At the peak of COVID-19, merchants were making decisions in haste to provide the products and services that customers needed. Today, when the world is far more at ease, these makeshift solutions are now intensifying as shoppers have a plethora of options driving expectations to an all new high. Additionally, their patience is very limited now. In fact, research data across over 2000 retailers suggests that 80% of shoppers are very likely to abandon them after three bad experiences. Merchants need deeper the insights into customer behaviour to scale up their business. Here are top 4 trends that have been observed across the world on how the retail landscape is changing. Trend 1: Shopping journeys get more complex During the 2 years of COVID, three types of digital channels grew their transaction share by almost 40%: brand websites, retailer websites and apps, and online marketplaces. This of course includes transactions through their apps as well. In the process, associated channels like delivery apps, social media, and messaging platforms have also become prominent players in the digital commerce eco system, with a growth of over 20%. As the range of shopping channels continues to expand, shopping journeys have got more and more complex. The purchasing journey has become fragmented and complex. It is imperative for brands and merchants to develop a one-on-one relationship with customers across platforms namely social media, messaging platforms, and video to stay relevant. Social media, influencers, and messaging apps have become hugely popular today for product discovery. For making a purchase, social media, digital wallets and email are the leading digital destinations. And when buyers need customer support, they mostly turn to chatbots and social media. Trend 2: The store goes digital Although transactions through brick-and-mortar stores decreased significantly during the pandemic, the physical store still plays an important role in the shopping journey. In fact, reports indicate that over 80% of the global merchandise sales happened at physical stores in 2020. The primary reasons shoppers prefer to visit a physical store are firstly, to touch and feel the product, secondly one gets immediate delivery of the merchandise and finally to avoid logistics costs. However, shoppers today are blurring the lines between digital and physical channels while they are in the store. Many shoppers today research about a product on the retailer’s app while still being in the sore before making a purchase. To compliment this trend, brands and retailers are connecting the in-store experience with an increasing number of digital touchpoints. The role of the store associate is growing as well. At the peak of COVID, store associates evolved from the routine scanning and bagging to becoming customer service reps, product recommenders, and brand influencers. And these roles are more than likely to stay, which makes the role of the store associate in the customer journey far more intriguing. Trend 3: The loyalty game has gone a few notches up Loyalty programs are continuously evolving based on shopper expectations. Although a points-based loyalty program is still the most preferred method today, data indicates that younger generations are seeking a more experience-based journey that establishes a deeper connection with the brand. Millennials today value exclusive access to limited products and richer experiences far more than ever when it comes to loyalty programs. Shoppers are also seeking rewards for their transactions. They are willing to take a further step such as downloading an app or writing an online review and sharing personal information like their birthday or phone number for a more personalized experience and loyalty benefits. Trend 4: Brands and Retailers and brands fast track unified shopping experiences Most customers expect brands and retailers to recognise their unique needs and expectations, but only a portion of them have the capability to turn data into personalized offerings in real time across channels and touchpoints. To address this customer expectation, and to address the challenges associated with delivering that expectation, retailers and brands are adopting a threefold approach: HIRING MORE DATA SCIENTISTS Retailers are actively working to hire more data scientists. And this trend is expected to grow further into 2023. This trend that brands and retailers have the opportunity to overhaul their loyalty programs to meet the rising customer expectations and their openness to share personal data. ADOPTING A UNIFIED ENGAGEMENT PLATFORM Many retailers and brands today are already in the planning stage for such a platform, which allows them to access and monetise customer data by engaging with them at a deeper level. UPGRADING POINT-OF-SALE TECHNOLOGY Going forward, the pint of sale (POS) will become a critical part of a unified customer engagement platform. In fact, new retailers are already adopting this approach and are moving to a cloud solution. The in-store digital experience is key for engaging with customers and driving sales. Here are some tips on now to enhance customer experience. Empower associates with the tools that drive sales As we mentioned before, store associates are adopting extended functional roles such as customer service, ecommerce, and social media experts to engage with shoppers. To be able to wear multiple hats successfully, store associates need access to customer data along with user friendly digital tools. This is where a CRM platform like Salesforce comes into play. Associates can access complete customer profile with information on purchase history, buying preferences, demographic data, customer satisfaction score, and more. To get associates up to speed quickly, Salesforce provides digital learning platforms like myTrailhead that bring associates up to speed on how to handle every aspect of digital and physical transactions. Brands and retailers can reskill associates for routine store tasks such as picking, sorting, packing, and shipping to support the fulfilment journey. Store managers can learn to use digital tools to analyze data, access insights and act on them faster than ever. Maintain real time inventory levels The greatest enemy of customer satisfaction is out-of-stock inventory.  Most shoppers are interested in pre-ordering new or out-of-stock items. This is especially true for fast moving items. Stores can manage inventory levels with a flexible and robust order management system. The order management system connects data across your warehouses and stores to give associates the most accurate status of current inventory. That translates to happy customers. Offer multiple digital payment options Customers need more payment options, period. Having just a credit card machine won’t do. In the era of digital, stores need payment types that are minimally invasive and streamline checkout for customers. Level up store fulfilment During the peak of the pandemic, there was a scramble to buy online or pick up in store. In fact, some retailers even turned some of their stores to micro-fulfilment centers. Make sure to: Clearly communicate important details to customers, such as where to pick up their items from and when. Clearly communicate to customers what identification they need to provide to pick up their orders  Establish a seamless connect with customer service channels so that shoppers can easily chat with an agent to resolve any issues Offer personalized product recommendations to customers based on their purchase Augment customer service across channels with a personal touch Customers love the physical experience, personal touch and immediacy that is intrinsic to in-store shopping. It will be wise extend that experience to your customer service channels. And one of the best ways to achieve this is to train associates by having them help out customer service agents during peak season. Another important consideration is to encourage self-service for customers. Keep your help centre up to date for customers to find their way around. Integrate workflows that guide customers through tasks like how to initiate a return to a nearby store. Use AI-powered chatbots to scale support during sales or holiday seasons. Lastly, adopt asynchronous modes of communication like messaging apps. They keep the conversation going and provide a history of past interactions. Train associates and empower them to resolve customer issues over digital channels and incorporate customer feedback to evolve the experience. Develop a loyal customer base, especially in the era of vibrant social media. Girikon is a Gold Certified Salesforce Consultant and can help you set up a strategy to connect with your customers like never before. Questions? We’ll guide you to the right path CONTACT AN EXPERT

With Salesforce, retailers can deliver intelligent customer experience at each stage of the shopping journey. From awareness to purchase to service to loving your brand, one to one advertising helps you extend your reach using artificial intelligence to find new shoppers with characteristics that match your existing ones. And once you reach them, you can personalise their shopping journey with relevant content on the right channel at the right time. When a customer engages with your brand, they receive recommendations of products they powered by artificial intelligence. Shoppers have a personalised experience, faster payment, and fulfilment options. After making a payment, shoppers can get help on any channel including text and video chat. Service agents can see a complete view of the customer and even help with additional purchases during the interaction. Shoppers can also visit customer communities to get their questions answered. In the store associates can personalise shopper experience with recommendations based on a 360 degree view of the shopper. They have product availability, tasks and communications from headquarters all on their mobile device. So, they can spend more time on the floor giving shoppers a faster personal and connected experience at every touchpoint. Connect every aspect of your business with a unified intelligent platform. INTELLIGENT ADVERTISING Drive awareness and acquisition with smarter targeting. Execute all your advertising such as display, search, and social from a one integrated platform. Discover new customers and manage multiple campaigns across advertising ecosystems with Advertising Studio from Marketing Cloud. Visualise and get reports on ad performance with just a few clicks, empowering you to reach out to shoppers with the right offerings at the right time. Advertising Studio form Salesforce Marketing Cloud connects advertising with your marketing and CRM data to create personalised one to one customer journeys. Now all your data securely stored inside Salesforce including sales, service, marketing, and commerce interaction can be used to power your digital advertising. From customer acquisition and re engagement, to media optimization allowing you to directly advertise on Facebook, Google search Instagram, witter and YouTube. even use Salesforce DMP to reach the entire display advertising eco system. Easily find and reach out to new prospects, lookalikes of your best customers and use these high qualified audiences to drive successful Facebook campaigns. immediately capturing quality leads for your business right inside both sales and marketing clouds. And with journey builder you can coordinate advertising with other channels including email sales and service, to increase RoI and customer satisfaction while excluding your existing unqualified customers. 1-TO-1 JOURNEYS Personalise every customer journey with Marketing Cloud. Make marketing smarter. Deliver personalised journeys to customers that are scalable and push the right offer at the right time on the right channel across mobile, social, email, mobile, and more. Marketing Cloud Email Studio is the enterprise email marketing solution built on the worlds no 1 CRM. It allows marketers to drive smart personalised messaging at scale while seamlessly connecting commerce, sales, and service for a coherent customer journey. With Email Studio each message can be tailored using at user friendly user interface, with drag and drop functionality, allowing you to easily customise content for your prospects. Now you can personalise unique content for each customer. Einstein AI is fully integrated into the retail solution from Salesforce, which means email marketers can intelligently predict the customer needs, enabling them to recommend the right product at exactly the right time.  With automated triggers, retailers can touch literally millions of customers, by sending them personalised messages even during peak times. Email studio allows you to easily switch between using prebuilt templates or code when creating the right look of your message. You can review each email once it’s ready, to ensure the right content is created for every member. After sending emails, marketers can target and attract new prospects by advertising across the internet or on their mobile. Real time analytics tracks and monitors campaign performance throughout the whole customer journey so that you can optimise campaigns to consistently engage customers. Email Studio allows you to approve content, monitor performance, and manage users from anywhere. UNIFIED COMMERCE With Commerce Cloud, convert shoppers into buyers, faster. Reinvent the store with unified digital commerce. Deliver a seamless buying experience seamless across the mobile, web, social, and physical stores. Enable multi-channel order management functionality that allows customers to buy from anywhere and merchants to sell and fulfil anywhere. Commerce Cloud digital is a platform that empowers you to scale your business across all channels -mobile, social, web social and physical stores. You can easily and quickly deploy sites and augment sales fast with a huge library of pre-built features, managing multiple sales channels from one single console. With a robust development platform built on the world’s most powerful CRM, open APIs and a large, certified partner network, you have the power to deliver an engaging online store delivering an exceptional customer experience of your brand in virtually any language from anywhere. Brands, retailers, and marketers can drive their business with a scalable platform that meets your business objectives with tools that augment productivity for the commerce team, creating campaigns, adding content and promotions, and previewing the online store experience for the targeted customer group. You can create unique categories of merchandize for a campaign, a place of your choice, with the products you want and the sequence in which you want them. And use the power of AI improve that sequence. With all this and more, your customers can locate what they want, faster than ever. With every interaction that your customers have with your store, Einstein learns more about them, and gets smarter and more predictive as they interact, throwing up products based on their past behaviour. Making customers feel like you know them because, in reality, you do.  With Commerce Cloud Digital, you have the right partner invested in your success, and you have access to team of experts who will make available to you benchmarks and best practices across the retail eco system, empowering you to innovate and grow your business faster than ever. ANY CHANNEL SERVICE Deliver intelligent service with Service Cloud. Drive real conversations at scale. Drive real conversations with customer on the channel of their choice. Personalise every interaction and empower service reps with the information they need to respond faster to customers and turn into customers for life. Live message feature from Salesforce delivers conversational service to your customers exactly where they need it. On the channel of their choice. And on their preferred messaging app. Leverage bots to power conversations and automate service capability or allow customers to directly connect with a support rep to deliver instant help. With the Service Cloud lightning console, service reps can reply with the help of complete customer information from CRM data to interaction history, so they can smartly give the right answers quickly. Service agents can now be more productive, by managing multiple conversations concurrently. And because customers can use whichever messaging app they prefer, they can easily engage in service conversations, effortlessly. Live message feature allows you to connect with your customers in completely new way. Retail CRM from Salesforce. Today, the shopping experience begins online irrespective of whether it ends in a store or with a package delivered to them. Which is why brands and merchants are taking advantage of Salesforce Retail Cloud to deliver personalised customer experiences across multiple channels. Salesforce CRM for retail allows retailers to make customers’ needs their top priority, absorbing what they want, and responding in real time. Girikon is a certified Salesforce Implementation Partner and we can help you connect sales reps, partners and associated staff with the information they need to deliver the best fit products and best in class service that drives customer loyalty with Salesforce retail CRM.  

Customers are now digital first. And that’s great news because now you can more with every moment your customer has with your brand. The key is connecting these moments and making them count. That’s what it takes to build real lasting relationships. To build an enterprise that customers trust and love. But to get there you need data. You need to unify al the data customers have entrusted with you down to the last detail. Then put that data to use. So every interaction feels more relevant and human and personalised. Drive digital experiences across sales commerce and customer service. Salesforce Marketing Cloud puts data at the center of the relationship and that starts with knowing your customers. Marketing Cloud combines all your data from all your siloed data sources creating a single source of truth for every customer giving you a three-dimensional view of who they are and what they want in the moment even as their needs change.  So now you can humanise every moment whether it’s a welcome email and they become a new customer, an ad for a product they might like, an opportunity for their business, a text resolving their shipping delay, of a special offer at checkout for being a loyal customer. And because it’s powered by Einstein AI, the heavy lifting is done for you. Marketing Cloud helps you optimise your impact too giving you actionable analytics, budget and business goals in real time so you are always making your campaigns more personal, more valuable, more resonant. And with Slack as your digital HQ, you can adapt with agility thanks to your teams, tools and partners being more connected and insights more accessible. With Marketing Cloud you can make every moment count. Do more with your marketing initiatives at every touchpoint. Marketing Cloud Engagement automates pervasive customer journeys with engaging and personalised experiences across channels. Meet them on mobile. Engage customers with personalised communication on their preferred mobile channels. Engage them with email. Deliver targeted scalable messaging and content such as offers and promotions and optimize engagement. Give them compelling content. Leverage prospect data for targeted and personalized advertising across channels and ad affiliate networks. Deliver engaging journeys with simple east to use tools. Make every moment count. Use customer data to predict preferences and automate outreach messaging for pervasive, relevant, effective customer interactions. Connect experiences with ease. Boost productivity by creating automated customer journeys using simple click-and-drag tools. Adapt to anything. Automate recommendations and actions on the go as customers engage with your brand, analyse results in real time and optimize performance. Make marketing engagement effective — and easy. Create seamless customer journeys. Acquire new customers and engage existing ones with relevant, connected journeys. Engage in the inbox and acquire subscribers. Create and automate personalized outreach email campaigns. Keep in touch with mobile messaging. Push relevant content to your customer’s preferred channel and device. Reduce costs by delivering highly targeted advertising. Activate data to suppress customers that don’t need content and personalize advertising across channels. Boost engagement and save time with AI. Boost marketing campaign efficiency by taking advantage of AI-powered insights to push the relevant message at the right time. Optimize all your campaigns in one place. Get a unified view of campaign performance with pre-configured and customisable dashboards for journeys across channels Marketing Cloud Advertising The Marketing Cloud first arty advertising engine allows brands to harness their own customer data to create targeted and relevant audiences for advertising campaigns. Whether you want to acquire new customers, engage brand new email subscribers, re-engage customers or supress ads for customers who aren’t relevant for a campaign, Marketing Cloud can help you find success. All by prioritising data security, trust and scalability. With Marketing Cloud advertising, brands can send their target audiences to Google, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest and Snapchat. The cool things about Marketing Cloud is that the data your customers have already shared with you is the only ingredient you need to create audiences for all your use cases. Security and scalability are top of mind for marketers. That’s why all the first party data stored in Salesforce never leaves the secure environment of Marketing Cloud advertising. Without being securely hashed. Al you have to do is choose existing lists or data extensions in Salesforce to create your audience. No more manually uploading data using unsecure formats. You can even have you data refreshed automatically with a single click. Whether the goal is to acquire new customers, increase RoI, re engage customer or all the above, Marketing Cloud Advertising will help you create personalised advertising moments for your customers. Here are 7 New Features in the Latest Release of Marketing Cloud 1. Salesforce CDP (Customer Data Platform) enhancements With Salesforce CDP, you can get a holistic view of every individual in your database and then use that data to deliver a whole new level of personalization. Upgrades include: Salesforce CDP Integration with Interaction Studio: Target your customers with unified insights and cross-platform data to enhance real-time decision-making. Salesforce CDP Connector with Commerce Cloud : Augment customer profiles with commerce data such as catalogue and order data and provide personalized experiences based on buying history. Calculated Insights enhancements: Utilise new, advanced analytical functions in the Calculated Insights feature, which lets derive the benefits of multi-dimensional metrics in Salesforce CDP. Now, you can make use of ranking, segmenting, and manipulate date and time related functions such as days since the last transaction. You’ll also have access to a built-in function library, be able to edit names of formulae, and the freedom to enable or disable Calculated Insights. 2. Datorama Reports Advanced for Marketing Cloud Datorama Reports for Marketing Cloud takes you beyond out-of-the-box analytics. It is a precluded reporting and analytics tool for Journey Builder, Marketing Cloud Email Studio and Mobile Studio. With the advanced features of Datorama Reports, you can turbocharge your journey analytics across channels and devices with new dashboard tools. 3. Datorama Connector with CDP Now you can automatically convert raw data into powerful insights and improve your marketing RoI by accessing CDP from within Datorama. Datorama will also support an out-of-the box CDP app to give you instant access to your CDP data. With just a few clicks you will get all the insights you need to have a deeper understand of your audience, how they’re engaging with your brand, and their potential value to your business. 4. Google Analytics 4 tagging and reporting It is extremely easy now to connect Google Analytics data with Marketing Cloud. Also, with the new release of Google Analytics, you can access robust analytics for mobile and email content as well and automatically tag with Journey Builder. Google Analytics 4 metrics are seamlessly integrated into the Journey Analytics dashboard and accessible to all Journey Builder users 5. Einstein for Email Marketing enhancements Marketers often ask – when is the right time to launch a targeted email campaign? What kind of subject line will attract the deepest and highest engagement? The B2B marketing automation platform Pardot, when coupled with Marketing Cloud, offers two new ways to provide to answer those questions and improve your email engagement rates with data-centric insights. 6. Pardot Accounts as Campaign Members Organizations are increasingly adopting an account-based marketing approach to grow their business and retaining customers. Hence, account level campaign creation is now more important than ever. This feature can be used to execute prospecting campaigns with sales reps to identify the relevant buyers in each target account. This is a unique and possibly game changing feature that will allow sales reps to help marketing target the relevant buyers for any upcoming campaign. 7. Advertising Studio enhancements Advertising Studio is a powerful tool designed for data-driven advertising. It offers two new features to help you expand to new channels and access vital insights: Snapchat for Advertising Studio: Now you can use your first-party data in Salesforce to build targeted, personalized advertising audiences for the Snapchat platform. Find new customers that are similar to your loyal customers, re-engage inactive customers, augment customer experience, and boost your RoI. Datorama Audience Insights for the Advertising Studio app: This new app allows you to connect and synchronize your data from Advertising Studio in Datorama to improve your cross-channel audience strategy. Deliver meaningful moments to your industry. Communications and Media Turn engagement into a main event. Reach new audiences and acquire new subscribers with smart, AI based, data-driven marketing. Deliver compelling content to drive usage from broadcasts to recommendations and beyond. Boost productivity by automating campaigns at scale across channels and devices. Financial Services Personalize the customer experience across every touch point in their financial journey. Engage throughout the lifecycle for customers in real time with personalized omnichannel journeys. Personalize journeys with data that reveals buyer preferences and interests like investments and more. Healthcare Keep a track of your customers and patients. Foster trusted and lasting Patient, Member and Healthcare Provider relationships at every point of their digital journey across your business. Engage them with personalized messaging on their channel of choice in real time and optimize campaigns on the go. Life Sciences Develop lasting customer relationships at every step. Consumers now want deeper understanding, more self-service options, and consistent, one-on-one interactions at every touch point of their journey. By delivering a digital-first health care provider personalised journeys across their customers’ preferred choice of channel and device, you can nurture lasting and trusted relationships. Tech Deliver state-of-the-art marketing in the right moment. Boost your sales pipeline. Engage customers and prospects with one-to-one messaging across all touchpoints. With AI based analytics and insights, you can optimize campaigns to deliver relevant, engaging and pervasive content at the right time in the purchasing process. Manufacturing Assemble engaging customer journeys. Foster stronger, more impactful customer relationships. Deliver personalized, digital-first interactions along every touchpoint of the customer’s journey. Engage prospects and cultivate leads with the right messaging, on the right medium, at the right time, and with the right regularity and consistency for service updates, order modifications, new offers, and more. Retail and Consumer Goods Acquire and engage loyal customers. As customers move more and more into the digital ecosystem, brands must utilise a unified view of their customers to deliver cohesive, personalized, pervasive experiences with moments that matter. Girikon is a Gold Certified Salesforce Consulting Partner and can help you unlock the real power of Marketing Cloud for your business Contact one of our experts today.

Salesforce Energy and Utilities Cloud gives energy and Utilities providers a digital interaction platform to personalise customer engagements. Utilities can meet new customer expectations by delivering great experiences like easily guiding customers through enrolment, transfer and activation of services through a self-service website. And using out of the box drag and drop tools, to configure complex processes. With data integration with existing back-end CIS and MDM systems, to ensure a streamlines service experience. A utility has a comprehensive profile view of each customer to deliver a highly personalised and predictive experience. Like sharing special offers for programs or new rates for products. Digital tools are available to tailor customer experiences and help customers make informed decisions. With chatbots for the first level of customer support, accessible at anytime from anywhere. So service agents can pick up the case for the right level of assistance when needed. Agents have a thorough view of each customer account and can navigate between multiple residential or commercial accounts. With all the information they need like full chronological history, account and billing information, usage and more. And al data can be consolidated from back end systems so agents always have access to a single source of truth. Agents can also see into process and actions initiated on other channels and can use that information to better serve customers from finalising a purchase to liaise scheduling field service appointments. Utilities now have insight through interactive dash board to real time data to keep customers at the core of their business. And can provide developers a library with hundreds of pre built business processes and integrations to accelerate time to value and digital transformation. Chart a new course for the future of energy by streamlining your business. Meet the needs of all energy eco-system stakeholders -customers, suppliers, partners and employees with a platform that fosters agile innovation across your entire business lifecycle. Adapt and cater to rising customer expectations. Adopt a digital first approach and scale fast with easy integration with your existing systems. Deliver customer first service to your customer community. Streamline your Oil and Gas business and prepare for the future of energy. Connect stakeholders and assets across the service journey and collaborate in real-time. Drive on field decision-making with on-th-go access to vital data and information. ENERGY AND UTILITIES CLOUD Drive customer service and engagement on a single, connected flexible and scalable platform. Be the trendsetter for transition to energy transformation with centralized customer data, and on-time, personalized, pro-active service from anywhere, from any device. Energy and Utilities Cloud delivers a scalable, digital and secure energy solution that adapts and scales for future energy needs. Get access to a process repository of more than 100 preconfigured and extendable best practices Easily connect to back office utility Billing and Customer Information Systems (CIS) with easy, drag and drop integrations Utilise a data model with access to more than 350 extended objects specifically designed for the utility industry With Energy and Utilities Cloud, you can take advantage of purpose-built innovations designed for an dynamic and evolving energy landscape. Transform agents into advisors and deliver a whole new way of customer engagement. Empower service agents with the resources they need – tools, analytics, and AI based insights, to deliver personalized customer service anytime, anywhere, from any device. Deliver personalized customer service on a digital-first platform. Support the entire spectrum of customers, ranging from residential customers to large commercial customers. Get a single, scalable and secure solution that delivers connected journeys and promotes self-service. Turn customer freedom into a competitive advantage. Offer quotes and tariffs faster than ever, by quickly processing current market pricing and customer information with a 360-view of the customer and data-driven tools. Improve acquisition and trim churn. Easily generate complex, multi-locational and multi-product quotes to acquire customers faster. Retain customers longer with personalized offerings. POWER AND UTILITIES Adapt and thrive in a dynamically evolving Power & Utilities industry. Easily navigate the intricate utility landscape with seamless and powerful digital transformation. Revolutionise the Utility customer experience. Embrace digitalization and drive into future of energy transformation with a customer first approach. Make advisors out of agents by giving them the tools that deliver a customer-360 view. Encourage self-service and engage customers across the journey with AI, and offer multi-channel personalized service Deliver next generation service operations and customer experience by going beyond the contact center. Service customer needs faster in the Retail sector. Deliver a more connected experience for customers by bringing existing systems on a single platform. Deliver quotes and tariffs faster than competitors with data-driven tools and easily navigate multi-locational, multi-account structures. Evolve offerings, accelerate customer acquisition, and improve customer retention by designing competitive products and services with just a few clicks. Boost customer experience with personalised engagements and streamlined field service operations. Become the trendsetter in sustainability. Get ahead of your competition with innovative digital transformation that drives your business during the energy transition. Drive energy efficiency program adoption and help customers reach their energy goals. Educate customers and partner with them to adopt sustainable offerings and services that foster new revenue streams Go beyond commoditization and stay current with new offerings OIL AND GAS Connect stakeholders and assets across every touchpoint throughout the Oil & Gas value chain. Optimize your organization for the new era of energy transformation. Drive digital optimization across the upstream ecosystem. Optimise communication and engagement with stakeholders across the value chain. Seamlessly connect landowners, suppliers, customers, shareholders, and the relevant compliance organizations. Augment staff safety with tools that empower you to attract, retain, upgrade, and engage the dynamic workforce. Reduce costs with analytics and AI to drive smarter connections across the energy lifecycle. Boost on-site efficiency and safety. Optimise commercial processes and deliver better service Empower teams with digital tools that drive safety Streamline operations and optimise asset digitization Transform downstream enterprises. Increase customer retention with a platform that drives personalization and growth Optimise stakeholder relationships across all distribution channels Lower maintenance costs, boost plant efficiency and reduce less downtimes Remodel and enhance oilfield equipment and services. Personalize contracts, quotes and bids and win high-margin deals Operationalize existing investments in IoT with analytics and AI to drive business intelligence and reduce costs Deliver value to customers with simplicity and transparency by investing in digital transformation strategies. Develop and execute an actionable sustainability strategy. Scale Social, Environmental, and Governance excellence to boost stakeholder engagement Fast track progress towards achieving your sustainability goals with optimized greenhouse gas emission tracking and accounting across all your assets and locations. Get ready for a sustainable future with a unified agile platform that allows you to pivot quickly, fast track business models, and adapts to new processes, workflows and integrations. Common questions that we get asked often. Here are the answers. Who can use Energy & Utilities Cloud? Energy & Utilities Cloud is for any energy and utilities provider who wish to revolutionise the customer experience and connect the customer journey across every touchpoint. Irrespective of what type of business model you have, whether a regulated energy company or a retail energy provider, Energy & Utilities Cloud can help you deliver connected engaging, personalized digital-first experiences across the customer lifecycle. How do I use Energy & Utilities Cloud with my current Customer Information and billing systems? Energy & Utilities Cloud is not a replacement for billing or CIS systems.  However, you can easily integrate your existing utility enterprise systems with Energy & Utilities Cloud using out-of-the-box integration solutions driven by utility-specific data models and a repository of pre-built processes to fast track your digital transformation. How is Energy & Utilities Cloud different from competing products? Energy & Utilities Cloud is founded on the design methodology that built the world’s #1 CRM platform. It has been developed specifically for the energy industry.  Now you get faster time to value with data models, custom industry specific apps, and out-of-the-box integrations. Build on the experience of our industry leaders for click based implementation and guidance throughout your digital transformation journey. How so other Salesforce products work with Energy & Utilities Cloud? Energy & Utilities Cloud plugs in easily with Marketing Cloud Experience Cloud, Service Cloud, and more. Now you can innovate faster than ever, with the full power of the Native Salesforce Customer 360 platform. Girikon is a Gold Certified Salesforce Implementation Partner that can help you deliver an engaging digital transformation journey to your customers. Contact us today! Questions? Our reps have answers. CONTACT AN EXPERT

There is a general consensus in higher education that institutions of nearly all types and sizes need to improve persistence and completion rates. While there have been slight improvements in recent years, data indicates that only half of the students complete degrees at the institution at which they start. Studies have suggested that many students complete their degrees at other institutions, taking completion to about 62%. Student departure remains a mystery for most educational leaders. They feel a compelling need to understand and fix the causes of attrition. There is no shortage of knowledge or reference on what works in student retention. Given all that, it is surprising that rates have only gradually improved. This could be for two reasons. First, institutions are flooded with data points and may not be able to identify the ones that must be tracked or which ones help would explain the persistence patterns of their students. Second, we may lack the connections between institutional supports and students who need them to see if we are truly doing something about it. Organize the Data Points with a Model Student success models can be helpful for educational leaders who wish to identify the key aspects associated with student success, persistence and completion. While there are many models to choose from, one of the most talked about is Tinto’s “Theory of Student Departure”. The model helps track the student lifecycle and identifies areas where both student and college attributes can impact the decision to stay in or leave an educational program. Tinto’s model, when analysed and condensed, suggests that there are five key areas where students may encounter challenges that disrupt their educational careers. Likewise, they may identify areas where students may have strengths that boost their success: Academic Integration Academic Integration in a college can be segmented into three parts: preparation, transition, and performance. These three can be connected sequentially, meaning lack of preparation can lead to a poor transition and weak ongoing performance, or they can occur in isolation, disconnected from one another. Experienced faculty and advisors probably know several cases where poorly prepared students were highly successful, well-prepared students failed, and those from both groups realized a trajectory in line with their levels of preparation. Social Integration Social Integration addresses the extent to which the student is able to connect with peers within the educational ecosystem. Adult learners often bond with other adults through common programs. The extent to which students have successfully bonded with their peers can be hard to read; it is not usually a one-size-fits-all model of social integration and student information systems are not typically built to collect and report the data that may be associated with this important area of student success. This aspect may also be useful when working on student faculty engagement.  This form of social integration in which students feel heard, seen and accepted by faculty is important especially for under-represented groups to feel a sense of belonging at their institution. Financial Support Financial Support is critical to enable a student to be able to afford education at that institution.. For those who complete annual aid applications, the resulting calculations serve as a proxy for the ability to pay. The data collected for this purpose does not include factors that can help a student afford costs such as support from family or those that can hamper affordability such as need of a student to work to support a elderly dependent household. We often have a different perception of need-based aid than how students view the issue: the amount of the education bill, less the aid is the amount to be paid or financed. More often than not, it is this bottomline number that impacts students’ real or perceived ability to remain in an educational program. It can also impact the value perception of the educational experience. Is this experience worth it’s price? Goal Clarity Goal Clarity indicates the degree to which a student recognises why they are enrolled in certain college, and the end goal of the program being pursued. Certain institutions might assume that a chosen program or subject translates to goal clarity but data often shows that students change subjects two to three times before getting a degree. A few of the factors that can determine whether a student may have clarity about program they have chosen are its requirements, their personal ability to meet required standards and their practical experience in that field. Faculty and advisors will spot a common situation of students feeling lost when they are unable to pursue a popular program. Support of Family and Friends One of the least investigated areas for measuring student persistence is the support of family. As the number of college students grows, the perception of the college experience amongst their friends and families may differ than those who come from families where college attendance is common. However, that does not mean all families don’t support of first-generation students across the board. In fact, many families place high value on college education. Having said that, there may not be an obvious relation between the program curriculum and career, time spent away from class, student services, and the potential of associated programs for providing key career skills. Create a Framework of Indicators for Lagging Using these five aspects of higher education as a model, it is possible to establish a data framework that measures what we know about students and their probability to continue and succeed. Lagging indicators are most commonly available data points that reflect things that have already occurred. These include grade point average (GPA), which don’t reveal student successes and struggles with certain concepts and skills. They also include the marks of courses finished in a term, unpaid fees that disallow registration for another term, abandonment of courses midway etc. While these data may support analysis of past activities, rarely do they provide understanding of current students. For insight that is “current”, institutions need data indicators that reveal outcomes in real time. Lagging indicator data is important. It allows the institution to conduct detailed, multi- parameter analysis to reveal student groups that may enter into high-risk situations. It may also aid in identifying remedies and support structures to support future students who may have the same characteristics. Too often, these analyses are univariate, such as GPA and one-year retention rate. Even while doing multivariate analyses, the data silos and not sufficient to form regression models with retention values high enough to explicitly establish the differences between students who continue and those who don’t. Human behaviour is complex and is driven by many factors. Consequently, analysis needs to be detailed and based on comprehensive data to allow analysts to investigate multiple factors to understand the patterns of their students. Leading indicators allow institutions to impact persistence in real time. Awareness of a student not connecting with faculty as expected, assignments, fellow students, lets the institution to intervene and attempt to resolve the issue before the student feels isolated to a degree that compels him/her to leave. Identifying students who have pending program fees within the term, which usually happens because loans applied on parent creditworthiness, have not been approved, allows the institution to intervene and find a solution. The institution can support in bridging the gap and mitigate the stress felt by the student before it becomes overwhelming. These are but a few examples of how leading indicators can be used to impact student persistence. Identify and Address Gaps There is typically more data available on lagging indicators than leading indicators, which implies that we have been more attuned to collecting and using data that reflect information on something that already occurred. It must be re-iterated that lagging indicators are help in analysing patterns and suggest interventions for future students. There is far less data available and used as leading indicators, however, and this implies an emerging area of practice that demands more attention. Analyses need to have robust and comprehensive data, yet those tend to exist in various systems/data silos. Institutions that have data warehouses are one step ahead; identifying the important data and extracting them from those systems may still be a challenge, even with solutions in place. Many other institutions that lack these data tools find themselves wishing for better insights and tools to help them collect, assemble and analyze their data. Certain areas suggest polls or surveys. While there are a number of solutions available today, these can also have limitations. One of these is the timing of offering a survey to new or current students, when receive the data back and place those into the hands of those who need it (especially advisors). Some of these instruments allow comparisons of student responses at your institution to others, which can be helpful, but that may be outweighed by the timing, where these data then become lagging, not leading, indicators. Short polls, such as those that ask students to rate how they are doing that day with facial emojis, may capture those who are feeling overwhelmed. Longer polls, that tease out the nuances of family and friend support, shouldn’t exceed 10 questions and five would likely increase response rates. Survey overload can be avoided by good planning and timely distribution of short polls and surveys. Connect the Dots (and the Data) Collecting, assembling, analyzing and acting upon a robust dataset is an evolutionary process. Institutions should start with what they have and gradually augment and enhance their data and its usage as part of a quality development process. Knowing what the desired state looks like is important to creating a strong road map toward it. Assembling a robust set of lagging indicators means getting data from multiple systems, modules and tables in to a unified dataset. Once aggregated, data analysis and visualization should reveal the interaction of the data categories within the framework. Human behavior is often complex and more often than not the decision to stay or leave a program is a mix of multiple factors originating from various parts of that experience. And there may be outside factors as well such as childcare, work pressure etc. External factors may be harder to capture through these data collection mechanisms and may not reveal the true picture. A proper assessment of the internal factors within the control of the institution will augment the analysis and sidestep simplistic, one dimensional solutions about why students are staying/leaving. Assembling and using a robust set of leading indicators is often a tremendous challenge at the most forward-thinking institutions. Is anyone following up to check if any student needs help on unpaid balances? Does the financial aid office, who may be equipped to discuss solutions, even know that this has occurred? Is financial stress causing the student to look for additional outside work, such that they have less time to read and complete assignments? Is the early alert system complicated to use by faculty?  Do residence hall advisors have a similar alerting mechanism for issues they might spot? Who is following up on these and what data do they have that will help them facilitate an empathetic and inform conversation with the student before they make a decision to leave? Adopting a case management methodology to understand student persistence and success has been used by institutions in first-year programs. Some of the more remarkable results have linked students to institutional resources, as well as community services and supports, in a “wrap-around” approach to student success. These approaches can only work when cases are surfaced and those empowered to act have sufficient information to meaningfully interact with the student. It requires that the information from disparate systems is brought together. Improving student outcomes also requires that the care teams and staff can see the relationship between suggesting services and resources and the student’s engagement or lack thereof. Higher education. student support has been based upon a “build it and they will come” approach, as well as an invitational approach to student referrals. Become a part of the Innovation eco-system Girikon is a certified Salesforce Consulting Partner with extensive Salesforce Consulting experience. Get access to experts who can help you adapt fast and achieve success. Contact us today. Questions? Our reps have answers. CONTACT OUR SALESFORCE CONSULTANTS

Pharmaceutical innovation from Health Cloud allows pharmaceutical companies to deliver personalised engagement and support experiences to patients and reduce operational costs while assisting patients navigate through their health journey. Health Cloud connects all patient centric data on a single platform and provides intelligent recommendations to enhance support programs to help you achieve targeted results for patients. Patients can be enrolled directly by a call center agent or by using forms on the patient portal. With Health Cloud, patient liaisons can see details about the program, such as products, services and overall goals. Once patients are enrolled, they can log in to view and authorise any necessary consent forms right from their mobile app. Patient liaisons can also interact directly with patients from a single console and offer services like adherence reminders, copay programs, benefits investigation or in home support. With Health Cloud, patients are kept informed and are supported throughout their entire journey with automated text messages and emails on progress updates. Patients and liaisons can access important resources through secure portals and mobile apps. Access to Therapy A new diagnosis often leaves patients overwhelmed. Patients want to have answers to questions like -How do I get started on treatment? Is the treatment affordable? How does the pandemic affect my access to therapy? Who do I approach for guidance? Onboard quickly, engage, and scale. Getting patients on therapy fast is critical to establishing engagement. That’s where a smooth and convenient onboarding process comes in. Guided enrollment allows service teams to provide critical resources, including insurance verification and copay coordination effortlessly. It is equally critical to create an easy-to-use patient portal for maintaining a 24/7 contact with patients. This allows engagement on any device so patients can get what they need — from relevant educational material to adherence reminders. With the Connect the Patient Experience solution from Health Cloud, you can scale patient service programs and reduce costs. Financial Support Many patients are anxious about the affordability of their therapy. The affordability concern ma also arise midway through the treatment. Withour proper guidance and help, they are at risk of abandoning treatment prematurely. Educate, support, and coordinate. With Health Cloud, pharmaceutical patient support teams can access funding sources for those in need quickly. The Connect the Patient Experience solution enables that by providing a 360-degree view of patients along with financial assistance options for specific therapies. It also suggests key information that can be shared with patients to help reinforce the benefits of staying on course of treatment, even in tough times. This allows patients to maintain the care they deserve for as long as is necessary. Therapy Adherence In today’s pandemic reality, it has become more difficult than ever for patients to adhere to their treatment plans, often a challenge task in normal times. The time is now right for organizations to partner with patients so that they can get the best possible outcomes. Analyze, identify, and check in. Analytics are key to revealing insights that can empower pharmaceutical companies to identify patients who are struggling to stay on the therapeutic course. Predictive insights can help reveal patients who are at risk of deviating from the prescribed path or simply stop treatment. With Connect the Patient Experience solution from health Cloud, pharmaceutical companies can receive proactive AI-driven recommendations for next best actions, like reminders or creating learning journeys. This will enable organizations to help patients course correct by providing highly personalized and compliant experiences. How can Pharma Companies Drive Engagement from Diagnosis through Adherence with Health Cloud? In today’s pandemic context, pharmaceutical innovators are moving faster than ever to engage patients with personalized insights and recommendations. Their goal is to get to the best possible outcome by making it easier to start and stay on course of  treatments, no matter what the situation is. Here’s how pharmaceutical companies can create a patient-centric experience that reduces operational costs, is compliant, and scales by therapeutic scope. Accelerate R&D Innovation Transform therapy development with a 360-degree view of trials. Reduce time to market by integrating teams and systems on a unified, secure platform and access real-time data on any device. Boost patient recruitment and retention with personalized communication. The Salesforce accelerate R&D Innovation solution from Health Cloud lets life science companies connect with trials teams to finding new ways to innovate faster. Lightning allows easy configuration of the apps you need, enabling teams to collaborate during every phase of clinical development such as study design, study start up, site selection and execution. Teams have easy access to study documents and can share with staff and investigators and then store their findings on the Salesforce platform using partner apps from the AppExchange or third-party apps pulled from API libraries in integration cloud. Clinical research associates and other field personnel can stay connected 24/7 across any device. Analytics show each team member a complete view of all their activities and they can view real time status updates on study start up and subject enrolment to get data insights and determine next best actions. Clinical data is pulled into Health Cloud and shown in a streamlined patient management console letting you manage patient trials while collaborating across the trial teams. This allows subjects to have the necessary support to successfully participate. Salesforce community cloud lets you connect stakeholders to important documents and resources, quickly recruit patients and collaborate with patients and investigators within a secure authenticated portal. Marketing Cloud lets you send personalised email and text messages to keep everyone informed and up to date. Connect Patient Experience Deliver tailored support programs at scale, deliver personalized patient experiences, and track and monitor performance with built-in analytics and AI. The Salesforce Connect the patient experience solution from Health Cloud lets pharmaceutical companies deliver personalised engagement and support programs across a single platform. To reduce operational costs and help patients manage their disease while navigating their healthcare needs.  You can connect all your data on a single platform to drove predictive recommendations and improve support programs to achieve targeted patient outcomes. Deliver programs at scale to drive awareness with patients and physicians using Salesforce Health Cloud and enrol patients directly through a call centre agent or using forms on the patient portal. And Patients can stay informed and supported through their entire journey using automated email and text messages through a secured and authenticated portal directly on their mobile. All while letting pharmaceutical companies have a complete view of their patients on a connected intelligent platform

Deliver rapid business outcomes with purpose-driven commercialization solutions. Transform Virtual Sales Provide a connected selling experience, from planning to support, on a unified platform to fast-track value and drive quicker business results. Take engagement to the next level and close more business with AI-driven actionable insights. The MedTech industry has always been on the cusp of innovative technology for healthcare, with the usage of robotics, nanotech, and AI to build life-saving devices. Today, more than ever, MedTech organizations are under tremendous pressure to discover innovative ways to connect and advise everyone they serve faster and more efficiently – and through multiple channels during the age of COVID-19.The pandemic fortified existing trends, such as the necessity for boost efficiency, bolster device effectiveness, and deliver a higher ROI. MedTech companies are now facing new demands to work with healthcare organizations in a hybrid environment. Medtech companies are also embracing innovative patient engagement models to support healthcare providers, both during, and post treatment. They need to be flexible to meet the dynamic and rapidly changing needs and expectations. And most of all, they also require a holistic view of data, facilitate collaboration across teams, and the requisite digital tools. That’s where an all integrated CRM platform like Salesforce comes into play. More than forecasting and managing customer contacts, Salesforce securely connects data from disconnected systems and delivers a unified experience to providers, patients, and partners on their channel of preference. This enables MedTech businesses to connect teams, integrate different data sources across existing systems, and deliver intelligent insights. Let’s explore how Salesforce helps Medtech companies drive business excellence, streamline innovation, deliver tailored experiences, deliver value, and boost efficiency. Drive business excellence with digital, connected experiences Seles models were adapting to change even prior to the pandemic. The only change now is that pace has accelerated. Consolidation amongst hospitals with adoption of enterprise-wide subscription-based models started to happen. Today, purchase decisions are moving faster now. And safety protocols are resulting is sales teams virtually interacting with decision makers. On top of that, tighter budgets means healthcare providers are now more demanding. They expect the devices they buy to deliver improved patient outcomes at a lower cost. To move forward, it is imperative that medtech businesses have a holistic view of their customers to better understand their needs and consequently provide personalised engagement and service. The Salesforce platform acts as a knowledge-sharing center, enabling sales teams to drive business excellence by taking advantage of a 360-degree customer view while working off the same platform. Streamline your technology Many MedTech organizations depend on multiple technology systems that don’t always work well with each other or deliver an engaging customer experience. Standardization of data from legacy systems on a unified platform helps make information easier to manage. Salesforce solves this problem of dealing with multiple systems and consolidates data by seamlessly integrating data from existing solutions. Salesforce Customer 360 connects all touchpoints of the customer journey.  These include manufacturing, supply chain, marketing, sales, clinical and service. With a unified view of all data, businesses get better visibility and are able to maintain relationships better across the business. Not only that, it also delivers consistent, personalized experiences. A flexible and scalable platform like Salesforce accelerates business excellence, fosters collaboration, and empowers teams. Not only that, you can also build on top of the Salesforce platform with new functionality with new apps, for internal staff, partners or customers. This allows you to: Take advantage out-of-the-box services. Easy to use drag-and-drop functionality enables anyone on your team to develop apps without even writing a single line of code. Drive innovation. Stay focused on high-value projects with available and tools and apps. Drive governance and compliance. Out-of-the-box functionalities like integration and identity services ensure app development follows requisite guidelines. Advise customers with actionable insights Those tiny moments matter the most. That’s when access to accurate information is critical – whether you’re a physician in the middle of a procedure, a staff member who needs to transfer stock, or a patient beginning their treatment journey with a wearable device. With Salesforce, reps can access valuable, actionable data and insights from a single platform to best serve customers in a connected and intelligent manner. That lets MedTech companies act at speed and scale. The starting step to accomplish this is to aggregate data. Salesforce pulls in information from across the ecosystem so that everyone has visibility into: Real-time sales information that delivers production, marketing, and service team needs Research and development processes that impact production, quality assurance, and licensing Patient and clinical staff feedback that boosts evolution of devices and services Integrates Artificial intelligence that delivers critical data analytics and insights. These insights include predicted outcomes, recommended course of action, and automated workflows. From a single console, teams can deliver simpler, smarter and faster interactions. Start selling smarter and drive ROI In the fast-changing Medtech industry, businesses must meet increasing customer expectations for better patient outcomes and improved ROI quickly and efficiently. Digital tools accelerate the sales cycle and deliver critical insights in an agile framework, even while working in virtual or hybrid selling models. Salesforce delivers a 360-degree view of customers and provides teams with deeper insights into customer activity and subsequently drives value. AI-based intelligence predicts sales activity, forecasts growth, and reveals areas of opportunity. When sales teams can personalize interaction and sell proactively, businesses can foster deeper relationships and build customer trust. With Salesforce Customer 360 you can: Get next best actions. Teams can access each customer’s detailed account history for accurate forecasting along with recommended next best actions. AI can prioritize sales activities and spot new opportunities to help close deals faster. Stay close to current and prospective customers. Reps can increase the reach and frequency of selling activities, thereby improving account and territory performance and later assessing effectiveness based on insights from flexible dashboards. Gain real-time insights into market conditions. Reps can compare territory performance with forecast and industry data in a real-time view. Quickly onboard new team members. New reps can train in a centralized location for sales and enablement. Salesforce speeds up the procurement cycle and helps reps stay close to current customers while prospecting new ones. Improve engagement with personalization Medtech businesses were already becoming more involved in the patient journey by providing services that helped patients use devices properly. But in 2020, the ability to engage virtually became even more valuable as HCPs adapted to remote patient monitoring during the pandemic. In addition to telemedicine and hybrid treatment models, digital tools that engage patients before, during, and after care are poised to become the norm. Salesforce enables medtech organizations securely log patient information and facilitate virtual, hybrid, and in-person treatment. For example, patients can request data to stay better informed about their health and actively involved in care decisions. Patients can also access product details on mobile apps and community websites and connect with other patients with similar health conditions. This creates peer to peer personalized experiences at every interaction point. In one example, a remote monitoring sticker helped medical professionals track the symptoms of sick patients recovering at home. With Salesforce, their agents could answer questions about the device from patients who were reaching out to the company directly. The 360-degree view enabled agents to create a case and provide streamlined services. Salesforce Customer 360 captures contact information and communication preferences to keep everyone up to date on new products and solutions. This also allows Medtech businesses to nurture prospective patients by guiding prospects to the right products. What’s next? The pandemic may have changed how Medtech organizations engage with providers and patients, but customer-focus is still at the heart of everything they do. Salesforce Customer 360 is far from your traditional CRM: You can connect teams and integrate data on one flexible, secure platform and deliver a unified experience for providers and patients alike. Salesforce can help you go digital fast, accelerate value, and transform your business. With greater across the value chain, you can manage commercial processes, build provider relationships, and engage with patients in the most intelligent, efficient, and personalized way. This all leads to better outcomes for your business, your customers, and their patients. Get in touch with a Salesforce Implementation Partner today.