Heads in the Cloud: How Businesses Can Get More Out of Cloud Technology

There was once a time when technology in business meant little more than a few typewriters and a phone system. But as technology has evolved, businesses have also had to adapt — from simple word processors and email, to the current age of mobile devices and cloud solutions. Businesses that hope to keep up with the competition must be quick to understand and introduce new technology.

However, simply hopping on board the latest tech bandwagon is not enough to place your business at the top of the field. Though many businesses are eager to implement the latest tech developments, many are still unable to truly harness them to their advantage. In particular, cloud technology in business is seldom used to its full potential, even if it is being widely used across a variety of industries. In essence, they have their heads in the cloud, but aren’t seeing it for what it could be.

Over the years, customer service software has witnessed significant change and growth. This is hardly surprising: After all, 33 percent of high-performing service teams qualify as heavy tech adopters. That means even software that’s become standard in the business world is seeing significant improvement, as technology allows for more features and functions to be implemented. However, customer service software updates are now going further than mere features. Help desk software is increasingly becoming multi channel, making the process of responding to and flagging Facebook posts and Twitter mentions as important as providing direct support via telephone or email.

There are many available customer service solutions on the marketplace, and every year developers continue adding capabilities and features to broaden their product feature matrix. A number of leading vendors are giving heavy focus to automation, with the goal of simplifying the handling process of support tickets. Still others are busy building major analytics products which are assisting businesses identify and cut down bottlenecks in their customer support processes.

It's essential that you look beyond just the tool features when selecting a customer service software solution. Check customer service software reviews on factors like usability, architecture and affordability. You may also want to consider particulars regarding the vendor company itself: Its commitment, viability, reach, and post-sales support levels. After all, if they can’t handle their own customer service well, should you really trust them with yours?

It is estimated that 93% of businesses are using cloud technology in some form or another. However, when it comes to channeling that technology to reach customers, many are still left wanting as customer expectations skyrocket. As it stands, 58% of consumers agree that technology has significantly changed their expectations of how companies should interact with them, and around half say that they are likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t anticipate their needs.

As these statistics show, customer experience is becoming an increasingly important factor for businesses both large and small. For this reason, one of the best ways to effectively use cloud technology in business is to employ customer relationship management (CRM) tools to improve the customer experience. How? Predominantly by helping businesses to better understand their customers.

With CRM platforms, businesses are able to connect the customer experience across all channels, and thus cultivate better one-to-one journeys for each customer. Through data collection and analysis, companies can gain a more complete view of customer habits, and use it to automatically create a more personalised experience. The company can meet each customer where they are — whether on social, over email, or in person — and provide them with the same great, consistent service across the board.

CRM solutions also ease employee workloads. By automating certain tasks, such as data entry, drip emails, deal tracking, followups, reporting, and more, employees are not only able to use smarter data to make better decisions, but are also able to focus more of their time on the tasks that are most deserving of their attention.

You would be forgiven for assuming that CRM is only related to customer service, but the reality is that modern CRM platforms have the potential to improve every aspect of business. Here are a few of the ways in which a CRM can enhance results from each department:

• Sales
  Businesses can use a CRM platform to capture, store, analyse, and retrieve all relevant sales data easily, giving businesses insight into why certain deals were won or lost, and helping them determine which leads to focus on, manage partnerships, and view the pipeline all in one place.

• Marketing
  A more personalised, and therefore more effective, marketing experience is possible using cloud CRM tools. Craft better email and social media marketing, manage ad campaigns, use predictive metrics to ensure that content is directed to the right people in the right place, all from the same platform.

• Customer Service
  Because customer service now spreads across every avenue of the internet, case management through a cloud platform is now essential in making sure that every channel is covered. CRM tools allow for faster resolution and more comprehensive service, whether the client prefers email, live chat, telephone, or even social media.

• App Development
  No more hiring and training specialist app developers. The best CRMs are capable of integrating with in-house and third-party apps, and may even include easy-to-use app development tools. Companies can use app development tools to swiftly design and build custom secure applications to engage customers.

• Digital Commerce
  With so much shopping now carried out online, efficient ecommerce is essential. Unify and speed up the shopping experience, quickly create new sites, and provide multi-channel services, such as click and collect.

These are just a few examples of the ways in which CRM technology can improve the entire retail experience. What’s more, over the next few years, this technology is set to get even more impressive. Artificial intelligence is already being utilised in many of these tools to provide predictive analytics and even more accurate decision-making.

These kind of AI-driven smart analytics are already being utilised in Salesforce solutions, helping clients across the globe to improve their customer experience. With cloud solutions in each of the aforementioned areas and more, Salesforce allows for a more complete customer journey than any other CRM platform.

With Salesforce, marketing is able to create smarter, targeted campaigns, using data from sales, app developers are able to use customer service feedback to create a better app experience, and so on. Every department can take advantage of CRM benefits, and can improve their inter-department communication through cloud-based, real time data sharing.

And of course, at the heart of everything, is the customer. Salesforce takes and analyses all available data, and combines it to create a detailed profile of each client, allowing sales representatives to guide them through that all-important one-on-one journey from the initial contact, to purchase, and beyond. With a network of Salesforce cloud solutions, no customer is lost in transition.

In a recent survey, it was found that high-performing marketing teams are 3.3 times more likely than underperformers to extensively use CRM tools, giving marketing, sales, and service teams a shared, single view of the customer. By means of contrast, 35% of underperforming marketing teams said that they had no plans to use CRM tools in the future.

The right tools can make all the difference in business, and when it comes to crafting customer experience, nothing is more important than making sure that you have the resources to help your business succeed. Taking full advantage of the many cloud CRM tools that are available today will not only create a more efficient process, but it can actually set your business apart from its competition and ultimately boost that bottom line.

The business world has come a long way since the days of typewriters and simple phone systems, and with the possibilities inherent in advancing cloud technologies and CRM solutions, it doesn’t look like it’s set to stop any time soon. We don’t yet know what the future of business technology will look like, but for now cloud technology has significantly improved the present. Discover the potential behind the technology you trust, and find out just how far you can see with your head stuck in the cloud.