efficient.

    The auto enablement is expected to begin in July 2023 and can be opted out if necessary.

    Salesforce assures users that following the recommended best practices will minimise any potential impact to their service. For more details and to stay updated, users are encouraged to refer to the Salesforce Edge knowledge article.

    If you are concerned about any service disruption or difficulties, email us at hello@performa-it.co.uk or give us a call on 0117 23 2390 to talk to our friendly experts!

    Reference: What is Salesforce Edge Network? Salesforce.com (November, 2022)