Are you seeking ways to organize your customer support processes? Salesforce users, there is good news. The platform offers a solution specifically tailored to customer service management: Salesforce Service Cloud.
This customer service platform enables businesses to:
- automate service processes in the organization;
- improve customer interactions across multiple digital channels;
- efficiently manage customer inquiries;
- elevate customer satisfaction, and so on.
In short, it lets you provide your potential customers with the utmost service and support. As a bonus, thanks to being part of the Salesforce ecosystem, Salesforce Service Cloud can integrate seamlessly with other tools like Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud.
Does your company have a customer support department, or are you planning to form one? In this Salesforce Service Cloud guide, we’ll give you the rundown on its use cases, top 10+ capabilities, key benefits, and features. We’ll demonstrate why Salesforce Service Cloud is a good solution for customer support activities and give Salesforce Service Cloud examples of how to apply its key features to solve common problems faced by customer service agents.
Table of Content
1. What Is Salesforce Service Cloud?
As a matter of fact, Deloitte has found that CRM usage can increase , customer satisfaction by up to +35%, and the speed of decision-making by up to +38%. But what can Salesforce Service Cloud bring to the table? Let's see.
1.1 Salesforce Service Cloud Overview
Service Cloud is a Salesforce platform, helping service managers provide exceptional customer service, increase customer satisfaction, and stay on board. Dwelling on Salesforce Service Cloud CRM use cases, it’s vital to mention its primary aims:
- streamline the entire process for customer support agents;
- organize basic case management and route different cases;
- log customer data orderly and form reports;
- track customer satisfaction scores to boost them with faster and better quality support;
- ensure employee satisfaction with the output of their efforts.
That said, the benefits of Salesforce Service Cloud include:
- personalized attention to each client;
- the quickness of the first response to inquiries and issues;
- accessibility on different kinds of devices, be it a PC, mobile phone, or tablet.
Considering the recent statistics from Salesforce, according to and 73% of mobile workers, customers now anticipate a personal touch more than they did in the past. So, having such a powerful platform can favorably differentiate you from the competition.
Plus, the system is easily integrated with ERP systems, databases, other backend systems and Salesforce tools, and plugins. This creates an interconnected ecosystem where service agents can collaborate with sales reps to provide a unified customer experience, from social customer service on messaging apps to mobile support and self-help. Yet, smooth implementation of all the systems often calls for . We’re ready to help with that.
1.2 Salesforce Sales Cloud vs. Service Cloud
The Salesforce Service Cloud platform was built for dealing with inbound customer support needs:
- incident and problem management;
- enhancing customer engagement;
- optimizing the service experience through different features like the Service Console and omnichannel routing.
This tool helps customer care specialists prioritize and close support tickets, efficiently work across various channels, and decrease response times.
On the other hand, Salesforce Sales Cloud software is a different product designed for sales teams to close more deals. Here are what tasks sales managers can complete with Sales Cloud:
- account acquisition;
- lead management;
- drive prospects down the sales pipeline;
- analyze sales performance with reporting tools.
The two have many features that are alike. However, the main difference between Sales and Service Cloud Salesforce is that one is for generating accounts and contacts, and the other is for providing exceptional customer service experiences through centralized support.
1.3 Community Cloud vs. Salesforce Service Cloud
Users frequently confuse Community Cloud (now part of Salesforce Experience Cloud) with Service Cloud. However, they zero in on the opposite parts of customer interaction.
Service Cloud is the backend of customer support aimed at agent productivity.
Community Cloud, in turn, represents the frontend of operations and is designed for customer engagement and self-service. That's a place where business customers can interact with each other and your brand through online communities you create, such as:
- forums;
- FAQ sections;
- help articles;
- self-service options.
Additionally, Service Cloud facilitates direct support, unlike Community Cloud, which encourages people to find information and resolve issues independently.
2. Common Salesforce Service Cloud Use Cases & Tools
Now that we've given a comprehensive Salesforce Service Cloud introduction, let's delve into key features of Service Cloud in Salesforce. Most often, customer support teams use it as a case management system. Yet, there are also numerous other Service Cloud functions created to streamline work processes.
Among the major things the Salesforce Service Cloud functionality covers to supplement its main purpose and to enhance the overall work effectiveness of the specialists include:
- Case Management: the key functionality of Service Cloud for organizing the work of a customer support department in real-time;
- Field Service Management: formerly known as Field Service Lightning, allows for remote issue resolution, giving your mobile employees the resources needed to address problems quickly and provide outstanding customer service regardless of clients' whereabouts;
- Omni-Channel Routing: uses specific assignment rules to automatically distribute cases, leads, and tasks across customer support channels and direct them to the best-suited specialist based on employee skill set or workload to close cases effectively;
- Generative AI-Powered Service Replies: among essential Service Cloud capabilities; suggests the most suitable answer to a customer request on messengers like WhatsApp, via SMS, and more, based on the dialog context and service knowledge articles stored in the database;
- Knowledge Management: keeping customer information and articles in the system for employees and customers to use;
- AI-Powered Article Recommendations: boosts agent productivity and customer experience by recommending articles attached to similar cases in the past;
- Generative AI-Powered Search Answers: searches for the most relevant response to a query from corporate data sources;
- Telephony Integration: a customer service solution for adding calls into Salesforce without the need to use external tools; there also exists Service Cloud Voice software, which is an AI-powered voice transcription tool;
- Customer Service Incident Management: a set of capabilities serving for detecting and resolving issues alongside sending notifications of active incidents;
- Customer Service Automation & Process: helps eliminate a lot of manual work by creating automatic processes. Tools like scripts and reply suggestions can provide guidance on what a specialist should do step-by-step when resolving specific cases. Optionally, there's a possibility for AI chatbot integration, which gains knowledge based on actual support requests and chats with your clients;
- Service Analytics: tracking data on employee performance and the volumes of cases to predict customer trends;
- Other features: along with that, Service Cloud provides the opportunity to support clients on a multi-channel level, the possibility to create cases automatically on a web-to-case or email-to-case basis, automation with Macros, asset and order management, as well as the collaborative tool called Quip for helping employees communicate in a team more successfully.
How can these features help overcome common customer service team challenges? Let's find out.
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3. Solving Client Support Challenges with Salesforce Service Cloud
There's no denying that the core aim of every customer service team is to support customers and go all-out for enhanced customer satisfaction. Nevertheless, agents often face numerous problems in the course of delivering their work.
Below, we'll walk you through the often occurring issues preventing support specialists from performing their work in the best possible way. We’ll also give explanations on how specific Service Cloud tools solve these problems.
3.1. Data Delays from Insufficient Tools
In many cases, support specialists fail to deliver and help a client not due to a lack of skills but because they don't have the right tools. When there's a struggle in collecting or allocating the needed data, it can cause frustration and wasted time untangling information puzzles. This is especially common when serving multiple customers at a time.
As clients don't like to wait, you need to adapt to the fast-paced environment and provide the service within appropriate time frames. How? By using a customer service platform like Salesforce.
Salesforce Service Cloud provides flexible solutions to make such problems history: an organized Agent Workspace coupled with a comprehensive console and Case Management. By taking advantage of customer data stored in a single platform, you can build trust and decrease the chances of the client's dissatisfaction.
Agent Workspace is provided by the Service Console. It has a handy customizable layout, with several panels displaying all the key data upfront and in a structured way. Cases, Accounts, Orders, and anything else needed to speed up work are right before your eyes.
The console also provides ultimate navigation. For instance, there are tabs and subtabs for every open case so that there's no need to open dozens of pages in the browser in new tabs and go back and forth.
This is done for convenience and to save time when managing cases, browsing customer history, viewing dashboards, etc. Moreover, the workspace is customizable. Thus, any needed sections and tools, such as the knowledge management Q&As, can be faster accessed.
Cases are the core for logging, organizing, and resolving customer queries. They are the main objects in Case Management, documenting and tracking information about a client inquiry and helping process it.
Cases have customizable fields, can vary by type, and may even be auto-created on a web-to-case or email-to-case basis. The solution also includes convenient case assignments. They can be done not only manually but even by formula and escalate a case from team to team or a manager.
3.2. Slow Resolution Due to Manual Work
Unbalanced workloads are another roadblock for remarkable customer service performance. As a rule, teams spend a lot of hours conducting repetitious actions by hand or making unnecessary movements when helping a client:
- compiling and bringing together customer information from numerous channels;
- repeatedly entering data or updating records by clicking through multiple screens or databases;
- sharing reports or customer data among team members;
- analyzing marketing activities;
- tracking client interactions across different stages of the sales funnel;
- updating the pipeline and forecasting.
Of course, this slows down the process of resolving cases. There are several things Salesforce Service Cloud offers for this:
- process automation tools (Workflow Rules, Process Builder, Flow, Apex);
- handy integrations, such as telephony (Salesforce CTI, Service Cloud Voice);
Einstein AI (Einstein Case Classification, Einstein Next Best Action, Einstein Bots).
Service Cloud allows you to automate numerous processes to reduce manual work, with some of these being:
- auto field updates;
- setting up reminder notifications;
- making send-outs with email templates.
Service Process Automation was designed to help you customize automated service processes specifically for your team. That said, using drag-and-drop functionality, you may create a path for your specialist showing how a case should be handled step-by-step, often in the form of a script.
One more service process automation feature is the live agent. With the additional setup, you can integrate a chat service. It can provide customers with real-time online help without delay. The AI chatbot learns from previous replies given to your clients using chats and offers personal service.
Service teams also frequently face challenges when communicating with clients over the phone. A plugin solution, Telephony Integration, makes it simple to receive and make calls right from Salesforce.
Among the top perks of the integration is that all customer data on the caller is available to the specialist before answering the call. The system automatically logs conversations, documenting every detail from activity history to the date of the last call or contact history, as well as updates accounts and other linked objects accordingly.
3.3. Not Knowing How to Reply to a Client's Question
There are many cases when a specialist lacks the necessary knowledge or expertise to provide help to customers, handle a problem, or answer a question. To not be caught unguarded and to avoid vague answers that can ruin the overall customer experience, the Service Cloud offers to take advantage of its Knowledge Management and Omni-Channel Routing features.
When you add Salesforce Service Cloud Knowledge Management right to the Agent Workspace, you get access to productivity tools. Among them are AI-based advice solutions. They can lead a specialist through the steps of what should be done next. Having them at hand is vital for helping your support specialists grow, become better at what they do, make fewer mistakes, and provide better support.
The knowledge base tool was created for specialists to gather the best practice articles and Q&A solutions for others to reuse. With fast access to the context, knowledge base, and ready-made solutions to assist a support specialist in handling the case, it becomes much simpler to reply to clients correctly and quickly and resolve cases.
An imperfect system of incoming case distribution can create even more problems. In this case, situations in which a specialist needs to handle an issue outside their competence become frequent.
That's where Omni-Channel Routing comes to the stage. It allows you to set up how client queries and tasks are directed to queues and to specific specialists. This is based on not only availability and workload but, more importantly, on their qualifications and skillsets. The system routes the request to the best consultant for the job, resulting in fewer unnecessary call transfers and case re-assignments.
3.4. Ineffective Data Monitoring and Processing
At times, managers come across the difficulty of evaluating their team's performance, work capacity, and other metrics regarding dealing with customers. The Service Cloud Service Analytics comes with comprehensive reports and dashboards. They simplify the process of monitoring and keeping track of data, such as:
- the number of incoming calls;
- processed requests;
- created and resolved cases.
The reports can give a clear understanding of the work volumes, visualize the progress of teams and individual employees, and make it possible to see the case trends and benchmarks. Topping that, you can build and configure the reports quickly by customizing what you'd like to see and sharing them with others. Thus, your customer service agents can use this data solution to make the right decisions and achieve the best results.
4. Overcoming Salesforce Service Cloud Limitations
Salesforce Service Cloud excels at tracking interactions and enhancing service experiences. While customer care agents value the tool’s versatility, the platform has some limitations to consider. The first barrier to Salesforce Service Cloud implementation is its price.
Salesforce Service Cloud pricing is categorized into five tiers. The cheapest one works out to a starting price of $25 user/month, while the most expensive one infused with AI capabilities will set you back $500 user/month. As you can see, the platform's rich features come at a cost. And the more advanced capabilities are locked behind higher-priced tiers, which might not be feasible for everyone, especially for small businesses or those operating under tight budgets.
Users also point out the complexity of the customer service platform. Salesforce Service Cloud is robust, which is great, but this also means it can be quite complex to navigate and utilize effectively without substantial training.
Companies often need dedicated IT staff or invest in training for their teams to truly leverage Service Cloud as part of the Salesforce Customer Success platform. This adds another layer of concerns regarding cost and time.
Customization, Salesforce's value point, also poses its own challenges. Tailoring the platform to fit specific business needs isn't straightforward. Businesses might need additional custom development to get the Service Cloud to work the way they want, which again involves more time and resources.
So, what can you do? First off, be ready to devote time and energy to installing and customizing the platform. Use the provided by dedicated companies.
Among the best practices is taking advantage of free trials. Like many other providers, SF Service Cloud offers trial periods during which you can test its system without commitment. This helps determine whether the tool aligns with your operational flows, meets your expectations for ease of use, and integrates well with existing solutions.
At last, jot down your requirements to see what tier best meets them without cutting into your margins. It’s easy to get swayed by feature-rich platforms, but it’s essential to consider what you truly need versus what would be nice to have. This helps you make a cost-effective decision without compromising on delivering a quality customer experience.
What Is Service Cloud in Salesforce: To Conclude
In conclusion, the Service Cloud is indeed a handy customer service solution for managing issues in this department from one interface. It's a trusted customer service platform, part of Salesforce's robust SaaS ecosystem.
The software is very customizable, catering to the various needs of modern customer care teams. It enhances agent productivity and gives a unified view of a customer journey across multiple channels—including mobile devices, social media channels, and a self-service community.
We hope this Salesforce Service Cloud dive was useful. If you have any additional questions or want to provide clients with better and more personalized service, we'd be glad to offer and Salesforce Service Cloud implementation assistance!
