Customer 360 Playbook

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Foreword Conventional attitudes, silos, and legacy Our work with thousands of C-suite systems often stand between leaders and leaders from organizations of all sizes and A note from customer centricity. And while technology industries has uncovered patterns of what Bret Taylor can help, that alone is not the answer. it takes for successful companies to get Simply applying new technology to old ways it right as they evolve to be more of doing things won’t magically change the customer-centric. way your teams deliver a great customer Whether you’re a CEO in financial services, For years, I’ve heard business leaders experience at scale. a CIO in B2B tech, or another leader ready discuss the need to digitally transform to make meaningful change, I hope this and achieve a holistic view of the Transformation happens when leaders playbook helps you bring the customer customer. Lately, I’ve found those stop focusing internally on technology, closer to the center of your business. discussions to be even more urgent. products, departments, or systems — and Realistically, though, it’s not about being recenter around their customers. Bret Taylor a digital company or even a digitally transformed company. Every company Easy to say, harder to do. We hope this President and Chief Product Officer, needs to be a customer company. playbook helps you confidently lead change. Salesforce The Customer 360 Playbook 02

Page Introduction: What Is Customer 360 Table of 04 Transformation and Why Now? Chapter 1: Understand the Importance Contents 06 of Changing Mindsets in Your Organization Chapter 2: Design Customer-Centric 09 Business Processes You might be wondering: Chapter 3: Build One Team Around What makes this playbook different from 12 the Customer everything else on this topic? We’re offering this guidance based on what Chapter 4: Move to the Leanest Possible Salesforce has learned from thousands of working 14 Technology Stack sessions and projects with C-suite leaders over our 21-year history. Across industries and functions, we’ve found the core challenges are the same — and Chapter 5: Sense and Respond to Customers, so are the key questions to ask your teams as you 17 Now and in the Future drive a customer-first revolution. 20 Conclusion and How to Learn More The Customer 360 Playbook 03

Introduction What is customer 360 New research shows that 84% of customers Future-fit companies are evolving accordingly, transformation and why now? say the experience a company provides is as redesigning their businesses to compete on the important as its products and services. most important market differentiator: their ability to understand, engage, and earn the trust of their Customers expect unity customers. These companies put the customer Business transformation has reached a critical at the center. inflection point. but oen face silos Salesforce’s business has been built on the gradual For decades, businesses competed on the ability evolution from the product-centric world to one to build and distribute the best product or service. in which customers demand to be at the center of ” Leaders thought, “Build it and they will come. your business. The Salesforce technology platform It made sense to put the product at the center is singularly focused on enabling this. And we’ve of a business. learned one important thing helping leaders do that Today, the internet and new technologies for the past 21 years: Adding new technology to like artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet old-fashioned, product-centric thinking doesn’t of Things (IoT) are turning this world upside generate the change businesses really need. down. In every industry, it’s never been easier to set up a new business and compete of customers expect all company with industry incumbents. 72% representatives to have the same information about them With so many choices at their fingertips, customers now choose to spend their time of customers say it generally feels like and money with businesses that put them first. 59% they’re communicating with separate departments, not one company Salesforce, State of the Connected Consumer, June 2019. The Customer 360 Playbook 04

Introduction That’s why this breaking out in a cold sweat, but the steps playbook is focused outlined in this guide will help you make a plan on what we call and evolve. customer 360 This playbook’s five chapters will begin transformation — an your journey with thought starters and approach that puts practical tips. the customer in the center of your feedback loop and innovation cycle. Customer 360 transformation rallies Mindsets: Common assumptions, every department, employee, and orthodoxies, and actions that can hold a company back or propel it forward. Ideally, stakeholder around customers’ needs. mindsets evolve to put the customer at the center of the business, with priorities determined via customer listening and How to work toward close-the-loop processes. customer 360 transformation with this guide Disciplines: Customer-centric business processes that unite employees, departments, The idea of hitting reset on your organization’s and partners to solve customer needs with the full force of the organization. efforts toward customer centricity may have you Future-proof technology investments that sense and respond to the needs of customers and employees in real time. The Customer 360 Playbook 05

Chapter 1 Understand the Importance of Changing Mindsets in Your Organization Our working sessions with leaders have made it For established businesses, executives spend about Sound familiar? The big aha moment is realizing clear: To create change, you need to change how 80% of their time in a renovate mindset. The there’s a third way: You can evolve your company to people see the world. company naturally remains product-centric, albeit be customer-centric. You can shift from renovate to with some innovative transcend programs. an evolve mindset. Mindsets are the common assumptions, orthodoxies, and actions that both hold companies back and propel them forward. Most CEOs look at their business and see two ways to change. They can renovate their existing business to drive down costs and increase productivity. That’s a renovate mindset. Or they can use freed-up cash to experiment with RENOVATE EVOLVE TRANSCEND new ways of generating customer value, as if they were a startup entrepreneur — operating in a How do we optimize our How do we put our customer How do we create customer transcend mindset. existing business? in the center of our business? value in new ways? The Customer 360 Playbook 06

Chapter 1: Understand the Importance of Changing Mindsets in Your Organization Examples of how mindsets lead to market solutions Banking Insurance Manufacturing Retail Healthcare and Travel, Transportation, Life Sciences and Hospitality Renovate Sell or Supply chain-centric service more Streamlined banking Increased health insurance go-to-market, supported by Discount-based Accurate patient records Call center optimized to How do we optimize effectively product sales sales productivity efficiency through Lean loyalty programs maintained by providers maximize occupancy rates our existing business? Six Sigma and ERP Evolve Create Frictionless, multi- frictionless channel banking product Frictionless health Connected product Personalized Wellness journeys 360-degree view of the How do we put buying application, approval, insurance claim data for insights multi-channel buying that keep people guest, enabling employees our customers in the experiences and onboarding experiences experiences on the right track to anticipate needs center of our business? experiences Transcend AI-enhanced, automated Open digital platforms Ecosystem of providers Own the job financial coach to help AI-enhanced experiences that allow customers to Concierge partner that that share data and Lifestyle concierge that How do we create to be done customers buy a home or that promote collaborate and serves all of your collaborate to manifest serves a traveler’s entire customer value save for retirement healthy lifestyles co-develop nutrition/fashion needs healthy communities hospitality experience in new ways? new offerings The Customer 360 Playbook 07

Chapter 1: Understand the Importance of Changing Mindsets in Your Organization Get started: Explore mindsets within your company You can probably guess your own organization’s • Who are the digital disruptors that inspire us? What Next, learn more about what each discipline entails — mindset. Just do a quick audit of where your are they doing differently? and the steps to make it a reality. leadership and management team spends its time. • Are there teams that stick to muscle memory, Most companies aren’t changing how they think but rather than finding better ways to serve the are simply improving what they already do. That’s not customer? How might we help them evolve? an evolve mindset. How can we avoid slipping back into old habits? You may find your leadership team is completely Ultimately, you only need to settle on one question: aligned to a transformative vision that seems like an How do we move from renovate to evolve? Customer-centric One team aligned evolve mindset. But do your business metrics reflect business processes around the customer that vision? Is every employee truly aligned and We see one clear, actionable answer to that question, evolving how they work? If not, the renovate distilled from tens of thousands of customer mindset will remain the predominant force. engagements. Your company needs to learn four disciplines. Think of these as four muscles you need Use these conversation starters with peers, leaders, to build and condition. and team members to further explore your mindsets: Leanest possible Sense technology stack and respond • Inside our organization, where do we see customer centricity? Who are the leaders and teams that are the most customer-centric, and what can we learn from them? What’s holding us back from customer centricity? The Customer 360 Playbook 08

Chapter 2 Design Customer-Centric Business Processes Your business processes are your company’s • Nearly half of marketers — once concerned only The customer experience stakes habits — repeatable behaviors that enable with driving new leads — now champion customer have never been higher4 scalable effectiveness. experience initiatives across their entire companies.2 In a product-centric world, these business processes 84% optimize how you manufacture, market, sell, and • Even leaders in information technology (IT) now of customers say the experience a service your products. In a customer-centric world, cite customer experience as their top priority.3 company provides is as important as its you still need to do all of that, but you also have to products and services think about those activities from the Great experiences reap great rewards, with almost customer’s perspective. two-thirds of customers willing to pay a premium for them. What’s more, a standout experience with one 73% Your goal: Make it easy for employees to make it easy company prompts nearly three-quarters of customers 4 of customers say one extraordinary for the customer. to hold other companies to higher standards. experience raises their expectations of other companies Well-designed customer experiences have never The only way to deliver those excellent experiences is been more relevant. Here’s the evidence, according to enable employees at every stage of the to research: customer’s journey. • Salespeople — once solely focused on closing 66% of customers are willing to pay more for a transactions — now track customer satisfaction great experience 1 more than any other metric. 1. Salesforce, State of Sales, May 2018. 2. Salesforce, State of Marketing, December 2018. 3. Salesforce, Enterprise Technology Trends, May 2019. 4. Salesforce, State of the Connected Customer, June 2019. The Customer 360 Playbook 09

Chapter 2: Design Customer-Centric Business Processes Make it easy for your employees to make it easy for your customers The heightened stakes for customer expectations mean you have to design not only the selling experience, but also the buying experience. Think about it: Every customer interaction is an experience. You need to audit each of them and T evaluate how they grow or diminish your business. OR Look through the eyes of your customers and F F redesign what you’re asking them to do — at E every touchpoint. R E For example, think of how Uber redesigned the OM entire experience of getting a cab. They looked at T every area of friction and simply removed it. S U C No standing in the rain hailing a cab, no waiting to exit your ride to pay. At the same time, they made it easy for drivers to find riders. This combination of improved customer and workforce experience revolutionized an industry. . DRIVER EFFORT The Customer 360 Playbook 10

Chapter 2: Design Customer-Centric Business Processes Get started: Pick one customer touchpoint Speak to your customers, and they’ll surely give you an example of an inconvenient or clunky touchpoint with your company. Bring together stakeholders Move from... To... from all of the teams that influence that moment to explore how you might fix it. For now, focus on that single touchpoint and the teams and time frames needed to address it. For example, why should customers have to call you Supply optimization Anticipate product demand if there is an issue? Might you be able to identify the and the customer jobs to be done issue and proactively engage to solve it? With the right data and processes in place, your airline could move you from a cancelled flight to an alternative Scale through standardization Personalized 1-to-1 journeys at scale before you even know it’s cancelled. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and imagine what they need, when, and why. Find a way of making it effortless for them to get what they need. Transactions Connected experiences Together with peers in other departments, go through this thought exercise about recentering processes around your customers. Transaction volumes Lifetime value How can you move from the company-first processes on the left to the customer-first options on the right? The Customer 360 Playbook 11

Chapter 3 Build One Team Around the Customer Who owns customer centricity? Ultimately, they want. Employees are simply not empowered to They overlay this culture with the tools and everyone does. That means collaboration must be serve the customer’s needs. information everyone needs to make it easy to your top priority. The only way to make real change collaborate across teams and departments in the happen is to connect silos and act as a unified team Customer-centric companies think carefully about service of the customer. so employees closest to the end customer are the customer experience and develop empowered to create enduring relationships. a customer-first culture to These same companies cultivate improve it. information transparency and Customer-centric companies have silos, too. celebrate team behavior. They have clear designations of who’s doing what for efficiency. But they equip distinct departments to share, collaborate, and deliver integrated customer experiences — down to even the most junior employees. Enable every employee to deliver the full force of the company What happens when a customer has a service issue? They speak to the first person they get from the company, and they don’t care what department the person is in. Unfortunately, and all too often, the customer ends up having to navigate the org chart to get what The Customer 360 Playbook 12

Chapter 3: Build One Team Around the Customer Get started: Make a plan with internal stakeholders To start to make this discipline a reality, share your goals and KPIs with peers outside your team — Move from optimizing To optimizing outcomes that even those that don’t normally work together. by function... matter to the customer... Explore how you can help each other, and find goals you can share. Celebrate successes as a broader team as you step away from partitioned, traditional responsibilities. Specialization by department Cross-functional collaboration Review the following list. How can you move from the department-specific approaches on the left to the customer-first set on the right? Metrics by department Shared success metrics Have you listened to all perspectives, especially from those who are on the front lines with customers every day? Who is responsible for designing the end-to-end Rigid, hierarchical org structures Flatter, more flexible teams customer experience and where are the internal bottlenecks? Serve shareholders Mobilized ecosystem of stakeholders The Customer 360 Playbook 13

Chapter 4 Move to the Leanest Possible Technology Stack Uniting disparate departments is an important part of For most businesses, this flip starts with An API strategy that enables an application network customer centricity. But it’s only part of it. replatforming in the cloud, typically with global, with massive reuse becomes a powerful part of this hyperscale providers. future-fit, lean tech stack. Technology generates the reach and scale you need to make customer centricity an act of business. In Here, leaders develop modular architectures with This is where Salesforce focuses with a complete fact, all businesses are becoming technology reusable, modular data sets and processes. The next strategy around customer relationship management companies, using digital platforms to enable more layer of digitization is around business processes. (CRM), integration, and data. personalized customer experiences at scale. Moving away from legacy technology debt has never been more important. The role of IT is quickly Let’s be honest though. How much of your current IT as business partner evolving from managing backlogs and dealing with IT spend is focused on keeping the lights on, frustrated business partners to enabling business compared to investing in and delivering this teams to compose low- and no-code apps in service vision? Is it 50%, 60%, or even 70%? of customer outcomes. IT leverages this leaner Innovation technology stack to experiment faster and deliver You’re not alone. Most IT organizations more effectively on the ever-changing needs of are on a journey to flip the cost the business. pyramid from keeping the lights on Governance to investing in bigger-picture innovation. Keeping the lights on Technical debt The Customer 360 Playbook 14

Chapter 4: Move to the Leanest Possible Technology Stack Evolving your tech stack for customer centricity In the march toward a leaner tech stack that fuels Many businesses still have a product-centric greater customer centricity, you’ll notice your CRM architecture, with CRM used tactically, department platform naturally playing a critical role. That’s by department. This is changing quickly, as CRM because it: becomes the single source of customer truth, 85% including unified collaboration tools and I believe a CRM system should be a technology solution that supports the full • Consolidates the number of tools needed for your omni-channel customer engagement workflows customer lifecycle workforce to do their work. and process automation. • Empowers employees closest to customers to In a recent Salesforce-commissioned study of nearly deliver the right experiences at the right time. 500 business leaders, Forrester Consulting found 80% 80% agreed that a single source of customer truth Our CRM system has significantly greater • Delivers insights and recommendations, utility beyond sales and customer would create “significant” or “indispensable” value service/support not just data. for their company. • Makes customer data easily shareable. • Keeps you flexible and connected in an age 80% My organization is increasingly using our of APIs, IoT, and the platform economy. CRM system as the single source of truth about our customers Base: 484 director-level and above decision makers with responsibility for CRM strategy and technology investments Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Salesforce, August 2019. The Customer 360 Playbook 15

Chapter 4: Move to the Leanest Possible Technology Stack Get started: Empower the business with a single source of truth While a 360-degree view of the customer is an incredible goal, it’s difficult to achieve. The sheer volume of data you could include is virtually endless. Move from... To... Instead of being overwhelmed by the possibilities, focus on building a clear and easy-to-read customer profile. Begin the continuous approach to building an ever-deeper view of your customer and the context for their relationship with you. Empower as many ERP-centric CRM-centric employees as possible to see this source of truth and use it to serve the customer’s needs. Talk through this “move away from” and “move to” list Separate technical debt Combined budgets focused on with your team and discuss how you can focus more and innovation line items customer experience on tech that improves customer experiences and leave behind not-so-helpful legacy systems. Projects led by departments or IT Projects led by customer centricity Large releases Smaller, more frequent releases Steering committiees Partner with end users The Customer 360 Playbook 16

Chapter 5 Sense and Respond to Customers, Now and in the Future You now have the world’s best customer experiences Customers show their trust in two connected ways: and a fully aligned team, supercharged by incredible They give you their money and their data. technology. For a moment, angels sing. The best way of earning more data is to analyze what And then something changes … but do you notice? you have and turn it into insights, which become Perhaps a competitor comes up with a better the DNA of improved experiences — which, in proposition, something breaks, or your customer turn, earns you more data. And so the flywheel simply changes their mind on what is good enough. keeps spinning as long as you deliver what the customer wants: experiences that feel as How do you keep up with this change? effortless as possible. Coordinating your response is a critical discipline. When Salesforce was founded in 1999, we Why? Customers’ expectations and behaviors offered only a small fraction of the technology will continue changing, even after you perfect we offer today. We grew into customer service, internal processes and connect silos. For your marketing, ecommerce, and beyond because digital transformation initiatives to evolve, our customers asked us to. Each Salesforce you need to sense and respond to change feature is prioritized according to demand. better than your competition. Create a data flywheel Our whole business is predicated on listening and delivering. Customer feedback is the engine that drives that fuels customer success us — and it’ll help you evolve, too, for whatever comes next with your own customers. We have found that the best companies focus intently on earning and re-earning customers’ trust. The Customer 360 Playbook 17

Chapter 5: Sense and Respond to Customers, Now and in the Future Get started: Embed customer listening in your business Before you commit to too many changes, ask yourself 1. Create a voice-of-the-customer function. plan future products or programs at an offsite or and your peers: What stories are our customers telling The right program will have both business-focused every Monday morning? Wherever planning takes us? Have we listened deeply to customer feedback research leaders and a neutral reporting structure. place, save a seat at the table for the customer’s recently? Embed customer listening into your That way, the team responsible for delivering voice. company’s DNA to ensure transformation efforts are improvements isn’t also keeping score. Get feedback hyper-focused on their needs. from customers to establish a baseline and set a 5. Invest in intelligence and automation to drive single improvement goal as your starting point. accountability. Automating analysis and reporting To prioritize where to ignite change, it’s best to get an saves your team valuable time. A sensing tool or understanding of top needs for each customer 2. Invest in listening at every level. Target all machine layered on top of your qualitative feedback persona. Here are some of the best practices personas in your ecosystem. Which customer groups is one of the most effective ways to unlock insights. Salesforce follows: experience the most pain? Which drive the most revenue? Who are your greatest brand advocates? 6. Inspire a customer listening movement. Don’t fear their feedback. Sometimes the team sharing customer feedback is perceived as the “bad news” team. Instead, motivate Success metrics Brand & product ROI benchmarks awareness 3. Integrate insights into one narrative. your team and your stakeholders to stay engaged Tell one story behind the numbers. Just as and keep acting on customers’ needs by recognizing you want to balance your listening across results and rewarding teams that become listening channels, you want to balance your data champions. with a story. Listening tours, advisory boards, and focus groups bring color and 7. Close the loop with your customers. Listening Competitive context to scorecards and trend lines. means you need to communicate. It’s unrealistic Product benchmarking innovation to take action on every piece of feedback, and 4. Operationalize insight reviews. customers don’t expect you to do everything they Integrate customers into strategic planning, ask. But they do expect to hear back from you on and assign an accountable owner to each metric what you are doing, what you’re not able to do, GTM, pricing, & packaging or measurement that stems from what you and what else you need from them for a learned when listening. Does the executive team successful partnership. 18 The Customer 360 Playbook

Chapter 5: Sense and Respond to Customers, Now and in the Future Get started: Embed customer listening in your business Designate enough time and resources to rethink your current sense-and-respond capabilities and make a change. Move from... To... How can you evolve the legacy patterns on the left to the greater-value practices on the right? Get serious about uniting your marketing, sales, commerce, service, and IT teams to actually hear what customers Periodic research reports Real-time, data-driven insights are saying and make changes. Big-bang rollout Continuous releases A few big bets Many little bets Culture of information as power Reusable processes and components Inevitable drift from Limited set of customer-centric platforms customer centricity The Customer 360 Playbook 19

Conclusion and How to Learn More Being a customer-centric company is no easy feat. Keep learning more with these resources: Yet redesigning business processes, connecting silos for customers’ sake, and making the right Visit one of our Salesforce Innovation Centers. lean technology investments to rapidly sense and Reach out to your account team or contact us here. respond to customer needs may be among the most impactful and rewarding challenges you’ll take on in your career. Read State of the Connected Customer. They’ll also ensure that your company evolves and Download the report here. wins amid today’s pace of change. The urgency is real — and so is the potential. Your journey toward customer 360 transformation Check out the Customer 360 Online Configurator. starts with this playbook, but it doesn’t end here. Visit the configurator at sforce.co/CreateC360 The Customer 360 Playbook 20