A game-changer for businesses, AI agents allow them to boost productivity, deliver personalised customer experiences , and drive topline growth. But what’s next? 

What else can businesses in ASEAN expect, and how can they leverage AI agents to grow their business and develop their workforce further? 

We got Sujith Abraham, SVP and General Manager for Salesforce ASEAN, and Gavin Barfield, Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Solutions, Salesforce ASEAN, to share their top 10 predictions that will shape the course of ASEAN’s dynamic business landscape in 2025. 

Sujith leads the Salesforce ASEAN business and brings more than 20 years of leadership experience in enterprise technology to his role. He’s passionate about ensuring the success of our ASEAN customers, partners, employees and community, and transforming good ideas and people into impactful businesses built on strong culture and high levels of engagement. Gavin also has over 20 years of experience, with a solid technology background that includes IT infrastructure, enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, and program management across a variety of industries. 

Given their expertise and authority in the field, they foresee ASEAN businesses transitioning from AI experimentation to full-scale implementation in 2025, as businesses work toward a future where humans and agents drive customer success together with AI, data and action. Here are the key trends identified.

1. AI progressing beyond the experimentation stage, driven by autonomous agents

When Generative AI launched in 2022, there was huge excitement around the technology’s potential to revolutionise operations, boost productivity, and enhance customer experiences. Many businesses invested significantly in developing a generative AI strategy.

Despite initial excitement, few organisations have moved beyond Proofs of Concept (POCs) and limited trials to full-scale implementation. In some cases, Generative AI has failed to deliver accurate and useful outputs due to incomplete data. In others, solutions are disconnected from workflows, making them clunky and inefficient. Many applications of Generative AI, such as copilots and chatbots, were created as “solutions looking for problems”, focusing on experimentation rather than solving actual business issues.

Unlike chatbots and copilots, AI agents can autonomously navigate tasks and make real-time decisions directly in the flow of work — moving from mere assistance to taking action based on live data and context, marking a major step forward in enterprise AI.

In 2025, purpose-driven AI agents designed to address specific workflow needs and provide measurable benefits will help organisations move beyond experimentation to achieve tangible outcomes. For this to happen, generative AI needs to be grounded in the right data and delivered in the flow of work to offer meaningful impact.

2. Autonomous agents providing opportunity for topline growth

In the past two years, businesses have focused on cost-cutting measures in response to global economic uncertainties and slowing growth. The availability of autonomous agents today has now surfaced more opportunities for businesses to drive topline growth. 

How, you ask? These agents will deliver on the promise of AI, succeeding where solutions such as copilots fall short. One limitation of earlier innovations was their siloed focus on unstructured data. For example, copilots could only act based on data within emails or presentations. This misses critical transactional context, such as customer purchase history or product details. 

Copilots could only see part of the customer story, causing them to fall short on providing actionable insights. Businesses, in turn, missed out on opportunities to foster deeper and more compelling customer relationships that generated new revenue streams.

Autonomous agents can significantly impact a company’s growth trajectory. Take a bank that works with thousands of business clients as an example. An initial analysis of spend may lead the bank to think that most of their customers are SMEs with small spends. But a deeper look reveals that these businesses are spreading their spend across banks. 

It’s extremely difficult to turn the workforce around to deepen engagements with all customers. Imagine if they implemented autonomous agents to maintain consistent customer engagement without constant human oversight. And agents operate 24/7 – think of how much coverage across customers is now possible. This enables the bank to increase its revenue base, which might otherwise be lost to competitors.

AI agents also allow sales teams to automatically pre-qualify leads before handing them over to human agents. This way, human agents don’t waste time on unresponsive prospects, basic inquiries, or low-engagement leads, which can significantly improve productivity and the bottom line.

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3. Out-of-the-box AI/agentic solutions and unified data will underpin AI success

In the race to operationalise AI, the winners will be those who forgo DIY solutions in favour of out-of-the-box solutions that offer superior speed, deployment, and accuracy. Businesses that adopt out-of-the-box solutions can focus on AI deployment and achieve immediate impact and value. In contrast, those who attempt to “DIY” their AI often face setbacks in the form of hidden costs and a slow realisation of AI capabilities. 

Having the right data foundation is also key to maximising ROI from AI investments. Businesses need to consolidate structured data, such as customer transaction records, and unstructured data, such as customer emails, product information, and corporate policies, to build a unified view of their customers. 

Without it, AI cannot deliver accurate, contextualised, and trusted outputs. Zero-copy capabilities are needed to ensure companies maximise their existing assets while minimising data preparation costs.

4. An organic AI ecosystem emerging within the region

AI is ushering in one of the biggest technological shifts of our generation, creating new services, roles, and industries. Just as the invention of smartphones and mobile applications created a thriving ecosystem of app developers, the growth of AI platforms is fostering a new generation of AI developers. 

This drives innovation in ASEAN and opens the pathway for local talent to develop AI tools tailored to meet the region’s unique needs — whether it is Small Language Models (SLMs) that support native languages like Singlish or Taglish, or advanced models that tackle specific challenges like anti-money laundering. 

With a combined population of over 650 million (including individual markets with over 100 million people such as Indonesia and the Philippines), and a combined GDP comparable to major economies, there’s a massive opportunity for AI developers in ASEAN. 

The growth of the AI industry in the region will not only attract established global tech giants to set up operations and company headquarters locally, but also catalyse the birth of home-grown startups. 

With that, we’ll see a migration of strategic roles typically available in the West to this part of the world, creating new opportunities for the future workforce.

5. AI agents disrupting traditional service models in ASEAN with scalable capacity, intelligence, and personalised experiences

In ASEAN, businesses often hire additional service staff as a quick fix for improving customer experience, especially with lower labour costs in the region. However, increasing headcount alone doesn’t necessarily improve problem resolution or overall customer satisfaction.

AI agents provide a fundamentally different approach by autonomously handling requests and enhancing customer interactions in ways that go beyond scaling capacity. This isn’t about efficiency alone but delivering high-quality customer service. AI agents leverage real-time data to provide context-aware support, making decisions and taking action as customer needs arise.

With AI agents embedded directly into workflows, businesses can reimagine customer service, delivering faster and more accurate responses without increasing complexity or requiring extensive training. 

6. AI agents redefining jobs, empowering employees to focus on strategic work

AI agents are transforming the workforce by automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks, freeing employees to focus on higher-value work that drives innovation and growth. 

This presents an opportunity for the workforce to transform their skill sets and take on more strategic roles. As AI agents become increasingly integrated into the workforce, employees will need to develop new skills to manage and optimise them. They’ll also have to leverage their industry knowledge to train these agents so that they can deliver the desired business outcomes. 

This transformation mirrors the 1980s shift in banking, when staff moved from routine tasks like producing bank statements to customer service and financial advisory roles as automation took over.

Fast-forward to today — a telco that relies on AI agents to handle routine customer inquiries at scale will be able to empower its employees to focus on strategic tasks like optimising AI deployment and enhancing customer experiences. 

This not only creates new career opportunities for the telco’s staff, but also allows them to save on operational expenses and infrastructure costs. With virtual AI agents running routine operations, the telco can easily scale operations, without necessarily building new offices or stores for its workforce to service the expanded client pool. 

By blending human expertise with AI, companies can create a more agile workforce focused on driving growth and preparing employees for roles that require creativity, problem-solving, and strategic thinking.

7. New AI skill sets required for building and testing agents, including defining guardrails

As AI agents become central to business operations, there’s a greater need for professionals with specialised skills to guide these systems effectively. These skills will include being able to define agent instructions, craft prompts, and set guardrails.

Writing prompts may seem straightforward because they are written in natural language. However, crafting and refining these instructions and establishing clear guardrails to ensure an AI model performs as intended requires expertise.

While prompt engineering for LLMs is common, writing instructions and setting guardrails for reasoning engines will become critical skills. As more organisations integrate AI agents into their workflows, the demand for professionals with the skills to build and test agents in real-world scenarios will increase.

8. New types of AI models will push the boundaries of what AI can deliver

In 2025, we’ll see new, highly specialised AI models that go beyond text generation to drive complex, autonomous actions. Salesforce’s xLAM (Large Action Model) is at the forefront of this evolution. Unlike traditional Large Language Models (LLMs), which excel at generating responses, xLAM models are designed for action and decision-making, allowing AI to autonomously execute tasks and manage workflows without requiring explicit instructions.

These Large Action Models add a new dimension to CRM, enabling AI agents to handle tasks like function-calling, reasoning, and planning, adapting actions to fit real-world business contexts. By managing entire workflows proactively, like an autonomous sous chef that prepares each step, xLAM models can streamline operations and enhance decision accuracy across various environments.

As businesses adopt these models, xLAM can operate across multi-agent systems, coordinating actions between specialised AI agents to tackle increasingly complex, customer-focused processes. This innovation will make AI a powerful partner in business, delivering efficiency, context-aware responses, and automated actions that drive customer success with accuracy and reliability.

We’ll also see a proliferation of Small Language Models designed for particular industries or purposes.  These models are trained on smaller but more reliable datasets and are effective at performing certain tasks.  They’re cheaper to run, train and often more accurate than ‌Large Language equivalents.

9. Agents building agents, agents talking to agents becoming commonplace

Just as organisations have employees specialised in specific functions, AI agents will soon be assigned unique roles within a network. These agents will work alongside human employees, communicate with other agents, and create new agents as business needs evolve. Each agent will have a defined function, allowing the network to handle a wide range of tasks efficiently.

In this agent network, meta-agents will be crucial, coordinating actions across other agents to keep workflows seamless. For example, a concierge agent might interact with users, guiding them on tasks it can help with and providing updates on task progress. 

An orchestration agent would assess user needs and route requests to the proper agent, ensuring tasks are managed effectively. This setup enables collaboration on platforms like Slack, where human employees and AI agents can interact as a unified team, improving responsiveness and coordination.

10. Robotics driving the next wave of AI innovation

Robotics, the fourth wave of AI will emerge, transforming how businesses and customers connect. Beyond agents, robotics will see interactions evolve from text and voice systems to immersive experiences with physical robots and virtual avatars with lifelike, dynamic, and highly interactive engagements.

Picture virtual avatars powered by AI agents, with heads that move, lips that smile, and expressions that react naturally during interactions. This evolution will create more personal and engaging experiences in physical settings like a concierge in shopping malls, where customers can hold a real-time conversation with a lifelike avatar rather than typing queries into a screen.

At the same time, physical robotics will bring AI agents into the tangible world, unlocking new opportunities in environments such as F&B. Imagine a robotic barista powered by an AI agent that can offer personalised drink recommendations based on a customer’s past orders‌ — ‌including details like sugar preferences‌ — ‌and prepare the drink instantly.

Robotics will empower businesses to deliver natural, lifelike, and highly personalised interactions, redefining customer experiences that are powered by AI agents

Take your business to the next level with Agentforce

Now that you know what’s in store for ASEAN businesses in 2025, why not welcome Agentforce into your business so it can unlock unlimited potential with your team? 

Agentforce is the agentic layer of the Salesforce platform for deploying autonomous AI agents across any business function — enabling you to scale your workforce. Build and customise autonomous AI agents to support your employees and customers 24/7, and access a library of ready-to-use skills for any use case across sales, service, marketing, commerce, and more.

Our handy ROI calculator can help you measure Agentforce’s value for your business, and you can take a closer look at how agent building works here.

AI Strategy Guide

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Read more:

• Everything You Need to Know About AI in Customer Service
• What is Data Transformation and How Can it Help ASEAN Unlock AI’s Potential?
• The Sales AI Playbook: 7 Ways AI Can Help You Close More Deals

The post What’s next for ASEAN businesses in 2025? appeared first on Salesforce.

The service landscape in Singapore is evolving at a breakneck pace. The Sixth Edition State of Service report provides a pulse check on the priorities, challenges, and opportunities of over 5,500 service professionals worldwide. 

As customer service trends reveal that customers are setting their expectations sky-high, organisations are under more pressure to deliver personalised service at scale while delivering more value to the business. But there’s good news, too. The introduction of artificial intelligence and enhanced data capabilities are transforming how quality service is delivered, offering exciting opportunities to boost agent productivity and generate revenue.

Singapore’s Customer Service Trends: Everyone Wants More, from Customers to Executives

In Singapore, the stakes are high and climbing higher. 81% of service professionals in the region report that customers are more demanding than ever, with expectations of fast, personalised service at every interaction.

It won’t come as a surprise, then, that globally, customer experience topped the list of both priorities and challenges for service organisations. The biggest priority for service decision-makers is improving the customer experience, while their biggest challenge is keeping pace with customer expectations. 

Multiplying the burden on service, the surge in customer demands correlates with an anticipated increase in cases, with 65% of service professionals in Singapore bracing for higher volumes in the coming year. 

These projections underscore a critical challenge: delivering personalised service at scale – a requirement for maintaining customer loyalty and satisfaction. Self-service, including knowledge-powered help centres, customer portals, and AI-powered chatbots, stands out as a win-win solution.

There’s a growing desire for self-service, with 61% of customers globally reporting they prefer it for fixing simple issues. And while self-service now solves 54% of customer issues worldwide at organisations that use it, the pressure is on to get self-service right. 72% of customers won’t reuse a company’s chatbot after just one negative experience, so there’s little room for error. 

Adding to these growing demands is the awareness that customer service has evolved far beyond a simple support function and cost centre. Today, it’s at the forefront of revenue generation. In Singapore, 80% of service organisations are expected to ramp up their contribution to the bottom line. 

This dual pressure requires organisations to not only maintain but amplify service quality, so they can meet the expectations of customers and revenue.

Customer Service is Expanding – in Budget, Headcount and Channels

To meet these soaring demands, service departments in Singapore are ramping up their resources. About 77% of service professionals in the region anticipate an increase in budget, while 71% expect to expand their headcount, suggesting that Singaporean organisations are preparing to scale up operations to rise to the challenge of today’s customer service trends.

A diversification in service channels – now averaging thirteen different modes of customer engagement for organisations in Singapore — higher than the global average of twelve. This indicates a strategic move to interact with customers across multiple platforms.

There’s a clear trend in favour of an omnichannel service experience. High-performing organisations provide service across a broader range of channels than underperformers, making it more important than ever to meet customers where, when, and how they want to engage. Live chat, in particular, has been adopted by 9 in 10 high performers globally – but only among 60% of underperformers.

Infographic: The State of Service in Singapore

Customer Service AI & Data Promises Scale

Artificial intelligence’s role in transforming service operations is becoming increasingly critical as organisations look to technology as the solution for tougher workloads and more demanding customers. 

With 47% of Singaporean organisations fully implementing customer service AI, and 43% exploring or experimenting with the technology, AI’s rollout in Singapore’s service landscape is well underway. 

The benefits are clear: 97% of service professionals in these AI-equipped organisations acknowledge the time-saving benefits of AI, while 94% see cost reductions. 

Service organisations are using AI to increase agent efficiency and productivity, which increases their ability to provide customers with prompt and personalised experiences. The top three use cases for AI in Singapore are automated summaries and reports, customer-facing intelligent assistants, and service responses, with plenty more exciting applications emerging.

As service organisations commit to AI, they’re also putting a focus on trustworthy and connected data. 87% of service professionals in Singapore say better access to data from other teams would improve the support they provide, pointing to the importance of a comprehensive data strategy to underpin AI.

In response, 72% of these service organisations report an increase in investment in data integration efforts next year, pointing towards a strategic push to enhance the efficacy and responsiveness of service operations through better data accessibility and connected, efficient service systems.

How Does Your Service Organisation Stack Up?

The trends are clear and the data is compelling: service in Singapore has been forever changed by new customer demands, organisational imperatives, and AI capabilities. 

These are just a few insights into the nature of service today. To learn more about what your customers want and how you can wow them with a strategic approach to customer service – from self-service to the contact centre to the field – read the Sixth Edition State of Service report.

Elevate Customer Service with Data-Driven Insights

Dive into the Sixth Edition State of Service report for valuable insights to optimise your service operations, from self-service to the contact centre to the field.

Download now

Read more

• Everything You Need to Know About AI in Customer Service
• 36 Customer Service Statistics To Move Your Business Forward
• Inside the Sixth Edition of the State of Service Report

The post Bigger, Smarter, Faster: Meeting Customer Service Expectations in Singapore appeared first on Salesforce.

The service landscape in the Philippines is evolving at a breakneck pace. The Sixth Edition State of Service report provides a pulse check on the priorities, challenges, and opportunities of over 5,500 service professionals worldwide. 

As customer service trends reveal that customers are setting their expectations sky-high, organisations are under more pressure to deliver personalised service at scale while delivering more value to the business. But there’s good news, too. The introduction of artificial intelligence and enhanced data capabilities are transforming how quality service is delivered, offering exciting opportunities to boost agent productivity and generate revenue.

Customer Service Trends from the Philippines: Everyone Wants More, from Customers to Executives

In the Philippines, the stakes are high and climbing higher. 83% of service professionals in the region report that customers are more demanding than ever, with expectations of fast, personalised service at every interaction.

It won’t come as a surprise, then, that globally, customer experience topped the list of both priorities and challenges for service organisations. The biggest priority for service decision-makers is improving the customer experience, while their biggest challenge is keeping pace with customer expectations. 

Multiplying the burden on service, the surge in customer demands correlates with an anticipated increase in cases, with 70% of service professionals in the Philippines bracing for higher volumes in the coming year. 

These projections underscore a critical challenge: delivering personalised service at scale – a requirement for maintaining customer loyalty and satisfaction. Self-service, including knowledge-powered help centres, customer portals, and AI-powered chatbots, stands out as a win-win solution.

There’s a growing desire for self-service, with 61% of customers globally reporting they prefer it for fixing simple issues. And while self-service now solves 54% of customer issues worldwide at organisations that use it, the pressure is on to get self-service right. 72% of customers won’t reuse a company’s chatbot after just one negative experience, so there’s little room for error. 

Adding to these growing demands is the awareness that customer service has evolved far beyond a simple support function and cost centre. Today, it’s at the forefront of revenue generation. In the Philippines, 89% of service organisations are expected to ramp up their contribution to the bottom line — higher than the global average of 85%. 

This dual pressure requires organisations to not only maintain but amplify service quality, so they can meet the expectations of customers and revenue.

Customer Service is Expanding – in Budget, Headcount and Channels

To meet these soaring demands, service departments in the Philippines are ramping up their resources. About 82% of service professionals in the region anticipate an increase in budget, while 78% expect to expand their headcount — higher than the global averages of 80% and 76%, respectively. This suggests that organisations in the Philippines are preparing to scale up operations to rise to the challenge of today’s customer service trends.

A diversification in service channels — now averaging thirteen different modes of customer engagement for organisations in the Philippines — exceeds the global average of twelve. This indicates a strategic move to interact with customers across multiple platforms.

There’s a clear trend in favour of an omnichannel service experience. High-performing organisations provide service across a broader range of channels than underperformers, making it more important than ever to meet customers where, when, and how they want to engage. Live chat, in particular, has been adopted by 9 in 10 high performers globally — but only among 60% of underperformers.

Infographic: The State of Service in Phillipines

Customer Service AI & Data Promises Scale

Artificial intelligence’s role in transforming service operations is becoming increasingly critical as organisations look to technology as the solution for tougher workloads and more demanding customers. 

With 41% of Filipino organisations fully implementing customer service AI, and 36% exploring or experimenting with the technology, AI’s rollout in the Philippines’ service landscape is well underway. 

The benefits are clear: 92% of service professionals in these AI-equipped organisations acknowledge the time-saving benefits of AI, while 92% see cost reductions. 

Service organisations are using AI to increase agent efficiency and productivity, which increases their ability to provide customers with prompt and personalised experiences. The top three use cases for AI in the Philippines are service responses, customer-facing intelligent assistants, and agent-facing intelligent assistants, with plenty more exciting applications emerging.

As service organisations commit to AI, they’re also putting a focus on trustworthy and connected data. 85% of service professionals in the Philippines say better access to data from other teams would improve the support they provide, pointing to the importance of a comprehensive data strategy to underpin AI.
In response, 83% of these service organisations report an increase in investment in data integration efforts next year, pointing towards a strategic push to enhance the efficacy and responsiveness of service operations through better data accessibility and connected, efficient service systems.

How Does Your Service Organisation Stack Up?

The trends are clear and the data is compelling: service in the Philippines has been forever changed by new customer demands, organisational imperatives, and AI capabilities. 

These are just a few insights into the nature of service today. To learn more about what your customers want and how you can wow them with a strategic approach to customer service – from self-service to the contact centre to the field – read the Sixth Edition State of Service report.

Elevate Customer Service with Data-Driven Insights

Dive into the Sixth Edition State of Service report for valuable insights to optimise your service operations, from self-service to the contact centre to the field.

Download now

Read more

• Everything You Need to Know About AI in Customer Service
• 36 Customer Service Statistics To Move Your Business Forward
• Inside the Sixth Edition of the State of Service Report

The post AI is Helping Filipino Organisations Meet Rising Customer Service Demands appeared first on Salesforce.

The service landscape in Indonesia is evolving at a breakneck pace. The Sixth Edition State of Service report provides a pulse check on the priorities, challenges, and opportunities of over 5,500 service professionals worldwide. 

As customer service trends reveal that customers are setting their expectations sky-high, organisations are under more pressure to deliver personalised service at scale while delivering more value to the business. But there’s good news, too. The introduction of artificial intelligence and enhanced data capabilities are transforming how quality service is delivered, offering exciting opportunities to boost agent productivity and generate revenue.

Indonesia’s Customer Service Trends: Everyone Wants More, from Customers to Executives

In Indonesia, the stakes are high and climbing higher. 91% of service professionals in the region report that customers are more demanding than ever, with expectations of fast, personalised service at every interaction.

It won’t come as a surprise, then, that globally, customer experience topped the list of both priorities and challenges for service organisations. The biggest priority for service decision-makers is improving the customer experience, while their biggest challenge is keeping pace with customer expectations. 

Multiplying the burden on service, the surge in customer demands correlates with an anticipated increase in cases, with 74% of service professionals in Indonesia bracing for higher volumes in the coming year. 

These projections underscore a critical challenge: delivering personalised service at scale – a requirement for maintaining customer loyalty and satisfaction. Self-service, including knowledge-powered help centres, customer portals, and AI-powered chatbots, stands out as a win-win solution.

There’s a growing desire for self-service, with 61% of customers globally reporting they prefer it for fixing simple issues. And while self-service now solves 54% of customer issues worldwide at organisations that use it, the pressure is on to get self-service right. 72% of customers won’t reuse a company’s chatbot after just one negative experience, so there’s little room for error. 

Adding to these growing demands is the awareness that customer service has evolved far beyond a simple support function and cost centre. Today, it’s at the forefront of revenue generation. In Indonesia, 74% of service organisations are expected to ramp up their contribution to the bottom line. 

This dual pressure requires organisations to not only maintain but amplify service quality, so they can meet the expectations of customers and revenue.

Customer Service is Expanding – in Budget, Headcount and Channels

To meet these soaring demands, service departments in Indonesia are ramping up their resources. About 80% of service professionals in the region anticipate an increase in budget, while 68% expect to expand their headcount, suggesting that organisations are preparing to scale up operations to rise to the challenge of today’s customer service trends.

A diversification in service channels – now averaging twelve different modes of customer engagement for organisations in Indonesia – indicates a strategic move to interact with customers across multiple platforms.

There’s a clear trend in favour of an omnichannel service experience. High-performing organisations provide service across a broader range of channels than underperformers, making it more important than ever to meet customers where, when, and how they want to engage. Live chat, in particular, has been adopted by 9 in 10 high performers globally – but only among 60% of underperformers.

Infographic: The State of Service in Indonesia

Customer Service AI & Data Promises Scale

Artificial intelligence’s role in transforming service operations is becoming increasingly critical as organisations look to technology as the solution for tougher workloads and more demanding customers. 

With 57% of Indonesian organisations fully implementing customer service AI — higher than the global average of 49% — and 29% exploring or experimenting with the technology, AI’s rollout in Indonesia’s service landscape is well underway. 

The benefits are clear: 96% of service professionals in these AI-equipped organisations acknowledge the time-saving benefits of AI, while 98% see cost reductions. 

Service organisations are using AI to increase agent efficiency and productivity, which increases their ability to provide customers with prompt and personalised experiences. The top three use cases for AI in Indonesia are service responses, customer-facing intelligent assistants, and automated summaries and reports, with plenty more exciting applications emerging.

As service organisations commit to AI, they’re also putting a focus on trustworthy and connected data. 97% of service professionals in Indonesia say better access to data from other teams would improve the support they provide, pointing to the importance of a comprehensive data strategy to underpin AI.

In response, 81% of these service organisations report an increase in investment in data integration efforts next year, pointing towards a strategic push to enhance the efficacy and responsiveness of service operations through better data accessibility and connected, efficient service systems.

How Does Your Service Organisation Stack Up?

The trends are clear and the data is compelling: service in Indonesia has been forever changed by new customer demands, organisational imperatives, and AI capabilities.

These are just a few insights into the nature of service today. To learn more about what your customers want and how you can wow them with a strategic approach to customer service – from self-service to the contact centre to the field – read the Sixth Edition State of Service report.

Elevate Customer Service with Data-Driven Insights

Dive into the Sixth Edition State of Service report for valuable insights to optimise your service operations, from self-service to the contact centre to the field.

Download now

Read more

• Everything You Need to Know About AI in Customer Service
• 36 Customer Service Statistics To Move Your Business Forward
• Inside the Sixth Edition of the State of Service Report

The post AI is Leading the Charge in Indonesia’s Customer Service Transformation appeared first on Salesforce.

Customer experience marketing is the engine for this new system. Traditionally, many companies have thought of marketing as an introductory step in the customer journey. We find and attract audiences and then hand things over to commerce, customer service, sales, to finish the job. Simply put, that doesn’t work anymore. Now companies need to focus on keeping customers engaged throughout the journey – a journey that the customer dictates by the channels they choose to engage with and the data they choose to share. 

Now hear me out. I know there are a number of different titles that can be used for the role I’m describing. It may be a Chief Experience Officer or a Chief Digital Officer where you work, or something similar. But for simplicity, I’m going to call the the position marketer in this blog.

Marketers must be able to take a non-linear approach and engage each customer in the ways that are important and relevant to them. And every single team that’s responsible for building customer-driven relationships – marketing, sales, commerce, and service – needs to work together in lockstep. You need seamless handoffs between these internal departments, which in turn create a better experience for each customer. To do this well, you have to be equipped with both the right process and the right technology. 

The good news is recent innovations in data and AI have been game-changing, opening up new ways to know our customers across our brand, making our teams more cohesive, and personalising engagement in consistent ways. Companies are figuring out how to better use new technology to get closer to customers. A proper marketing technology solution can reduce complexity and help you not only move someone from prospect to customer, but also make sure you’re cultivating the journey past the conversion.

Let’s look at how you can build a strong strategy for customer-driven relationships.

What you will learn in this blog

• What are customer-driven relationships?
• How can marketing, IT and customer experience converge?

What are customer-driven relationships?

Customer-driven relationships help businesses build long-term satisfaction and loyalty by engaging customers on their terms and being a value multiplier across the entire customer experience. Non-linear touchpoints are the new normal for marketing. No matter how the customer engages with the brand – whether it’s through customer service, sales, or commerce – marketing steps back in to keep the communication going and makes sure the customer gets what they need. 

Traditionally, marketing has focused on the top of the funnel (awareness and acquisition). However, businesses are finding that marketing needs to break free of this approach and stay engaged with prospects and customers as they progress to keep them informed, engaged, and growing. 

Let’s look at an example of how this can work for a marketer at an auto company. A family is thinking about buying a new car and browses your brand’s website. The engagement on the website provides rich customer profile information, even from an anonymous browser. With that first-party data, you can then engage the family at the top of the funnel with online and social ads as they continue their research.

That leads to them signing up for an email list, and your marketing team follows up with more information (and maybe a deal) over the next few weeks. The family thinks it over and reaches out to a salesperson. But as a marketer, your job is not done.   

Through high-scale automation, you continue to engage the prospect through the sales process, constantly remarketing to keep them fresh. You don’t stop after the conversion either. Maybe they need customer service for their vehicle. The system automatically gets a notification that the service has been completed and jumps back in with relevant follow-up content after the case has been resolved. 

You can’t expect marketing to be done in one channel anymore. Conversion and long-term loyalty often happens over multiple channels and at the pace the buyer prefers. So it isn’t a linear process where one department does their part and is done for good. It’s a fluid situation in which all teams are in sync with the same up-to-date data and can build upon each other’s work. 

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How can marketing, IT and customer experience converge?

Marketing has traditionally operated under a ring-fenced budget – that’s to say the money is used only for marketing projects and doesn’t extend to other lines of business. Many marketing departments have actively avoided collaborating with IT because they don’t want to slow down their plan and wish to avoid conflict. However, customers often don’t find success because of the lack of cross-departmental coordination.

There’s a lot of value in making this internal relationship work better together. Enterprise data lakes and warehouses contain vast amounts of important customer data. Data science teams have valuable insights into customer’s propensities, risks, and opportunities. AI teams are building out scalable processes for using generative AI in an enterprise-safe way. 

One of the traditional barriers to a strong integration between marketing and IT has been that these multiple data sets across a business are siloed. How many times have we seen IT solving this problem with data lakes but marketing not being able to get a real-time consolidated view? The answer: a lot.

This barrier is now being broken down with new technologies like zero-copy for data and artificial intelligence. Zero copy technology allows marketers to access data that’s housed in different locations without having to move or reformat it. And, it can be used by marketers without backend IT help. This allows them to use enterprise data and insights with greater ease and cost efficiency. Now marketing and IT are able to work in harmony.

Seamless handoffs aren’t just for quarterbacks and running backs anymore. You can (and should) make them part of your organisation as well. The result will be a connected system that uses data and AI to keep alignment and engagement strong over the long term. These customer-driven relationships will benefit your business and your customers alike.

Click here for part 2 of this blog.

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An ERP system uses a shared database that enables employees from across a business to see the same information — a ‘single source of truth’. With everyone’s data in the same place, companies can use an ERP to streamline processes and information across the entire business.

An ERP is different from a customer relationship management (CRM) system, like Salesforce’s Customer 360. But you can integrate them to work together.

This guide outlines the benefits of using an ERP system, the difference between an ERP and CRM, and why you should consider integration.

What are the benefits of using an ERP system?

There are many benefits of using an ERP system for businesses. Having one unified place for all data can reduce silos and improve efficiency across an enterprise.

Some of the main advantages of using an ERP include:

Enhanced collaboration

Collaboration is simplified when all data is shared, and employees can easily see and share information on contracts, requisitions, and purchase orders. When everyone in the business is connected to the same information, collaboration comes far more easily.

Improved business insight

Real-time information allows everyone in an organisation to have an up to date view of data, which can improve decision making across all areas of a business. With an ERP, everyone is looking at the same information simultaneously, and there is no risk of specific departments looking at outdated documents.

Better financial compliance

The financial controls with an ERP reduce any margin for error. Increased data integrity means users will always be working with up to date information, which also reduces the chances that something will be missed, and can improve financial compliance.

Is Salesforce ERP?

Salesforce is not an ERP. Salesforce offers various business solutions, which can be integrated to enhance and support your ERP but it does not provide an ERP product.

At the heart of Salesforce is its CRM — Customer 360, which is the world’s #1 CRM system.

ERPs and CRMs are both used by businesses to improve efficiency and streamline operations, but they serve distinct purposes.

An ERP helps businesses connect their financial and operational systems to a central database, while a CRM helps manage customer interactions specifically.

Although CRMs are not ERPs, you can integrate them to enhance all aspects of business operations and processes.

Salesforce also offers other solutions, such as Revenue Cloud, designed to complement ERPs. Part of the Salesforce Customer 360 Platform, Revenue Cloud brings together Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) and Billing, Partner Relationship Management and B2B Commerce capabilities. This helps businesses take control of their revenue growth across every channel and make billing more strategic. Revenue Cloud is not an ERP and works best when integrated with an ERP.

One thing that differentiates Revenue Cloud and an ERP is that Revenue Cloud helps users transition to recurring revenue, consumption, and usage-based models. Revenue Cloud is designed to handle these models, whereas ERPs are suited to one time transactions.

Why integrate ERP and CRM?

A CRM provides businesses with consolidated views of various functions, such as sales and service, while an ERP includes functionality like inventory management, production, supply chain, and finance. Integrating them gives your business a complete view of its customers and its financial performance in one place.

There are many reasons why businesses should consider integrating their ERP with their CRM, including:

End-to-end visibility of your business processes

You can take complete customer views to the next level with the added understanding of how they impact your business financials.

Improved efficiency

Workflows can automate tasks between CRMs and ERPs and enhance your productivity. There is no need to manually enter CRM data into an ERP once integrated.

Better employee collaboration

Empower your employees with access to critical customer information, even if they do not work in your service or sales team. Giving everyone access to real-time data helps ensure the right decisions are made across the organisation.

Reduced data duplication

When you have an ERP and a CRM working separately, you may have customer data existing in both, leading to inaccuracies and out-of-date information. But even when it is accurate, it can cause unnecessary duplication, and it’s hard to determine which should be the master record. Integrating ensures there is only one record.

Speed up sales approvals

Sales and operations teams can move customers through an approvals process much quicker when they can be sure they have real-time customer data.

Lowered cost of IT support

When you have just one system to maintain, your IT support cost will reduce. With a fully integrated solution, you only need to train teams on one platform, reducing downtime.

More accurate reporting and forecasting

Because all of your data is accurate and in one place, an ERP improves reporting processes. Accurate forecasting is critical for a growing business, and integrating with an ERP automates some of the manual processes that can cause errors and delays in reporting.

How can you integrate Salesforce CRM with an ERP?

Nowadays, it is simple to integrate Salesforce with your ERP and reap the benefits.

You used to need to use complex systems to integrate legacy ERP systems with Salesforce CRM. However, modern cloud-based ERPs allow for easy integration. With some providers building ERP natively on the Salesforce platform, it is possible to run both CRM and ERP seamlessly on Salesforce.

One aspect of Salesforce that makes for straightforward integration is Salesforce Billing. Salesforce Billing converts Salesforce CPQ’s lead-to-order data into transactional data. The conversion allows ERP systems to inherit matching data, which they can use for accounting functions.

Salesforce’s MuleSoft also makes it easy to integrate CRM, ERP, and other applications. The MuleSoft Anypoint Platform helps businesses integrate data and connect experiences from any system. With MuleSoft, you can bring data from any third-party system such as SAP, Oracle, Workday into Salesforce. Visit our MuleSoft Anypoint Platform overview to learn more.

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While 2023 has been a year of AI innovation, 2024 will be a year in which AI transforms the enterprise. By 2025, AI won’t be an auxiliary technology but the core around which successful businesses revolve, ushering in a new era of unparalleled transformation.

Amid this, how businesses operationalise AI will be critical next year. Businesses that fail to adapt will risk being left behind. In the year ahead, what else can businesses in ASEAN expect, and how can they get ready to leverage the opportunities in this new era of work? 

In my view, here are some trends that will shape the dynamic business landscape in ASEAN:

#1 AI delivering a golden opportunity for ASEAN businesses to leapfrog

AI has the potential to contribute nearly S$1.36 trillion to the ASEAN economy by 2030. Capitalising on the AI opportunity and new use cases across sales, marketing, commerce, and IT interactions will allow businesses to leapfrog and supercharge growth on a global stage. 

The time is now, especially with ASEAN being seen as a favourable business destination, amid geopolitical tensions elsewhere. Global enterprises such as Hyundai and Procter & Gamble are already investing in the region with new factories and R&D centres, and more are expected to follow.

ASEAN countries are also making steady progress toward AI adoption, with Indonesia and Thailand recording one of the biggest improvements in overall AI readiness across the region. Much of the growth is attributed to government AI readiness, with the introduction of new national AI strategies and policies. However, business AI readiness has stagnated. The missing piece? A lack of trusted and secure tools that enable businesses to harness AI’s potential. 

Businesses in the region will need a trusted digital advisor, with access to trusted technology and a thriving ecosystem, to set themselves up for success.

#2 Companies Need to Lay the Right Data Foundation to Leverage AI

AI’s full power relies on accurate, comprehensive data, making a company’s AI strategy only as strong as its data strategy. The AI revolution has turned the spotlight on data, highlighting the need for companies to develop a robust data strategy to harness its benefits. 

With over 71% of a company’s applications disconnected, enterprises will need to unify data across disparate sources for AI to deliver the right predictions and recommendations. As ASEAN organisations still have untapped data, it is projected that more companies will lay the groundwork for AI by 2024. To build a strong data foundation, corporate leaders will need to prioritise data harmonisation, eliminate silos to extract value from data sources, democratise data for personalised insights, and ensure data privacy and compliance. This requires businesses to put in place strong data governance frameworks, well-defined policies for data collection, storage, and use, and constant monitoring and auditing of training data.

#3 Trusted data sharing will supercharge ASEAN economies

Cross-border data flows are also an essential part of building this data foundation, as they allow ASEAN businesses to tap data in a trusted manner. To set things in motion, negotiations for a new ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) began in September. This will encourage more seamless and secure data flows across ASEAN member states. With negotiations set to conclude by 2025, the next two years will be an opportune time for ASEAN to realise its ambitions for digital integration and write its own rules for data governance. A framework that makes trusted data sharing the default, without jeopardising data sovereignty, can help enhance competitiveness in the region and unlock ASEAN’s next phase of growth. 

#4 A new era for customer engagement: everything, everywhere, all at once 

Customer expectations are increasing, and competition is fiercer than ever. In this new era of customer engagement, businesses need to connect with customers through new channels and pathways and provide personalised experiences at every touchpoint. Innovations across AI, data, and CRM help businesses achieve this by providing a better understanding of their customers, and enabling personalisation at scale. 

In the new year, industry-specific solutions will rise in demand, as businesses seek tailored solutions to deepen their engagement with customers and build stronger relationships. For example, banks are introducing digital solutions to cater to tech-savvy customers, and innovative financial products to meet the needs of different customer segments. Banking-specific solutions can give banks a better idea of who their customers are, what financial products they have, and what more they might desire.

Wrapping up the year for Salesforce ASEAN

It has been an incredible year for Salesforce in ASEAN, filled with exciting milestones. As a company, we have driven incredible innovation, and led customers into the future with our combination of CRM + AI + Data + Trust.

We expanded our presence in the region, with a new permanent office in Thailand and the launch of our new entity in Indonesia. This has allowed us to get closer to customers and partners in the region, and hire local talent to build our operations and deliver customer success. 

At the same time, we also put into action our commitment to address the skills gap in ASEAN. Our initiatives across Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines have contributed to exceeding our commitment of training 500,000 women and girls in IPEF emerging economies by 2032. We’re the first out of 14 companies under the initiative to do so, and nine years ahead of schedule. And we’re not stopping either. We continue to help countries across ASEAN upskill their workforce and open pathways to jobs through our Salesforce ecosystem. 

All of this would not be possible without our amazing team at Salesforce, who put customers at the heart of everything we do. Our Salesforce team is dedicated to bringing the power of our #1 AI CRM to more businesses in the region, and I couldn’t be prouder to work alongside them to fulfill this important mission. 

In the new year, I look forward to working more closely with our customers, partners, and ecosystem, to support more ASEAN businesses as they embark on their digital journeys.

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What is customer loyalty and why is it important?

Customer loyalty epitomises how customers feel about your brand, how willing they are to make a repeat purchase and whether they would recommend you to others. In today’s hyper-connected world, customer loyalty is much more important – and harder to earn. Customer expectation is at an all-time high and customers are more willing to switch brands if they have a bad experience. They also share their experiences, good and bad, more frequently. In the trust-based economy what buyers tell their friends has become key, and business success balances on customer satisfaction more than ever before.

Loyal customers are also the biggest spenders. In fact, a 5% increase in customer retention has the power to increase profit by five times that amount. Just as significant, existing customers are 50% more likely to try new products and spend more on average than first-time buyers. Customer loyalty drives the bottom line and the digital economy has unlocked its impact.

Quantifying loyalty

The way customers shop online today has also opened up new lines of communication. More customers interact with brands directly rather than buying via third-party channels and personalising these interactions is an opportunity to make customer relationships more meaningful and appealing. With the right tools, your SME can leverage this connection and gain valuable insight into existing customer loyalty. As a result, you’ll also be able to develop tailored strategies to boost loyalty based on what your customers value most. 

The Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Actionable data – and lots of it, is key to understanding your customers and increasing loyalty. Many successful businesses use the Customer Retention Rate (CRR) as a tool to gauge whether customers are choosing to stay with them. However, the CRR omits the human factor – how customers feel about your brand and your products. But a more complete picture can be obtained by using the Net Promoter Score (NPS), a simple, two-minute survey that transforms customer sentiment into an actionable metric.

By asking customers how likely they are to recommend your brand to a friend on a scale of 0 to 10, the NPS subtracts the percentage of “Detractors” (scores of 6 and under) from the percentage of ‘Promoters’ (scores of 9 and above) to calculate a comparable loyalty benchmark.

Simple, right? But the NPS is deceptively powerful, and high NPS scores are proven to correlate directly with growth. In fact, Harvard Business Review called the NPS the single best predictor of growth and the one number you need to grow as a business.

While it provides a strong benchmark, the NPS alone is not complex enough to understand where loyalty originates and how to improve it. To overcome this, consider adding an open-ended question to your survey like “how can we improve your experience?”, or “what do you like most/least about our product?” By asking customers what matters most, you can develop a loyalty strategy that targets real needs, rather than blowing the budget on perks that don’t rate. 

Something to keep in mind is that the NPS varies greatly across industries. For example, if you’re in the car rental business, a score of 15 may be stellar – but in the streaming industry, the same score could be abysmal.

Understanding customer needs

Perhaps your SME already has solid NPS scores. Great! But now what? While the NPS is a starting point to benchmark future initiatives, the real prize is understanding what matters most to customers. Some are loyal to specific products and their price, quality or ease-of-use. For others, these perks play no role whatsoever; they are loyal to your brand, its reputation or image. Your customers are from all walks of life and won’t fit smoothly into one category or another. However, to develop a stellar strategy for boosting loyalty, it’s important you understand what drives your customers. A few basic categories your customers may fall into include: 

• Satisfied customers: feel they receive high quality products
• Price-loyal customers: feel they receive the best value for their money
• Loyalty-programme customers: enjoy receiving freebies through loyalty memberships
• Convenience customers: enjoy the ease of a product or service
• Brand-loyal customers: love the company and its products 

By using the NPS to understand customer composition, you can set up a strategy and solutions that meet their specific expectations. Do your customers favour quick and easy fulfilment? Offer overnight shipping for the convenience crowd. Is price important? Consider special promotions and discounts for bargain-hunters. A sound loyalty strategy identifies key issues with tools like the NPS to make sure perks and promotions gel with what customers really want and are meaningful.

Key loyalty builders

Today, building customer loyalty goes beyond price and individual perks alone. To feel a connection, customers also want personalised experiences and new ways to engage. They want to feel heard across all the channels they use. In short, they want to feel seen as a real human, rather than a random entry in a spreadsheet. Our Salesforce State of the Connected Customer report reveals key insights on how to build loyalty by focusing on customer interaction. To boost loyalty: 

1. Offer Loyalty Programmes

More than 50% of customers see companies as too impersonal today. Loyalty programmes build a more personalised connection by rewarding customers with exclusive events, early access and members-only benefits.

2. Provide Multi-Channel Support

Lack of support is a notorious loyalty killer. Customers want to be helped in ways they’re most comfortable with, especially when they have an issue. Research shows that customers place the most value on quick and easy points of contact and documentation, like well-maintained FAQs and real-time messaging support. 

3. Offer Different Ways to Engage

Customers often welcome opportunities to connect outside formal channels. In fact, 72% of customers expect vendors to personalise engagement to their own needs. Online communities, a social media presence or a well-maintained blog offer customers more choice to engage with you.

4. Build Trust by Being Generous & Showing Gratitude

54% of customers don’t believe companies have their best interests in mind – 94% say trust is essential to become a loyal buyer. Sometimes, that means being generous, and incurring additional costs now for better engagement later. Forgiving return policies and warranty programmes build trust and create more loyal customers in the future.

5. Evolve Your Business Over Time

More than 50% of customers actively seek out the most innovative brands – and continuous evolution is key to keeping customers engaged and buying. By piloting new approaches, like user-generated content or gamification, businesses can innovate beyond the scope of their product and keep interacting interesting.

The universal approach: customer experience

While each of these strategies address some customers more than others, they all feed into a loyalty builder that appeals to almost everyone. Customer Experience – aka, the customer journey, encompasses everything including first contact, choosing a product to after-sales. In fact, 80% of customers say that they consider customer experience just as important as the product itself. What’s more, 70% say they would pay extra for a great experience.

A great customer experience enables customers to engage with the brand and product at eye-level, at every stage with seamless handoffs along the way. Providing reliable support and letting the customer know their feedback matters – by way of the NPS for example – builds a two-way connection that invests customers in your brand in ways simply using the product cannot. The stark reality is that 67% of customers have recently switched vendors for a better experience. And the heyday of customer experience is only beginning: the younger the audience, the more likely they are to switch.

Creating experiences that last

Entrepreneur Tony Hsieh said: “Customer service shouldn’t just be a department; it should be the entire company.” Building enduring customer loyalty boils down to a simple but powerful truth: the customer comes first. 

By gauging loyalty with the NPS, using a data-driven approach to identify customer needs, and addressing them in a tailored and value-focused way, you can build lasting relationships, cut costs, drive sales and supercharge your brand. The reality is that it’s not the customer’s job to remember your business. But it is your job to ensure the customer has an outstanding experience that inspires them to become a loyal buyer and champion your brand.

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Then the tough question comes: “Did it work?”

The pressure is on for sales leaders to create enablement that makes a real impact on revenue goals, and prove that it’s working. This guide will show you how. We’ll cover the ins and outs of sales enablement — what it is, why it matters, and how you can measure success.

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What you’ll learn:

• What is sales enablement?
• Why is sales enablement important?
• What are the benefits of sales enablement?
• Who is responsible for sales enablement?
• How do you succeed in sales enablement?
• How to build a sales enablement strategy
• What are best practices for a sales enablement program?
• What tools are needed for sales enablement?

What is sales enablement?

Sales enablement uses content, coaching, training, and technology to help reps onboard, improve their skills, and sell. Sales enablement leaders care about increasing productivity, making a business impact they can measure, and getting training programs out the door faster.

Why is sales enablement important?

Sales is hard. Your reps often face a big, blank space at the beginning of a deal. Who are the stakeholders, what’s the strategy, and which deal details actually matter? They have to understand the problem and bring a solution for it. That’s why sales enablement is so important. Without education and guidance, sellers will struggle to advance prospects through the sales pipeline. Then, poof! There goes your revenue.

Here are some key challenges reps face, making the case for sales enablement.

Sellers are expected to be experts. In a June 2022 Salesforce survey, 74% of sellers said their jobs are becoming more consultative and less transactional. Sales reps have to better understand the product, the customer, and the market more deeply, so they bring more value to each conversation.

Sales in a hybrid world is challenging. In the same survey, 58% of sellers said virtual selling is harder than selling from an office. Yet only 29% are trained on how to do it. Sellers have to learn how to be as effective behind a screen as they are in the room.

With economic uncertainty, there’s less room for error. Market upheaval raises the stakes, and puts sellers under pressure to keep revenue from dropping. It’s not just about growth anymore, but effectiveness, too. Sellers need to do more with less.

Enablement to the rescue — if you put in the time. “Enablement in leading organisations is tasked with true capability building — and not simply relegated to onboarding and training,” the Harvard Business Review stated.

What are the benefits of sales enablement?

A strong sales enablement process lifts up the whole sales team — and the company with it. It connects sellers to other key players and departments, gets everyone singing about the product from the same song book, and helps sellers use their time effectively.

1. Alignment

Sales enablement informs sellers about every team that could potentially touch the sale in some shape or form. This could range from marketing and development to product and finance. Sellers learn more about the products from these other roles’ perspectives, while understanding how these roles can support the sale. Sellers can then align all these resources and knowledge to guide their customers smoothly through the sales process.

2. Consistency

Sales enablement trains sellers to speak the same company language. This doesn’t mean everyone is parroting identical words, but you’ve provided the foundational training for sellers to then put their own spin on it.

3. Efficiency

The payoff of sales enablement is that sellers can use their time more wisely and productively. With everything they need to know about the product in front of them, they can focus their energy on developing the types of relationships that close deals. Add sales enablement software with real-time success metrics and sellers can more easily tie their training to their day to day.

Who is responsible for sales enablement?

For many companies, sales enablement is a team effort, where leadership and sales groups work in tandem. Some larger companies have a sales enablement manager or similar role dedicated to all things sales enablement, like building training programs or updating guides.

If a team doesn’t have a sales enablement manager, then enablement falls to sales executives, like the vice president of sales. Sales operations leads would also play a role, helping turn leadership’s enablement vision into reality using the right processes and technology. The sales manager would be in charge of making sure reps complete enablement and engage in coaching, taking the training full circle by carrying it out in their daily work.

How do you succeed in sales enablement?

Stop creating generic training programs and hoping for the best. To succeed in sales enablement, start by identifying a specific and measurable revenue goal, and then develop training that brings you closer to reaching it. Track progress as sellers change their behaviour, and adapt and learn as you pave your way to efficient growth.

1. Choose your enablement goal

You already wake up thinking about it. What’s that one key performance indicator (KPI) that’s threatening the business?

Consider these metrics.

Ramp time: This is how long it takes for new sales reps to onboard and reach full productivity. Reducing ramp time is critical to keeping your sales productivity high, even when experienced sales reps quit — taking all of their knowledge with them.

Win rate: This is the percentage of won deals in your pipeline. A high win rate means your sales reps are good at closing. A low win rate means too many of your deals evaporate into thin air.

Deal size: This is the average value of all deals closed. It might sound obvious that if you want more revenue, you should sell bigger deals. But often, companies don’t train sellers on how to increase deal size, whether it’s by matching customers with more expensive products or selling add-ons, upsells, and bundles.

Sales cycle length: This is how long it takes your sellers to turn a cold lead into a red-hot deal. Shortening your sales cycles is critical for driving efficiency and productivity. You want your sales reps closing more deals, faster.

Once you’ve identified the KPI you want to change, define a target goal. For example, if deal size is a problem, you might want to increase the average deal amount by 20% that quarter.

2. Define the behaviour change you need

Once you have a goal, think about the seller behaviours that affect it. Using the example above, if your goal is to increase the average deal amount by 20%, then you could look at the biggest deals you’ve sold and examine the sales conversations that led up to them.

A sales call analysis tool can be pretty helpful here since it allows you to see conversation details, like how often certain keywords are used and in what context.

For example, you might learn that your biggest deals happen when sales reps sell on value rather than on price. To train your sellers to stop hammering on costs so much, you might set a goal to make 20% fewer sales calls this quarter that mention discounting.

3. Shape the new behaviour with new training

Next, focus on building out the specific training that will drive the behaviour change. In this example, you might create sales enablement content that helps your sellers understand what it really means to sell on value (for example, highlighting business benefits over cost savings). Then you might guide reps to handle objections with value rather than discounting at every stage of the sales process. Finally, you could schedule coaching sessions that give reps personal guidance if they start to slip.

Each of these training events can become a milestone that you can track as reps complete them. Bring this training into the daily work of a rep when you can, since it’s more efficient when they can learn and sell at the same time.

4. Adapt, learn, repeat

So how’s it going? On a regular basis (at least once a quarter), dig in to see how your enablement is working. Did your sellers hit their milestones? Did the behaviour change make an impact? Maybe your hypothesis that value selling would increase deal size was wrong, or maybe the training itself wasn’t effective.

Identify what is or isn’t working. Then adjust to hit the mark. Whatever happened, you’re all the wiser for it, just in time to face a new quarter.

How to build a sales enablement strategy

With the framework above in mind, you can start to outline your tactical sales enablement strategy. This roadmap will plot out how you’ll meet the goals you set in the previous section, layering on specific actions and measurable steps. For example, let’s keep with the goal of increasing your average deal size by 20% by the end of Q1, and see how to craft your strategy around that.

1. Establish who will build and maintain your sales enablement program

Use this step to assemble your team. If we’re aiming for a deal increase, who specifically on your team will you assign responsibilities to based on their expertise? Do they have the bandwidth to take this on? Do you need to bring in external resources? With our sample goal in mind, the head of sales with a background in coaching could be your frontrunner.

2. Determine how you’ll reach your enablement outcomes

Focus on the output. What is each team member expected to manage, produce, or communicate as part of the sales enablement strategy? What are the deliverables? What is the budget? In this case, the output could be creating a coaching session schedule.

3. Decide on the timing and pace to meet your strategy deadlines

What’s the timeline? How will you track progress? When will you analyse the results? This could be one session per week during Q4.

Scale your strategy based on how many goals you’re trying to achieve. Pair these planning steps with these best practices for building a well-oiled sales enablement machine.

What are best practices for a sales enablement program?

Sales enablement should largely focus on making your training more data-driven, relevant, and personal. Here are four best practices for sales enablement to reach those goals.

Connect enablement and customer data with a CRM

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is your fuel. It gives you visibility into your data so you can see how individual reps are performing. Track sellers as they hit enablement milestones on their march toward their sales quota, and see how their behaviours are affecting your top-line goal.

Bring in technology that helps you make better use of your data. You can find solutions that lean on automation and AI to coach sellers based on that data. Then, train your sales reps in ways that work for their unique learning styles, giving them the information they need when they need it.

Onboard sellers in the flow of their work

In traditional onboarding, training tools are disconnected from the CRM (think stand-alone content libraries). The best practice today is to get reps selling even as they’re onboarding and learning, because speeding up ramp time will speed up revenue. When you do both in parallel, reps can check off milestones — like activities completed and meetings booked — as they move customers through the pipeline.

Train your reps in bites, not feasts

Stop providing sellers with enormous volumes of material. They get overwhelmed. Create bite-size learning modules and serve them up at just the right times. For example, a new rep who needs to send a quote to a customer could receive a CRM alert with easy-to-follow guidance on how to get the quote out the door faster, and how to follow up.

Create a library of sales enablement content to help your reps learn

Great enablement needs great content that delivers the right information at the right time. Here are common types you should consider for your own enablement program, and how they can be used:

• Customer stories: Documents that show why customers came to use your products and the benefits they’ve enjoyed.
• Product slide decks: Presentations on challenges, market trends, and product offerings for sales conversations.
• E-books: A downloadable guide for customers that typically focuses on high-level challenges and trends.
• Datasheets: A list of the nuts and bolts of a certain product, from use cases to features to results.
• Product demos: Videos and presentations that walk through key features.
• Competitive intelligence: Competitor research to help you understand where you fit into the market and how you stand out.

There will always be a place for good old-fashioned content — even as sales enablement goes digital. The trick is to create a diversity of content to fit different learning styles and topics, then serve it up when it’s needed most. Technology can help. Below, we share important sales enablement tools that will get you going.

What tools are needed for sales enablement?

A lot of businesses are reimagining the possibilities of what technology can take on. They’re putting the seller’s focus back on the human element — and letting automation handle the rest. They’re also keen to break down barriers between sales and enablement, and bring them together into the same flow of work. That’s why a sales enablement toolkit should combine CRM data, enablement software, and tools for call coaching and learning management.

Let’s take a closer look at critical sales enablement tools.

🔎 CRM software

A CRM gives you one single place to track customer data and spot opportunities and risks in the pipeline. When you automate the flow of this customer data and connect it to enablement tools, you can embed revenue milestones that auto-complete as reps hit them. Dashboards and reports let you see who’s on track.

📈 Sales enablement tool

At its core, a sales enablement platform manages and tracks all of the training and coaching a sales team needs. The best sales enablement solutions enable sellers to learn and onboard in the same place where they sell. You should also be able to build an enablement program that targets the KPIs you want to improve. From there, structure content and activities into step-by-step training that shows your reps what to do every day.

📞 Call coaching tool

A call recording and coaching tool can help you find coachable moments in sales conversations that you can use for training. The same tool can also help you track behaviour change. For example, you might set an enablement milestone for making 10 sales calls that mention your new product bundle to help increase deal size. Call coaching tools help you track keywords that show you whether you’re making progress toward the goal.

💡 Learning management tool

A learning tool should educate your sellers around new products, market conditions, and ways of selling. Certifications and interactive elements like gamification (literally mimicking a video game) can sweeten the deal.

What’s next: a shift in focus from inputs to outcomes

The question in sales enablement has changed. It used to be: “What are we teaching our reps?” Now it’s: “What business value are we creating with our training?”

To find the answer, build a program that has a goal in its sights. Focus on changing seller behaviour to move the right needle. Roll out the automation-powered technology that can scale your enablement teams’ efforts.

Build a path from effort to results. Faint at first, it will deepen and strengthen as your sellers walk it.

What trends drive sales productivity today?

Get the State of Sales Report to discover productivity insights from 7,700 sales professionals.

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The post What Is Sales Enablement? A Complete Guide appeared first on Salesforce.

I learned the importance of lead nurturing back in 2008. It was the Great Recession, but I doubled my growth that year because I was focused on the people in front of me, with no ulterior motive other than to strengthen every connection I had.

What worked for me then still works for me now. Here’s how I reach more leads, zero in on the ones that matter, and woo them until they close. 

What you’ll learn:

What is lead nurturing?
Why is lead nurturing important?
How do you nurture leads?
Lead nurturing strategies and tactics
Best lead nurturing software and tools

Use AI to reach more leads, faster 

See how Sales Engagement from Sales Cloud helps you advance pipeline faster with step-by-step guidance from lead to close.

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What is lead nurturing?

Lead nurturing is the process of providing valuable offers and resources that persuade prospects to advance through the sales funnel until they’re ready to buy. Sales reps capture a lead’s attention and interest with useful information, then convert leads into customers by deepening the relationship and showing how their product or service can help address critical pain points.

Why is lead nurturing important?

Lead nurturing is how we make authentic connections with our target customers, learn about the challenges they face, deliver information and resources they find valuable, and earn the right to pitch our solution. It takes time, effort, and heart, but it’s worth it in the end. Here are a few of the benefits:

Learn more about your target customers. Because lead nurturing is focused on digging deep to uncover pain points, needs, and interests so you can deliver value, it’s one of the best ways of understanding your prospects. For example, I used to pitch my sales training services to Black and brown women, thinking their biggest pain point was about making quota. In fact, I learned that they were more concerned with being seen and acknowledged by leadership. I made a shift in my sales pitch to centre around that idea of recognition, and my client list quadrupled. 

Build relationships that last beyond the initial sale. When we’re out there every day, working on helping our leads and solving their problems, we build trust, respect, and authentic relationships that can last for life. This leaves the door open for future sales.

Be more efficient by discovering the most important prospects. The truth is that not all leads are equal. Based on their engagement during lead nurturing, we can determine the most valuable prospects in our sales funnel based on their likelihood to buy and whether they’re a fit for our product. Focusing on these prospects improves the chances of hitting quota and sales targets. 

How do you nurture leads?

To nurture leads, deliver value that’s relevant in the moment, such as sending information that helps the lead understand trends in their industry, or provides insight on how to overcome their challenges. Then, close each interaction with a call to action that encourages them to move on to the next stage in the sales funnel. Here’s a simplified version, going from product awareness to consideration, evaluation, and purchase:

Awareness

Before they enter the awareness stage, a lead is cold. They haven’t entered your funnel yet. So target them where they are, reaching out to help them understand what pain points you can solve, but without going into the nitty-gritty details of your product. Conclude each interaction with a call to action that pulls them deeper into the sales funnel, and requests their contact information if you don’t already have it. For example, you might include a form in a blog post that invites the reader to download a guide in return for sharing their email address.

Marketing and sales work together to pull leads into the awareness stage, using tactics like the following:

• Publishing blog posts and articles about relevant topics (ahem)
• Running ads leading to your content or website. These can include pay-per-click ads on search engines, physical ads like billboards, direct mailers, and display ads on websites.
• Sending emails and newsletters with announcements and content roundups

A lead will often require many different touchpoints in the awareness stage — clicking on ads, downloading gated assets like ebooks, and having initial conversations with a sales rep — before they’re ready to consider your product as a solution for their problem.

Interest

When a lead shows initiative and starts taking proactive steps to learn more about your solution, they’re ready to advance to the interest stage of your sales funnel. Share more about your point of view with downloadable guides and company events, and end with calls to action to learn more about your product in greater detail. 

Here are examples of activities for this stage:

• Sending long-form, downloadable content like guides, reports, and workbooks
• Hosting events like company conferences and dinners
• Leading a discovery call to learn about a lead’s challenges and motivations

Consideration

Once the lead has learned about your point of view and agrees that you might be able to help, they begin to consider you as a company that can provide a solution. Walk them through the features of your product, showing how you can deliver results and relieve their pain points.

Here are examples of lead nurturing activities in the consideration stage:

• Sending detailed product content like datasheets, demos, and product tours
• Giving a sales presentation that names your prospect’s challenges and shows how your product can solve them

Evaluation

In this stage, the prospect has indicated a serious interest in buying. Your task now is to go into concrete detail about how your product stands out from the rest of the pack, showing differentiation from the competition and giving your prospect the chance to get their hands on your product to test it for themselves. You’ll also need to create urgency around switching to your product versus not doing anything by going head-to-head against the status quo. Consider these offers:

• Free trial
• Free consultation
• Customer reference calls, where prospects speak with current customers

4 lead nurturing strategies and tactics

Lead nurturing strategies all boil down to one thing: prioritising your time on the ones most likely to close. Here is how I approach it

1. Use high-touch tactics on the most important leads

Invest your time on the leads that have both a high interest level and high revenue potential. 

To identify leads with high interest, look at who’s completing enough activities in a given sales stage to become ready for the next one — especially those that do so faster than other leads. For example, a lead who has downloaded a guide and registered for an event is probably ready to move from the interest stage to the consider stage. You might reach out to schedule a demo.

You also want to know that a lead is worth your time by measuring their revenue potential. Look at specific sales metrics to flag this: the dollar amount of the product you plan to sell to them, the dollar amounts of upsell opportunities, and the amount of time that you expect to retain them as a customer — a quality that becomes particularly valuable in a subscription model.

When a lead is both interested and shows high potential revenue, that lead calls for high-touch engagement, or activities that deliver more frequent, personalised interactions and resources. For example: taking time to do research and craft a personalised email about a unique insight showing how you can help. Another example: putting in the work to create ROI calculations of how your product will deliver value long-term, not just for the company as a whole but for individual teams and departments.

2. Nurture the rest of your leads with low-touch offerings

Continue to nurture your less engaged and low revenue-potential leads with less personalised offerings that you can deliver with minimal effort. For example, pre-schedule a monthly newsletter with timely updates about your company, or weekly blog posts about topics that are relevant to common buyer pain points.

There will also be leads who fall in the middle — those who have low interest but are great fits for your product with high revenue potential, and those who show interest but have lower revenue potential. You won’t have enough time to give these leads the same level of personalisation that you give to the high-touch leads in the section above. But there is a middle ground. Create targeted campaigns that involve light research and little to no personalisation but that can also be sent out at scale, like a batch of Inmail messages sent over Linkedin, delivering a relevant and timely message. 

Remember that a low-touch lead can become a high-touch lead in an instant. Keep an eye on engagement and prioritise a lead who raises their hand.

3. Make every interaction stand out, because you never know

There’s no such thing as a bad lead. That’s why we focus on the hottest leads, but never neglect the rest. Someone can be a bad fit for your product but refer you to your next greatest customer. Someone else might work for a small company that can’t afford you now, but what you don’t know is that in six months they’ll switch to a larger company that can.

The tactic is to build and deepen relationships across the board, even if there isn’t a clear reason for it yet. Every great sales rep can tell a story about a time when focusing on the relationship, without an ulterior motive in mind, turned into a big sale. Veteran seller and trainer Sunita Gill spent a discovery call bonding instead of talking about the product. John Dao, a leading account executive at Grubhub, found his big break by chatting with a stranger at his grandma’s barbershop. 

4. Experiment with different tactics and measure the results

Be sure to experiment with new lead nurturing tactics for each funnel stage and track success metrics. You might find a new tactic that blows your previous strategy out of the water. 

Every week, I review the analytics for my nurturing activities. I look at email open rates, event registrations, and free trial sign-ups. When an activity is tracking worse than expected based on past performance, I make changes until it succeeds, or I retire the activity altogether. And when an activity performs well, I continue to invest in it.

I’m also a big fan of A/B testing. When I host events, I create two different videos to promote them, with different scripts and messages. I send them out to different groups, measure which video has a higher conversion rate, and then I throw all my promotional spend behind that video as I send it out to the rest of my network.

Best lead nurturing software and tools

Ground your lead nurturing in a CRM, which gives you a foundation of data and visibility for tracking every lead as they advance through your sales pipeline. Also look for tools that help you work faster and smarter — using automation that does busywork for you, and AI that guides you to make better decisions right in the flow of your work. Here are the tools I recommend:

👩‍🦱 Customer relationship management (CRM) software

A CRM brings all your customer data into one place, and with the help of automation, updates records with interactions like emails to give you an updated view of your leads. This single source of truth lets you track leads as they cross channels, gather data on every relationship, and take action that fits the moment.

🥇 Automated lead scoring

Use software that automatically scores inbound leads with a numerical value to indicate their interest, assigning points to the most valuable actions, like visiting a pricing page or requesting a demo. Use snapshots of lead scores to prioritise your leads and take relevant action.

🚀 Automated prospecting tool

Make stronger connections with AI that prospects for you. Buyer Assistant from Sales Cloud, for example, can qualify and pass leads to sales reps from your website, giving them the option to connect with a rep instantly or schedule a meeting. 

💡 AI-driven lead intelligence and automation

Predictive AI analyses health and behaviour signals of your leads and sends you recommendations for the next best steps to take. Ideally, this is part of your CRM, as in the case of Sales Cloud. This tool helps you prioritise the most critical leads based on revenue potential and relevant sales activities. 

❤️ Sales engagement platform

Advance your pipeline faster by connecting with your leads wherever they are by email, phone or the web. Sales Engagement, part of Sales Cloud, helps you engage with your buyers across their preferred channels, all from a single location. 

Ready for lead nurturing that flows and grows? 

It should be clear by now that lead nurturing is the beating heart of sales. Give the lead something that helps them in that moment, and offer them your hand to guide them to the next step. A connection can be built in a moment, but the deepest relationships take time and authenticity to build. Take it one step a time.

Become a lead nurturing powerhouse

Learn how Sales Cloud can help you nurture leads to close using automation, real-time data, and AI-driven insights, taking busywork off your plate and delivering AI-crafted copy that resonates with your target buyers.

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The post The Lead Nurturing Secrets That Helped Me Double My Sales appeared first on Salesforce.