Brand Quarterly #21

Page 15

Source: Salesforce 2016 State of Marketing

In many cases, sales is the first “human-tohuman” engagement a customer has with a brand. What sales does - what they say, how they engage, and how they add value to the customer is a critical piece of a buyers’ journey. Improving customer satisfaction, customer experience, and loyalty requires sales and marketing to be fully integrated with systems, processes, and people throughout the entire lifecycle of a customer.

In many cases, sales is the first “human-to-human” engagement a customer has with a brand

This power struggle isn’t going to go away anytime soon - and as digital engagement continues to accelerate with the proliferation of social and mobile, the customer will remain in the driver’s seat of their own buying journey. The challenge in 2016 and moving forward will be how companies can be responsive to the “Age of the Customer” without chasing all the various options available to them. Gaining buy-in from sales on these new digital efforts can and will help win more business, and develop a truly customer driven organization.

Tiffani Bova Global Customer Growth & Innovation Evangelist | Salesforce.com Tiffani Bova is the Global Customer Growth & Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce where she helps Salesforce customers improve sales performance and enhance customer experience by re-imagining how they can not only grow bigger but grow better with innovative business models and technology. She was previously a VP, Distinguished Analyst, and Research Fellow at Gartner covering Sales Strategies and Channel Innovation.

www.salesforce.com

Brand Quarterly

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