Powered by an extensive Salesforce Consulting Partner network, Salesforce provides access to expertise and solutions tailored for the automotive industry with their latest offering – Automotive Cloud. Automotive Cloud is a product created specifically for automotive manufacturers, supply chain partners, dealers, automotive finance companies, and their customers. Automotive Cloud empowers businesses to deliver exceptional customer service experiences across every interaction with Driver 360, boosts top lines with better lead conversion and improved collaboration, and leverages industry best practices based automation and real-time analytics for greater productivity and RoI. The automotive industry is going through a huge transformation as it gears up to meet the demands of today’s digital first world. Salesforce research indicates that only 1% of automotive customers had a delightful car buying experience, and only 25% auto manufacturers and dealers believe their business has adapted well to online commerce. To create new revenue channels and fix the fragmented customer experience, the automotive industry must recognize new opportunities with new selling and service models, connected and intelligent vehicles, subscriptions models, partnerships, and the heaps of data these new offerings generate.  With the rise in direct to consumer models and the surge in the adoption of electric vehicles, the automotive industry is in the midst of a new digital imperative. Automakers today recognize that with disruption comes opportunity, and businesses embracing the digital-first future with a technology platform like Automotive Cloud can have a competitive edge going into the future. According to Salesforce, over 90% of automotive industry leaders recognize that first-party data can help significantly improve the customer experience across every interaction – like vehicle browsing, purchasing, financing, or service. Automotive Cloud, powered by Driver 360, and built on automated, intelligent and real-time technology, delivers a unified view of the customer and vehicle lifecycle for auto manufacturers, supply chain partners, dealers, and finance agencies. Just like Education 360 for learning and Patient 360 for healthcare, Driver 360 is built on the powerful Customer 360 platform and delivers a single source of truth for the entire automotive industry. Whether consumers are surfing for a new car, completing a purchase, looking for vehicle financing, or want to get their vehicle serviced, Automotive Cloud is poised to drive the automotive industry through this phase of unprecedented transformation by enabling real-time intelligent personalization across the entire journey of the vehicle. With Automotive Cloud, marketers can configure ranking parameters to qualify leads to share the leads most likely to convert with the customer’s local dealer. Dealer managers can track the performance of their inventory to discover how dealers are performing to improve how they manage their inventory and vehicle allocation. Service teams can configure alerts to notify them when a service is due. And IT teams can build custom workflows with just a few clicks to automatically alert customers in case of a vehicle recall of a particular model. Driver 360 empowers you to deliver best-in-class customer experiences Driver 360 comes pre-built with industry specific best practices based on out-of-the-box solutions built on verified data models for the auto industry to fast track time to value. With Driver Console, service teams can get a comprehensive view of all customer interactions and alerts across every touchpoint throughout the customer and vehicle journey, including car browsing, purchasing to vehicle servicing. With the Household Management feature, automotive businesses can aggregate their data to build a 360 degree picture of a household’s vehicle ownership and past interactions, which the dealers and other partners can use to offer personalize support and offers. With Vehicle Console, staff across automakers, dealers and finance agencies can get easy access to holistic vehicle information like odometer readings, current market value of the vehicle and real-time service and repair information.  Automotive Data Foundation, which has been built on industry standards, is the cornerstone of Automotive Cloud. It creates a trusted data foundation that allows for interoperability, compliances, data protection and data sharing. Drive revenue through better lead conversion and communication Today’s customers prefer digital first engagement. Which means automotive businesses, dealers and partners need to collaborate seamlessly to drive sales, manage inventory, and deliver enhanced customer experiences.  Automotive Lead Management encourages collaboration right across the value chain that includes automotive manufacturers and dealers. It enriches leads by providing comprehensive  customer and vehicle history, enabling users to direct the high priority leads directly to the customer’s preferred dealer coupled with comprehensive information about their preferences, needs, and interaction history. Dealership performance can be easily analysed by region and lead pipelines can be monitored better with Dealer Performance Management. This enables auto businesses to focus their efforts and facilitate better coordination across sales agreements, customer visits, partner affiliations, forecasts, incentives, and much more. Powerful AI and analytics for increased productivity and cost savings with industry-specific automation, With rising prices of raw material and parts, supply chain limitations, and huge investments in EVs, automotive businesses need smart automation, AI, intelligent analytics based on seamlessly connected data to lower costs, identify new streams of revenue and empower users to make better informed decisions. Flow for Automotive Cloud allows users to build and deploy intelligent workflow automation with just a few clicks. Flow’s integration and configuration capability makes it easy to create and deploy branded automation experiences like order status updates or delay notifications to enable users to accomplish more tasks with lesser resources, improve efficiency, and deliver enhanced customer experiences at scale. With Analytics for Automotive Cloud, automakers can get deep insights to track and improve business performance. Analytics comes with purpose-built dashboards and views that give business users a detailed snapshot of business performance, customer and vehicle lifecycle, and trends, to yield faster and better business outcomes. With Salesforce Genie, automotive businesses can unify complete customer and vehicle data across multiple channels across all interactions by aggregating vehicle, service and interaction data into a unified, real-time, customer profile. With Automotive Cloud you can deliver unified purchase and service experiences. It empowers you to automate processes, get intelligent insights. Now you can transform customer insights into real time, rich, seamless experiences. Get an enriched view of your customers, households, vehicles, and assets to enable real-time, purposeful engagements. Automate business processes easily with just a few clicks. Simplify integrations across automakers, partners and collaborators and deliver branded experiences with just a few clicks with Flow for Automotive Cloud. Get intelligent insights and make better informed decisions. Customer facing teams can use the power of AI to engage smartly with customers across every touchpoint. Drive real-time, engaging experiences. Drive sales and service. Delight customers throughout the entire sales and service journey with a solution purpose built for the automotive industry. Here’s what you get with Automotive Cloud to power customer engagement. Driver Console Get a 360-degree view of all customer interactions and easily configure custom alerts for your teams. Vehicle Console Access important information such as vehicle details, warranties, or service reports. Household Management View complete history of a household’s owners and vehicles to deliver personalised support and offers. Automotive Lead Management Forward high-priority leads directly to the customer’s preferred dealer. Partner Performance Management Easily track performance of partners and seamlessly collaborate on site visits, incentives, and more. Automotive Data Foundation Ensure data protection, compliances, and data sharing. As a  Salesforce Consultant, Girikon recognizes that Automotive Cloud comes with limitless possibilities to enable automotive companies make their business future proof. To know more about how you can leverage AI, Automation and Analytics to significantly improve decision making, drive efficiency and boost revenues for your automotive business, contact one of our experts today.

The latest Summer '23 features have been released by Salesforce.  If you are looking to upgrade your Salesforce instance, the right Salesforce Implementation Partner can help you with the implementation of these new features and training of your Salesforce admins to make your operations more efficient and productive.  Here’s a look at the top 10 features from the Latest Salesforce Summer ’23 Release 1. Integrated Analytics Services The summer ’23 release comes with a consolidated interface for Analytics and Slack. Which means you can now enjoy a seamless engagement with all your CRM Analytics, Lightning reports and dashboards, and Einstein Discovery models and forecasts. The Analytics tab now comes with powerful search capabilities and recommendations, giving you access to organized statistics that you can turn to for all your Lightning dashboards and CRM Analytics. Using the Post to Slack feature on Lightning dashboards, you can share information such as dashboards and CRM data with colleagues throughout Slack workspaces easily. 2. Unified Analytics With the new release of Analytics Home, you no longer need to deal with analytics spread over different products. This new feature unifies all your CRM analytics data in a single place, allowing you easy access to information. Now you can get access to a consolidated view of all your CRM reports and dashboards in a structured and organised way, so you can easily access all the information you need to take quick decisions. 3. Customer Data Platform reimagined as Data Cloud In the new release, Salesforce has transformed the erstwhile Customer Data Platform into Salesforce Data Cloud with all the necessary documentation and additional features. 4. Barring Unverified Emails Sent by Guest Users This feature update disallows companies from sending emails from unverified email addresses of guest users. However, Salesforce customers that have a validated company-wide email address will not be impacted by this update. In such cases, the sender’s email address always updates to the authenticated email address. With the Latest Summer ’23 release, this enforced change effectively disallows shadowy emails from being sent by a guest user using an unverified email address. 5. Upgrade to Hyperforce Using Hyperforce Assistant The latest Summer ’23 release comes with Hyperforce Assistant which streamlines the upgrade to Hyperforce. The new Hyperforce Assistant comes with the latest Hyperforce messaging authorization feature that has better in-built reference checks to support Salesforce organizations that have a large number of Apex classes. Hyperforce Assistant is available in all editions of Salesforce Lightning as well as Classic. Once admins schedule the upgrade, they will be asked to initiate the assistant. Admins can activate the assistant manually in case you are scheduled for a major migration. During Setup, you can enter “Hyperforce Assistant” in the Quick Find Box and select the appropriate option. 6. Accelerated Quote Template Creation With OmniStudio Document Generation Quote generation is now much simpler with this latest add on. With Salesforce CPQ Plus, your reps can easily create templates to generate quotes for your customers. You can generate a Microsoft Word file in the format and language of your preference, insert tokens and upload the document. Then associate the inserted tokens with relevant Salesforce fields. Your sales reps can then start utilizing the template once it is active. They can also easily convert their documents to PDFs. This Salesforce CPQ plus update is available in both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience. 7. Real-Time Collaboration with Partner Relationship Management for Slack App This feature improves communication and collaboration across internal teams and external partners by bringing them together in a single channel using Slack. With Slack you can automate key business processes, and update and share records easily across collaborators. Partner Relationship Management for Slack connects your Salesforce CRM with partners seamlessly, with easy access to important information through partner portals, thereby boosting productivity, and fostering better communication. This upgrade impacts the Enterprise and Unlimited editions of Salesforce. The mandatory requirement to access this feature upgrade is to be a Slack Enterprise Grid user. 8. Codeless flow of External Data into Flow Builder This new feature allows admins to use Flow Builder to automate processes that involve external data without the need for coding by developing an HTTP callout action through a web service API. Once you enter the API details, Flow Builder automatically generates a reusable callout action which admins can immediately deploy in Flow Builder and across Salesforce. This commonly used feature has witnessed several enhancements since the last update. Now it is easier to configure and edit the API responses to HTTP callouts. This allows the use of external data inflows to be simpler and more declarative. This upgrade is available across all editions of the Lightning Experience – Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer. The reason why this feature has been introduced is that APIs often go through modifications, such as the addition of a new field or updation in an existing field in an external system. Admins with the relevant permissions in Manage Flow and Customize Applications can create an HTTP callout action. Previously, admins had to modify the auto-generated API definition in JSON to modify the HTTP callout action. With the latest update, this action can be modified with just a few clicks. Instead of editing and configuring JSON to parse the API response, admins can easily select data types for fields. With this new feature, admins will also receive more lucid error messages, simplifying the troubleshooting process and prevent runtime issues. 9. Quick Create Sandbox to Enhance Productivity Quick Create Full Sandbox is another new upcoming feature of the Salesforce’s Summer 23 Release. This feature accelerates sandbox creation and refreshing. This update means no additional actions will be required from Salesforce admins as it is the default setting. This feature will be available on eligible Hyperforce instances. Salesforce will initiate a staggered release after June 10, 2023, and users with the Manage Sandbox permission can use this feature. 10. Process Builder is on its way out. Rules have changed. Process Builder does not have the capability of adding new processes anymore. However, you can still activate/deactivate existing processes or edit them. Having said that, it is recommended that for most use cases, you migrate to Flow Builder.  The upgraded flow builder can take automation of business processes to a whole new level. Summing Up With the Summer ’23 release, Salesforce endeavours to make your daily tasks simpler, more efficient, and productive. The Summer ’23 release is designed to empower organizations to improve their engagement with customers, automate businesses processes, and drive growth. At Girikon, a Gold Salesforce Consulting Partner, we recognize that staying up-to-date with these new changes in the Salesforce platform and leveraging the new capabilities are key to maximizing your Salesforce RoI.  Contact one of our experts today to know more about how you can make the most of these exciting new features of the Summer ’23 Release.

When Salesforce acquired Vlocity in 2020, it acquired the capability to sync its core platform with industry-specific solutions & processes. This tailoring of its cloud offering addresses industry specific business needs as well as legal and regulatory needs of companies. Salesforce Industries also offers enhanced data models to serve various industries such as Financial Services, Government, Health, Government, Manufacturing, FMCG, Energy & Utilities, Communications and Media & Entertainment. More often than not, architects find themselves working on a project with industry-specific requirements. And they need out-of-the-box capabilities from the Salesforce Platform. What is Salesforce OmniStudio? Salesforce OmniStudio is powerful suite of 4 core task-based components. They are: OmniScript DataRaptor Integration Procedure FlexCards These components empower architects to consolidate applications, quickly bring up new users to productivity, and lower overall costs-to-serve. Salesforce OmniStudio is available as a complete native managed package that can add additional functionality to your existing Salesforce instance. Data model Salesforce Industries comes with industry-specific data models, as a layer on top of the Salesforce object model. The data model is completely additive. It is designed to enhance standard objects and fields or allow addition of new custom objects and fields. In other words, there is no duplication of any existing entity. OmniScript Architects across the world prefer tailored solutions to simplify maintenance and operations of systems. If you wish to deliver engaging digital experiences which can seamlessly integrate into your website, then OmniScript will help you get the best out of your engagements. With OmniScript you can easily deal with industry-specific cases. OmniScript enhances interactions by offering tools that are user-friendly can be tailored to deliver additional value to end-users. Also, it offers a code-less environment since it comes with ready-made aspects which can be deployed easily across channels and devices. Functionalities of OmniScript: It allows you to easily compose interactive processes for every use case, and allows you to branch easily. OmniStudio comes with a drag-and-drop OmniScript editor feature. Architects can use this feature to proof-read their work. There are also in-built troubleshooting tools to fix the processes. Device and channel agnostic. Users can access it from anywhere – whether mobile or web. If you are using a mobile app, you can use the OmniOut function to install Lightning Web Components (LWC) OmniScripts for these systems. It allows for easy prototyping of user experiences enabling reuse without any challenges by distinguishing between the JSON metadata structure, the data, and the templates. Allows easy generation of LWCs which can then be used in the Lightning App Builder. DataRaptor DataRaptor is a user friendly mapping tool. It allows architects to efficiently extract, store, and access data. DataRaptor allows easy configuration for negotiating any data. With DataRaptor, architects can easily extract, load and transform data conveniently. There are main 3 components in DataRaptor are: DataRaptor Extract – It allows you to retrieve data from Salesforce. With DataRaptor Turbo Extract, you can restore data from a single Salesforce source DataRaptor Load – It allows you to save data DataRaptor Transform – As the name suggests, it allows you to transform data DataRaptor acts a connecting bridge between Salesforces and OmniScript/ FlexCard. It loads data from Salesforce and sends it to these sources and sends updated data from these back into Salesforce. It can auto-generate Apex REST web services to work seamlessly with external applications. Integration Procedure Integration Procedure is a declarative process that allows you to generate multiple actions with a single hit. It reads data from Salesforce and writes data back to it. With integration procedure, you can also do the same with external systems through REST calls. Integration procedure also allows you to execute Apex code without any user interaction. These are the features of Integration Procedure: Executes functions across multiple data sources such as Salesforce, external systems. Can serve as a data source for OmniScript, FlexCard, REST or Apex. Trims data that is served to the browser from the server reducing data transfer traffic. Process huge amounts of data easily. Allows you to easily load and transform data from third-party sources without any user interaction. Works with clicks not code, which allows for easy integration and configuration. Automatically creates REST endpoints to work seamlessly with external systems. Works seamlessly with Declarative Platform Cache configuration that improves performance and reduces server processing at scale. FlexCards FlexCards is an integral part of Salesforce Industries. FlexCards allows you to create industry-specific UI components catering to specific customer needs. FlexCards uses the LWC framework and allows for easy deployment options via Community Builder and App Builder. FlexCards acts as a data source for DataRaptor, Integration Procedure, REST, Apex etc. When using FlexCards,  only data that is relevant to the user is thrown up based on the configuration. The features of FlexCards are: Displays consolidated, concise, and relevant information. Allows for contextual actions to improve collaboration across business operations Can be tailored to customer preferences across channels and devices Can access and assess data from Salesforce and external applications Has an intuitive code-less declarative editor Auto-creates Lightning Web Components Advantages of Omnistudio. Accelerate innovation with declarative tools that empower you to go digital quickly. Easily deploy industry-specific processes fast to automate interactions Simplify integrations with drag-and-drop functionality with a modular, granular-service oriented approach Build tailored flexible, scalable and branded user interfaces with an intuitive code-less configuration Automate the customer service experience easily with just a few clicks Make your business agile with scalable digital engagements. Create code-less, guided user experiences Allow your users to accomplish complex tasks effortlessly with a flexible, scalable, branded user interface. Easily help them navigate through sales and service processes with quick and personalized responses. Seamlessly integrate with your Salesforce CRM and external  systems. Integrate with external data easily. Use declarative data mapping and REST interfaces to manage complex data structures fast with a drag-and-drop intuitive interface. Connect with external systems to seamlessly bring in data into the tailored, branded experiences created using OmniScript and FlexCards Empower agents with contextual information Streamline and optimize your processes by showing only the data you need, when you need it. Construct guided user interfaces with clicks, not code. Quickly get data into FlexCards from multiple sources. OmniStudio gives you the tools to accelerate value realization. Interaction Console Get easy access to dashboard components that give you a 360 degree view of the entire customer journey and offer insights to help resolve issues faster. IDX Workbench Easily migrate changes and manage cross organizational dependencies and simplify DevOps. Visualize and compare changes across versions in a desktop app. Easily switch components across source control, sandboxes, and production. Omni Analytics Visualize data to understand process performance and identify trends.  Take actions to improve core metrics and KPIs. Project Explorer Structure industry processes by organizing metadata into collections that can be accessed from anywhere in the org. Search and navigate easily across items. At Girikon, a Salesforce Implementation Partner, we recognize the promise that Salesforce Industries and OmniStudio bring for architects. And with Salesforce’s commitment to continued enhancement, it promises enduring productivity and innovation for architects.  Contact us today to learn more.

In today’s pandemic context, businesses around the world have embraced digital transformation to re-imagine their internal processes. In partnership with global Salesforce Consultants, the Customer 360 platform has helped organizations witness exponential growth in lead conversion and customer satisfaction scores. And with digital transformation, there has been growing need to make the platform available to field services. And that led to the birth of Salesforce Field Service Lightning. Salesforce Field Service is a solution that extends the power and flexibility of the Salesforce platform to field service operations. Multiple teams across geographies can be easily connected to everyday field service tasks that require site visits in real time. What Is Salesforce Field Service Lightning? Salesforce Field Service Lightning is Salesforce’s new offering as part of its Customer-360 platform to augment the customer experience through field services. One of the hallmarks of Salesforce CRM is the 360-degree insight on customers. With Field Service Lightning, customer information percolates downstream to the field service agents. Along with that, Salesforce also provides a Field Service learning map, a handy resource to guide you on your path to Field Service success. Let’s dive deeper into the key functions of Salesforce Field Service Lightning to understand why it’s useful for businesses. Task Assignment This is perhaps the most attractive feature of Salesforce Field Service Lightning. With this function, you can quickly create tasks for your field service agents and track the tasks assigned in real time. Standard activities such as appointments, maintenance tasks and other field activities can be easily managed by the field agents and technicians. And because of the fully integrated capability of the Salesforce platform, Field Service Lightning comes integrated with contacts, accounts, cases, and other items. You can get access to knowledge articles and real time tracking of SLA compliance with relevant milestone tracking or visit resolution. Service and Resource Allocation Field Service also allows you to automatically customise and assign tasks as per company guidelines. And not just that,  it also allows you to book appointments easily based on customer data and tailor the relevant tool for a particular task based on  capacity, location, and business rules. Customers can also auto-book an appointment conveniently. Real Time Inventory  Using the Field Service mobile app, you can view the assets installed at client locations using the barcode scan function. You can scan team barcodes and update the inventory available with a particular truck. This allows the field technician to easily manage the tools inventory and materials that is being transported to the customer. The required field service tasks can be associated with both the inventory required for the task as well as the skills required to complete them. You can configure multiple storage locations for materials and tools which could be fixed locations such as warehouses as well as mobile inventory such as trucks or backpacks. Dispatcher Console You can easily assign tasks and link it to the right agent based on multiple criteria such as work location, required knowledge to accomplish the task, agent availability, and much more. The dispatcher can get a complete view of all scheduled appointments, their stratus updates, with alerts for issues that require urgent intervention. The field service map shows you the status of the service task in real time, showing the current location of the both the technician as well as the client. With this feature, tracking and management of field technicians becomes more efficient. Field Service App Using the Field Service Mobile app, the field technicians can view the list of pending tasks for the day in real time. Tasks can be viewed in 2 ways: a sequential list for the day ahead or a map that shows the route to follow. Technicians can also fill in the necessary information required to complete the task. The app also provides relevant guidance to the technician to ensure that the necessary steps are followed to confirm the appointment, making their job easier. Field Service Lightning comes integrated with Chatter. This allows field technicians to share updates with other technicians or the dispatcher in real time. Customers can sign on the app itself and technicians can create service reports by having a digital document about the job. The app also works seamlessly in offline mode, which may be necessary in remote areas.  In offline mode, all Field Service functions are available in the app. This allows technicians to complete tasks in areas where there is limited or no mobile service. Technicians no longer have to be limited by circumstances and can deliver great customer service everywhere. Data Analysis Salesforce has set a gold standard when it comes to data analysis and Field Service Lightning is no different. In Field Service, you can easily perform data analysis on the go with just a few taps. You can create comprehensive custom views of technicians, supervisors, and third party contractors. Salesforce Field Service Lightning allows you to easily integrate all data from multiple systems making service and its supervision possible. 4 Advantages of Salesforce Field Service Lightning Salesforce Field Service Lightning integrates seamlessly with tools of the Salesforce ecosystem such as Service Cloud to deliver greater efficiency and productivity. Shift Management Organizing field service teams in shifts and complex trip management is a thing of the past. Salesforce Field Service Lightning is built on an object model that allows for improved and easy management of these processes. Supervisors and managers can easily manage resources and shifts and relieve administrators of unnecessary heavy lifting of mundane tasks. Dependencies Linking tasks can now be done easily with Field Service Lightning. More often than not, tasks have dependences and its critical to correlate them to maintain service levels. This is particularly helpful in scenarios where a particular work order has multiple tasks that must be completed. Service Groups This allows field service agents to work as a collaborative team for easier planning and execution of field service tasks. This brings in fluidity to the entire service operations. More often than not, field service teams work under the assumption that everyone has similar skills, which limits a work order to be able to allocate resources using a combination of skills. For instance, if you need a carpenter and a plumber, they should be assigned to different service appointments with the same start dependencies amongst them. This feature comes in handy for certain scenarios such as professional services or complex engineering. Salesforce is committed to continue its technology innovation to bring value to its customers, their employees and partners across industries. Field Service offers a significant improvement for your business, covering all your task and logistic management needs and ensures that your field service agents can spend most of their time on what they do best and not in mundane,  repetitive tasks. At Girikon, a Gold Salesforce Partner, we offer consulting, implementation, and training across the entire spectrum of Salesforce products. To know more about how Salesforce Field Service Lightning can significantly improve the efficiency of your field service operations, contact us today.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (Generative AI) is the latest next generation technology. Generative AI tools have made it very easy for employees and professionals to compose and refine emails, fine tune presentations and reports, write code, put together social media campaigns, and fast track customer service interactions. But not everyone is able to maximize its full potential. More often than not it comes down to the prompt, the statements or questions you feed into a Generative AI tool. The better your prompts, the better will be the Generative AI response. The key takeaway If you want to get the most out of Generative AI and the generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) models that generate conversational language, you might want to get your hands dirty in prompt engineering. This gives the Generative AI model clearer details for what you want instead of being ambiguous. Generative AI is getting smarter as you read this, but it cannot read your mind. It can only give you responses based on its understanding of the prompt you give it. So be specific. GPT works better when the prompt is longer. The prompt, which is the question you are asking the tool, needs to be precise and contextual for it to generate the right response. And that’s the key to unlocking the full potential of Generative AI. What you need to know When writing a prompt, approach the tool like you’re having a normal day to day conversation with a colleague. Use clear language and descriptions.  The devil is in the detail. The Generative AI tools will work better for you if your prompts are precise and detailed. You can have an interactive conversation with your Generative AI tool and dive deeper into what you’re looking for. These following tips would be helpful when writing prompts for Generative AI: Write clearly and concisely so your Generative AI tool understands your specific request. Write linguistically correct, complete sentences with descriptive words, that clearly describes what you’re looking for. For precise responses, ask specific questions, and avoid questions that offer a yes/no response. Add context to your prompt. Explain what is it that you wish to achieve and define your target audience. Engage in a back-and-forth conversation. Follow up the initial response with further questions to go deeper and get even more specific and relevant responses.  What is prompt engineering? Prompt engineering is the art of asking clear, descriptive questions or providing detailed information to Generative AI tools, such as a GPT tool or chatbot, to fetch the best results. With the meteoric rise in adoption of Generative AI tools for personal as well as business use, effective prompt engineering skills can help you improve the efficacy of these generative AI tools. The more specific and descriptive your prompt, the better the AI generated results. And you can get creative like you would ask an expert of the subject of your enquiry. For instance, you can even ask the Generative AI tool to reply as someone well known, like Isaac Newton, to get a response from that individual’s point of view. Generative AI uncovers information from piles of data available on the internet. However, narrowing down your query by providing specific questions or instructions in your prompt and adding context will deliver better results. So get creative. Whether you are an expert prompt engineer or a novice in generative AI, it would be prudent to follow these 6 tips mentioned below to get the most from this disruptive technology. Be specific: For example, instead of writing, “Create a social media campaign,” which is a very generic instruction, you can write, “Create a social media campaign for an ecommerce website that sells sports apparel for tennis fans of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.” Engage conversationally: Generative AI may not understand localized dialect or colloquial language. Imagine you are speaking to a co-worker, not a computer. Use open-ended questions: Avoid question with binary responses like a yes/no response.  These prompts limit the Generative AI’s ability to surface detailed, contextual information. Set a persona: Get creative. Ask the Generative AI tool to give answers from the point of view of a public figure (past or present) like Isaac Newton or Christine Amanpour depending on the subject you want to ask about. In fact, you can even define a specific role for specific answers like an operations manager or lawyer.   Define your audience and channel: Specify in your prompt whether you are writing for millennials or GenX. Specify where the audience is going to read it – such as on a social media platform, a blog post, or on website. Ask follow-up questions: The beauty of Generative AI is that you can engage in a back-and-forth conversation with it while maintaining context. It’s akin to speaking with a human. Except that it’s not. If you are not happy with the initial response, you can ask follow-up questions to get more specific responses. This technique is sometimes referred to as “prompt chaining,” where you split your prompts sequentially to get more specific and tailored answers and use answers from one prompt to draw out the next. Use prompt engineering effectively for Generative AI products to work with you and not against you Generative AI tools are new and evolving as you read this. They are not perfect and they’re definitely not human. They are designed to make you feel like you’re having a conversation with a human on the other side, but in reality, it’s a back-and-forth with a computer that has access to heaps of data. Keep these points in mind during your Generative AI prompt writing and subsequent usage of the responses: Generative AI is not always factual. Sometimes it makes up answers, so ensure that you verify what you get. Avoid any copyright infringements. Ensure that what your Generative AI tool gives you isn’t plagiarized from somewhere. Generative AI tools do not understand nuance, local dialects and subtlety. They are not from your neighbourhood. Ensure that your prompts are as specific and clear as possible. Generative AI is not always completely accurate. It’s a fundamental reality of this technology and as a user you need to ensure that you verify any factual data or information before publishing it. Generative AI is already creating a revolution in CRM applications. Girikon is a Certified Salesforce Implementation Partner with a global delivery model. To know more about how Generative AI can work for you, connect with an expert today.

Digital transformation is not a goal post. It’s a continuous journey involving the evolution of people and processes. Here are some of the steps you could take to transform your business digitally and advance your business growth. How can you advance transformation in an hour? Do your homework. Education is the first step to empowerment. Study about organizations that have had a successful digital transformation. There are many great case studies to explore. Comb your network and identify someone that you might know at a senior level who was part of the digital transformation at one of these companies. Schedule a time for a discussion to pick their brain. In fact, do one better. Become a customer of these businesses if you are not one already. Use their app, social media pages or other digital touchpoints to get a first-hand experience of what they have created and how they deliver the customer experience. Get conversational. For most people, the phrase digital transformation can seem ambiguous. It’s a broad term and a discussion on it may revolve around technology, business models, and emerging trends. Businesses are embracing new technologies to reinvent how they work, to connect with customers, and to innovate. It would be prudent to invest an hour in reading the latest about how business leaders see the future of work, navigating through change, and the impact of technology on the economy from renowned publications and organizations such as the World Economic Forum. Identify a champion. Even before COVID19, many digital transformation initiatives did not work out. In fact, some of them failed miserably. And this evidence became immediately tied to digitization without clearly defined purpose, outcomes, or ROI. Avoid these pitfalls by identifying a champion for your digital transformation, be it the CTO or someone else, who can own and drive the change from the very start. They should have clear and to the point discussions with all business units about what digital transformation implies and what they will get out of it. And while you identify that champion, also come up with a responsibility matrix for cross-functional overlap and ownership. How can you advance transformation in one quarter? Run an innovation pilot. Choose a customer journey that you recognize must be digitized. Put together a small cross-functional team (take the help of an external consultant if required) and throw them the gauntlet. Ask them to build a digital journey prototype in three or four iterations. Hand over this pilot to real customers to do a test drive to demonstrate what’s possible. Automate a single business process. A simpler way to imagine digital transformation is through automation of a business process. Put together a cross functional team to use collaboration and workflow tools, for instance Salesforce Slack, to streamline or redesign a business process that is manual, repetitive and causes pain for your team today. For instance, scheduling meetings with team members spread across multiple time zones can be a difficult task. If a technology tool can help teams collaborate asynchronously, it may free up meetings stacked up in your calendar and free up staff inboxes. This improves work efficiency, augments capacity, and enables better coordination between your teams. Identify the gaps. More often than not, business leaders don’t know what data they have access to, or where it lies. Spend time to get a complete view of data across the entire organization. Don’t just ask the senior management. Ask your peers and subordinates. The further down you go in hierarchy, the more likelihood of finding honest answers. To measure the digital transformation you seek to bring to the organization, you need to understand the true picture of all data. How can you advance transformation in a year? Renovate one business function. Whether it’s making your supply chain more visible by integrating the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technology or if it’s renovating your data systems to support better production planning and analysis. Choose one key business function and rebuild it digitally from ground up. Set challenging goals, timelines and identify measurable criteria, and use objectives and key metrics to drive effort and outcomes. Create a roadmap. Do achieve the desired outcome from your digital transformation, your vision and plan require critical inputs from customers and employees, to establish how technology innovation can help you meet their expectations. Eventually, driving innovation requires a great deal of perseverance built on a powerful foundation of data, tools, and skills. And digital transformation is not just the implementation of technology. It also necessitates changes in user behavior, and for that a fresh perspective may be necessary. So, don’t attempt this digital journey alone. Collaborate with technology agencies, systems integrators, consultants, and independent software vendors that can help you throughout your digital transformation journey with strategic planning, change management support, implementation best practices, training and upgrades. Reimagine your relationships. On the other side of digital transformation lies relationship transformation. Define how you want an ideal customer and employee relationship to be, and then guide the transformation. The following questions would guide you along the journey: How have the operational and technology changes impacted your relationships with your customers? How can you improve staff efficiency? How can you ensure staff wellness? What are the areas of improvement? What are the areas of friction? What are the new ways to add value to customers and employees? Study other companies. Not just the ones in your industry, but across the business landscape. Everyone has customers, identify who is delivering the best customer experiences. Learn from them and bring those learnings on board. Re-imagine the way you use data. Static dashboards are a thing of the past. Instead, explore using real time data in meetings, driving the discussion with dynamic data. Augment your internal communications with data-driven insights and be transparent. Include the uncertainties these data reveal. Ensure all employees have comprehensive training on data fluency and measure the training objectives at the end of the training as a key business objective. Promote a culture of making data driven decisions. Be aware of when your employees can’t make decisions because data isn’t available, and work diligently to fill those gaps quickly. Girikon is a Gold Salesforce Consulting Partner. We have worked with businesses across the globe and delivered success for over a decade. To know more about how Digital Transformation can benefit your business, contact an expert today.

Global Digital Skills Index from Salesforce research conducted in 2022 indicates a growing digital skills crisis. The in-depth research about digital skills is based on a survey with 23,000+ respondents (existing and prospective workers) across 19 countries. It includes areas such as their impact on the future of work, their job readiness concerns, and the importance of continuous up-skilling.