Tools To Become A “Customer Company”

“Better, better, better…never best.” ~Mark Benioff, CEO Salesforce (@salesforce)

If I took anything away from yesterday’s event, it was the above quote, spoken by Mark Benioff, a man who sure does know his customers.

I arrived out of the bitter cold to the Midtown Hilton in New York City for the Salesforce 1 World Tour. I donated my one canned food item to the City Harvest food drive. A customer service presentation that also is in support of feeding the hungry? Count me in! I am greeted by happy, smiling men and women, all sporting Fedoras and holding signs with the Salesforce logo, directing the crowd toward the upper level registration area. There is a DJ playing loud, upbeat tunes, a coat check and a huge check-in area, complete with iPads to sign you in. There is waitstaff wandering around with pastries and plenty of coffee, tea and hot cocoa to keep you going through the day. All of this, I did not expect. But, if anyone knows anything about the customer experience, it’s Salesforce, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

The day is broken down by learning sessions, discussing the new Salesforce 1 customer platform, an amazing robust and efficient program that connects your company and customers. I can’t even begin to tell you about it so be sure to check it out here.

The learning sessions I attended:

• Circles of Success Customer service experts gathered in one room to hold discussions on how they effectively use Salesforce for their business. It was fascinating listening to how people utilize it, creating a “less is more” atmosphere throughout their entire company.
• Sales Cloud: Sell from Anywhere with the Customer Platform I met up with Phone.com’s (@phonedotcom) CMO Eric Lituchy (@ericlituchy) at this session, where we learned how Salesforce can drive your sales team to new heights with customer profiles, easily accessible statistics and simple methods of communication from anywhere in the world on your mobile phone.
• Keynote This session pretty much blew us all away with fancy bright lights, giant TV screens, high-tech demonstrations and a stellar performance by the Harlem Gospel Choir as well as inspiring speeches by many top business leaders. And of course, Mark Benioff talked about his vision behind Salesforce 1 and the importance of being a “customer company”. I also enjoyed his story about electronic toothbrushes. Want to hear more? You can watch the keynote online here.
• Chatter and Communities: Connect to your Customers, Partners and Employees in an Entirely New Way While we kinda-sorta use Chatter for Phone.com, we don’t quite take advantage of all it has to offer. I sat in on a panel of speakers from Unilever, AIG, Chase and BNY Mellon  discussing just how Chatter bridged the gap between various departments in their company and allowed for team members across the globe to communicate.

Overall, it was a pretty amazing day, full of great ideas and discussions about the full customer experience. While I didn’t stay all the way until the end for the wine and beer (thanks to Eric for making sure I knew what I missed) I did leave feeling fulfilled that being a customer company is the right way to go, no matter what, and that there are resources out there to help you  build your product just right to succeed and provide an amazing experience for your brand.

[custom_author=jenny]