Web Exclusive How

Salesforce is helping
enterprises bond with
customers amid pandemic
The San Francisco-based customer-
management software maker is
providing AI and ML for a variety of
enterprises, from tyre makers,
adhesives manufacturers to sports
apparel and footwear firms

Sunil Jose, senior vice president, Salesforce India

As businesses across India navigate how to

engage with their customers in the new normal,
Salesforce is playing a key role in digitally
transforming the way businesses connect with
their customers. 

The San Francisco-based customer-management

software maker is providing technologies
including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine
learning (ML) for a variety of enterprises to build
a better relationship with customers amid the
Covid-19 pandemic. These range from tyre
makers, adhesives manufacturing companies to
sports apparel and footwear firms.

“It is a customer-centric digital transformation.

When we look at organizations, senior leaders
and CXOs talking about the pandemic, it is
absolutely pushing digital initiatives to the
forefront,” said Sunil Jose, senior vice president,
Salesforce India, in an interview. “We have had
conversations with CEOs who are saying that
(instead of)  next 3-4 years for digital
transformation they want to get it done in the
next 6-8 months.”

Jose said that out of India’s 35 million small and

medium businesses, only about 10 per cent are
digitally tuned. “Majority of them are all
thinking in the same direction about how we
make digital transformation happen at a speed
which has never happened before,” said Jose.

One of the customers is CEAT, which is India’s

leading tyre manufacturers, producing over 35
million tyres annually. Salesforce is helping the
firm to use technology to become a truly
customer-centric organisation.

A roadblock in CEAT’s journey to customer-

centricity was their existing customer-
relationship management (CRM). It lacked
several functionalities vital to the success of
channel operations. The organisation’s data was
spread across disparate systems. CEAT sales
team lacked visibility into channel operations
data and struggled to work efficiently with their
vast network. Dealers could not access the
information they needed to enable strategic
decisions. This is when Salesforce played a key
role.

CEAT deployed Salesforce ‘community cloud’ to

build a portal for its vast dealer network. By
digitising all dealer-related processes on a single
portal, it created a self-service platform that
delivers a frictionless experience to channel
partners. With the ability to manage their orders
more efficiently through the portal, CEAT has
seen a 1.2 per cent improvement in sales.

Rich features, such as e-claims, e-catalogues,

and warranty registration, help the firm deliver a
transparent and consistent customer
experience. 

“Using e-claims, a dealer can instantly settle a

customer’s claim through the app,” said Ritesh
Arora, chief digital officer at CEAT. This has
reduced the claim settlement time from two
working days to instant settlement in 50 per
cent of cases across the channel.

With complete dealer information now available

on Salesforce, CEAT is using all that rich data to
create a customer 360 dashboard for their sales
teams. The dashboard offers them the
convenience of staying updated on everything
from dealer performance to financials,
achievements, targets and upcoming visit dates.

“Our dealers tell us that everything they want is

now available at their fingertips. They have clear
visibility into stock, performance, and
transparency into financials,” said Arora.“With
information available on their mobiles, our
salespeople no longer have to carry their laptops
around, and look through multiple, lengthy
reports to get a clear picture of dealer
performance.”

Salesforce is also leveraging ‘commerce cloud’ in

the retail sector in India. One such customer is
sports apparel and footwear major Puma India
which has partnered with Salesforce. The aim is
to provide its digitally-savvy consumers with an
unmatched user experience online that reflects
the brand’s high-quality in-store presence.

E-commerce has always been a big priority for

Puma. However in the current pandemic
situation, online is a more convenient option for
consumers to shop. With the vast volumes of
customer data now available in a single view,
Puma is able to better understand what
consumers are buying and personalise their
experience accordingly.

“The new normal has also catapulted the

number of first-time online shoppers,” said
Jackson Fernandez, associate director and head,
B2C e-commerce, Puma India. “Salesforce
‘commerce cloud’ has enabled us to handle the
surge in volume and meet consumer demand
consistently.”

Jose of Salesforce said e-commerce has become

an integral part of all businesses as ‘the store
that never closes.’ He said that empowering
companies to create personalised commerce
experiences initiated anytime and anywhere and
spanning multiple channels is an incredibly
important part of how to keep an edge in the
current scenario. “Puma has chosen Salesforce
‘commerce cloud’ to enable their teams to
deliver a truly 24/7 online customer experience,”
said Jose.

Salesforce is also assisting Pidilite Industries

Limited to sustain its growth and form new
bonds with customers. Pidilite is a leading
manufacturer of adhesives and sealants,
automotive and construction chemicals and
craftsmen products. With a global presence
across Asia, the UAE and Africa, Pidilite’s Fevicol
brand has become synonymous with adhesives
to millions in India.

Pidilite is adopting innovative methods for

marketing products to consumers. It has a
growing range of hobby products under the
Fevicryl brand which also engages with
influencers, teachers and others interested in
crafts. It is an effective strategy as the
influencers organise workshops to share their
knowledge of Pidilite products and demonstrate
them to consumers.

The only challenge was that, until recently,

signing up influencers, organising workshops,
and reimbursements were manual and involved
lengthy processes. For Pidilite to grow its
network of influencers, it needed to streamline
onboarding and facilitate a speedy hassle-free
workshop booking process. Pidilite has built an
app that does both, using Heroku, a cloud
platform as a service (PaaS) supporting several
programming languages and which is part of
Salesforce.

The ‘Team’ app - a workshop management

solution for Teachers - was built in just two and
a half months. It is already saving hundreds of
hours a month for everyone involved in the
programme. 

“It has reduced the cycle time from 45 days to

just five and helped Pidilite to increase
influencer-enrollments by around 10 per cent.
Influencer connect is a key component of our
marketing programmes,” said Kavita Jagtiani,
chief for marketing – consumer products division
at Pidilite. “The ‘Team’ app has seamlessly
integrated the touchpoints in our influencer
connect program, driven efficiencies and solved
real business problems of reach and impact. The
app has also helped in further improving our
engagement levels with the influencers.”

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First Published: Tue,November 03 2020 19:03 IST

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