Salesforce Customer 360 - photo credit

The customer is central to everything we do. With that in mind, today’s digital landscape encourages companies to look beyond their products and rely on a more complete, more in-depth understanding of every customer—the 360-degree view. Achieving that requires connecting customer data across all departments and modules, and unifying it to create a single source of truth for each person. 

That’s where Customer 360 steps in. Helping companies with their digital transformation allows them to deliver the intelligent, personalized experiences their customers have come to expect. 

Customer 360: The Crystal Ball to See Into Your Customer’s Journey

Salesforce has been talking about Customer 360 for quite a while, and the conversation around the platform can be vast. When I think about 360, I think of it as lead—to care—to renewal and creating end-to-end visibility where a prospect turns into a customer and then a renewing customer. It’s a crystal ball for all departments to understand their customer’s past, present, and future needs. A full picture for all. 

The reality is, there is a strong data and integration architecture needed to support that. Typically all the pieces are there within an organization’s tech stack, but it’s about weaving those pieces together to create that cohesive picture, then wrapping a process around it. 

Customer 360 lets us build that re-engagement cycle with the customer to reduce churn and understand what they own, what the up-sell or cross-sell opportunities are, and what their overall customer persona is. That is the 360-degree customer.

Bridging the Data Silos

The problem Customer 360 is hoping to solve is not anything new. But standing in the way of progress is siloed data spread throughout various parts of a company that may not be shared or visible for all. These disjointed data sets have plagued customer interactions between sales, marketing, service, and commerce departments for years. 

Data conflicts like multiple usernames, email addresses, or purchase histories exist for the very same customer in multiple locations. Information for one single customer may be sitting in dozens of data extensions in Marketing Cloud, third-party systems, a customer community profile in Commerce Cloud, or as a contact record in Sales Cloud. Customer 360 gives customers one single identity, a stronger integration layer between Salesforce clouds, departments, and external systems. 

When it comes to implementing the platform, it requires business leaders to rally their company around the notion that this type of viewpoint will make their jobs easier, but it needs to be seen invariably across departments. That’s why it must be a top-down initiative with executive leadership at the helm to explain why this 360 perspective is needed for a better customer experience.

Be Selective in What You Share

It’s hard getting people immersed in data they don’t necessarily care about. Understanding things like purchase and payment history (what they own, what did they own), and overall interaction history across all channels is extremely valuable and important data. The seamless sharing of the right data within Customer 360 demonstrates professionalism and ensures that all interactions leave little room for errors. It also means that each department is aligned with internal and external goals.

Even when you have this massive data lake, you still have to be selective on what you’re showing to each audience so it matters to them. It’s important to be selective, and keep the communication personalized and pertinent. Too much information can be just as bad as not enough!

Key Takeaways

The 360-degree customer view is quickly becoming every company’s most valuable asset, and to see the most value out of it, you have to share and integrate it across applications and departments within your organization. 

Successfully implementing a Customer 360 strategy is complex, but worth it for your company’s growth and continued evolution towards optimal customer service. Helping our customers handle trustworthy data frees up their organization’s best people to stay focused on their customers; not on silos.

Upgrade Your Customer Service

At Forcivity, we look to empower our clients to create positive and actionable relationships with their customers through a 360-degree view. See how you can increase your customer satisfaction.

Steve Baines

Steve Baines