Working Smart Doesn’t Have To Be Hard With Salesforce Chat

We have all heard the maxim “work smart, not hard.” The phrase is a little misleading. It implies those who work smart don’t work hard. This isn’t true. It is not as if working smart means you sit around twiddling your thumbs with the time and effort saved. Perhaps a better way to put it would be “don’t do more work than is necessary. Your time is valuable.” or “don’t make things unnecessarily hard on yourself.” or maybe even “every minute you spend doing a task that could be done more efficiently, is a minute you don’t spend on another task.”

No matter the verbiage used, it all amounts to cutting out extraneous effort. Anything that achieves this measure falls under the “work smart, not hard” umbrella. Salesforce Chat, with its flexibility and ability to offload work, fits the bill.

A Goldielocks Level of Attention

Essentially, Salesforce Chat is simply a way of only giving the customer as much attention as they need. You would never use a flamethrower to light a candle. It would be massive overkill. The same line of thinking can be applied to Salesforce Chat’s two main functions: sales and support.

Whether it is sales or support, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, because of the variety of attention needed. Sometimes a customer may just need a simple question answered, something that can be handled by directing them to an FAQ page. Other times, they will need more personalized contact, an esoteric issue that doesn’t fit neatly into a blanket category.  

Salesforce Chat offloads work, only involving a member of your team if it is necessary. It is a sort of guided path with solutions at each juncture and all in real-time. It drives customers down a path to get the answers you need without having to wait for a response.

Another boon of Salesforce Chat is the ability to data dip or pull data from inside Salesforce. A data dip is basically a prompt for a customer to give your key information that allows you to tailor how you serve them, such as getting their email, zip code or phone number. You cast a net, capturing the information most likely to tease out how to best serve them — their account number, name, any orders placed, etc. Doing this allows you to funnel them to the right channel — and to the right person with the right context —  because you are knowledgeable about their status as a customer.

Climbing the Ladder

Traditionally, the more channels a company has, the better. Customers hate having to dig through the website and find the one place to get what they need. The more channels your company opens to customers, the more you allow them to connect wherever they are, whenever they want. For example, if they are on the train, and are unable to talk on the phone, you empower them to seek assistance via other means.

This feature is especially important on the sales side. That initial interest in your company is a delicate thing, something that can flit out of the customer’s head if they meet the least bit of resistance in connecting.  

Salesforce Chat can automate the process of teasing out whether someone is an existing customer or a lead, sending them on an appropriate journey by simply making a few inquiries without needing to involve a team member. This ensures that your sales team isn’t spending time with existing customers who may only need support. Once the journey is established, Salesforce Chat hones in on the customer’s need, addressing it in the most efficient way while making sure the information given satisfied the customer. This continues up the ladder until the customer is satisfied or until a person is needed.

Maximizing Potential

Salesforce Chat, out of the box, integrates with your already existing Salesforce data, making use of it in a substantive way. It is easy to use, providing you a code snippet that you can put anywhere you need on Salesforce-built websites. Although Salesforce Chat is easy to use out of the box, its potential — from screen flows to data dipping — can allow you to customize your customer experience but may require a bit of tinkering to understand. This is where a consultative partner can be an asset.

To optimize the customization possible in Salesforce Chat, someone with deep knowledge of Salesforce will prove to be a perk. Otherwise, you will be left with a fairly bare-bones, template-based scheme, which may work fine for your company, but doesn’t really tap Salesforce Chat’s full potential. Storing data in a readily accessible manner and scheduling are just a few examples of this level of customization.
With Salesforce Chat there is no reason to be hamstrung by the old adage. You can work smart and hard.