A great omnichannel customer experience starts with a modern CX automation platform.
Manufacturers struggle to deliver a seamless omnichannel customer experience. This inability to deliver optimal customer service causes high customer churn and low customer lifetime value, both of which negatively impacts profits.
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Research demonstrates that many companies suffer from completely avoidable levels of churn that cost up to $168B yearly up to 89% of companies with significantly above-average customer experiences perform better financially than their competitors.
By adopting modern, automated platforms, manufacturers can deliver an exceptional omnichannel customer experience, reduce customer attrition, and improve profits.
Customers Expect More
Manufacturers can no longer rely on outmoded systems to manage customer interactions. Spreadsheets are cumbersome, time consuming, and error prone. Repeating the same story to multiple people is frustrating to customers, especially if they’re already upset by order delays or problems.
Customers also expect more from the manufacturers with which they transact business. They subconsciously compare manufacturing company interactions with other businesses with whom they conduct business. E-commerce giants have taught customers to expect real-time stock status visibility, easy returns, and automatic shipping updates. There’s even a meme circulating social media playfully comparing the real-time updates among shippers such as FedEx (Your package is at the corner of First and Main), UPS (Your package will be delivered by 2 p.m. Tuesday by Jim) and the US Postal Service (Package? What package?). Customers laugh because they’ve seen the differences among tracking status notifications from consumer companies. Do you even provide tracking numbers and equally as clear shipping notices?
Manufacturers can no longer ignore the technology solutions their B2C counterparts have implemented; their customers experience them all the time and expect more from their interactions. Those manufacturing companies that can offer exceptional service will find themselves growing, while those without automation and innovation will face extreme competitive pressures.
Omnichannel Customer Experiences Should Be Seamless
Decades ago, when the internet was new, consumers complained about inconsistent customer experiences from their favorite retailers. Conversations with call center representatives couldn’t be accessed by store associates. Internet purchases couldn’t be returned at a local bricks and mortar store. The list of channel disconnects grew, until consumer companies, recognizing the issues, pulled out all the stops to fix the underlying infrastructure and technology issues that prevented a seamless omnichannel experience.
Manufacturers continue to lag consumer companies in implementing seamless omnichannel experiences. Many rely on manual systems and outmoded technologies and have failed to embrace automation strategies implemented years ago by the consumer market to better serve their customers.
Automation can result in an exceptional omnichannel customer experience that gives manufacturers a huge competitive advantage. The investment in automation results in greater profits from repeat business and satisfied customers. It also improves efficiency across marketing, sales and operations, solves disconnects in field service and other areas, and with additional integration, can enhance front and back-office visibility.
Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud and the Modern Omnichannel Customer Experience
An omnichannel customer experience is all about understanding the customer’s journey from start to finish. From the customer’s point of view, every interaction with your manufacturing company should be seamless. Information shared through a social media chatbot should be accessible by the sales reps, the call center, and anyone trying to assist.
Salesforce has been at the forefront of customer experience modernization in the manufacturing industry by providing solutions with specialized integrations that help manufacturers deliver omnichannel customer experience seamlessly. Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud offers a strategic base from which to launch an omnichannel customer experience making it easy and pleasant for customers to conduct business with your company.
According to Salesforce 70% of customers say “connected processes are very important to win their business (such as seamless handoffs between departments and channels, or contextualized engagement based on earlier interactions).”
What Does a Modernized CX System Look Like?
Manufacturers can deliver omnichannel CX by modernizing and optimizing their customer experience framework with Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud and associated apps and integrations.
A customer service infrastructure aligned with customer priorities and automated to make information sharing easy and seamless can resolve many manufacturers’ pain points and customer challenges across marketing, sales, operations, supply chain, and customer service.
It’s about delivering a frictionless experience, from marketing to sales, sales operation, customer service, and every other department.
With the Salesforce platform, you can use one or any combination of products to build a customized and seamless customer journey:
Integrating an ERP with Salesforce CRM (front and back-office integration) also adds to the Sales Operation benefits, and can increase visibility while enhancing your ability for planning, forecasting, logistics, and more. An integrated ERP system offers immeasurable benefits for manufacturing, automotive, and energy companies, and provides a 360-degree view of all aspects of the customer journey.
Where to Begin an Omnichannel Customer Experience Journey
One of the biggest challenges to implementing a customer experience modernization solution is figuring out where to begin. Often, the need arises from one link in the customer experience journey ‘chain’ outlined above. Sales feels the pain of spending hours on spreadsheets managing leads; marketing complains about the lack of customer data. Data silos make the entire operation a game of whack-a-mole trying to figure out who has the latest information, and everyone feels the pain of a disgruntled customer taking their business elsewhere.
Every manufacturing company begins their automation journey in a different place. With a shared goal of creating a frictionless customer journey and an omnichannel customer experience, every department will be on board with the idea of automation and integration. Some companies may need more help than others with each step of the process, depending on their current tech infrastructure, support team, and bandwidth. We believe that working with a certified Salesforce Partner is the best step you can take to ensure your project is successful.
rSTAR Technologies is a certified Salesforce consulting partner with over 20 years of experience implementing solutions for manufacturers. We help manufacturing companies implement a successful omnichannel CX modernization with Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud, Sales Cloud, and Service Cloud, as well as related apps, jumpstarts and quick starts. Our Salesforce implementation services integrate the entire front-office CRM setup with necessary back-office applications like ERPs, supply chain management apps, and product lifecycle management apps, etc., to help companies eliminate siloed data and legacy tools, enhance data visibility, and achieve a modernized customer-centric system that optimizes omnichannel customer experience delivery.
Contact us today for a complimentary roadmap session to begin your automation journey.
