In talking with a lot of our customers and partners about their data and approach to achieving a true “Customer 360” solution, I am often questioned with ”Customer360 has been around for a while, so what is new and different. Why now?”
Software as a Service (SaaS) companies in particular, are at the right moment and presented with unique opportunities to excel by optimizing their Customer 360 strategies. By leveraging the power of data and artificial intelligence (AI), these companies can gain a comprehensive understanding of their customers, personalize experiences, and drive growth.
The Role of Data and AI in Customer 360
The advent of technology like Salesforce Data Cloud and generative AI has revolutionized how SaaS companies can approach Customer 360 strategies.
Data Cloud: A New Frontier
The first thing that is new and different about how SaaS and software companies need to think about customer 360 strategies is the technological leap that has been made with the availability of Salesforce Data Cloud.
Although Data Cloud was originally positioned as a Customer Data Platform (CDP) Solution, what was lost was the ability for that architecture to allow Salesforce to connect to external data sources and models. That paradigm was never there before. Now, Data Cloud allows seamless integration of external data and models, enabling organizations to focus investments on data foundations outside of Salesforce. This makes it a lot easier to be able to realize those investments by integrating with Data Cloud.
Generative AI in Action
The rise of generative AI, with OpenAI and launch of access to tools like ChatGPT, has empowered businesses to realize the power of GenAI. Seeing the possibilities, business users have started to crave similar technology in the enterprise, and are coming to their IT teams asking for access to data and tools to automate content generation and summarize data efficiently.
Meeting the Consumer’s Expectation
The availability of usage data within the enterprise organizations allows them to bring a much more personalized marketing message with that usage data or even enriched consumer data. Today’s consumers know the power of data and AI and the models that are available now, leaving to a much higher expectation the message they’re going to receive is one that’s been highly personalized to them, to their behavior and tailored to how much business they’ve already done.
Opportunities for SaaS in Cloud and AI
It’s this moment together – the integration of robust CDP technologies meeting robust generative AI – that gives SaaS companies the opportunity to integrate data and AI into their Customer 360 strategies and start to actually take advantage of their data.
Here are some examples:
- Integrating Marketing Cloud with AWS for Highly Personalized Messaging
SaaS organizations have historically used Salesforce Marketing Cloud for their outreach. Many have also consolidated into the cloud with AWS as their hyperscaler. So it makes sense now to connect those two worlds together through Data Cloud so that they can realize really personalized messaging, taking advantage of all of that data, making for an easy opportunity and substantial return on investment (ROI). - Putting Customer Intelligence Data into Action
SaaS companies, more than any other industry, collect an enormous amount of data – data on product usage, consumer data, financial data – and are typically much more advanced in their intelligence around their customer base. WIth that, AI becomes even more sticky and richer with that deep data foundation and data history. So that’s the opportunity to leverage Gen AI for their go to market motion. Plus, the opportunity to embed gen AI features in the product, enriching customer interaction, makes their products even stickier for their end customers. - Optimizing Customer Acquisition and Targeting
Utilizing data and AI can significantly refine customer acquisition strategies for SaaS companies.Tying data intelligence into your CRM is going to allow organizations to:- Be much more targeted in their customer acquisition efforts, which should reduce the costs of outreach programs
- Create better predictive models, Using data to better match who your prospective customers should be, avoiding broad, inefficient spray and pray marketing approaches.
- Tenant Costs and Customer ROI
By looking at their tenant cost in AWS and tying it directly to customers in their CRM, SaaS companies can have a deeper view on the return on investment of individual customers. Helping their teams streamline their customer strategies.
Get Started with AllCloud
Harnessing data and AI for Customer 360 strategies offers SaaS companies a pathway to enhanced customer engagement, optimized acquisition, and strategic expansion. By integrating these technologies into their core operations, SaaS companies can deliver personalized experiences, drive efficiency, and stay ahead in a competitive market.
Ready to learn more about how AllCloud can help? Check out AllCloud’s Customer 360 Data Assessment to take a deeper look at how sharing data between Salesforce and AWS can help your organization achieve deeper insights into your customers.