What Dummies® can teach you about customer experience and SaaS

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Today’s B2B buyers expect more than the traditional face-to-face buying experience, and businesses must align their selling strategies to meet these new buyer expectations. However, delivering an exceptional customer experience (CX) takes more than just sales force automation or marketing automation. It takes a suite of applications to unify your customer data across your business—to make every customer interaction matter.

I often hear folks asking where to start when developing a customer experience technology strategy or where they should go next. I recently had the opportunity to review and contribute to the 3rd edition SaaS For Dummies® eBook and thought I’d share a few things that Dummies® can teach you as you consider how to optimize your customer experience technology strategy. 

Customer experience has no boundaries

Customers see your company as one brand, and it only takes one bad experience to cause a customer to churn. This customer behavior is why it’s essential to recognize that the customer experience stretches across the entire customer journey, even beyond the sale. When your customers engage with your marketing, sales, and customer service departments, they expect a seamless and efficient experience.

These customer expectations are the reason why building a data foundation and unifying your customer data across sales, service, and marketing to create a complete view of your customer is so important. Creating a complete 360-degree customer view empowers your sellers, marketers, and service agents with the information needed to truly know your customer and help engage them with the right message or solution in the moments that matter.

AI helps sellers sell more

When speaking about the Future of CX at the Oracle Cloud CX Virtual Summit, Oracle Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison said, "Sales automation should help you sell more, not just forecast better." Fortunately, the next generation of sales force automation solutions is here to do just that. Sellers can now surface real-time customer intelligence, identify at-risk accounts, and be notified of expansion opportunities through AI-guided selling tools that actually help sellers sell more. These tools go beyond your desktop and are even available to sellers on their mobile devices.

Let’s face the facts; sellers have tough jobs. Empowering them with tools infused with artificial intelligence helps make them more efficient and helps your business drive more revenue.

Register today for “The Future of CRM: Engineering Better Experiences” on September 20 to hear the latest from Oracle Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison.

Omnichannel experiences are here to stay

Customers expect to engage your brand on their terms, meaning your customer experience must expand across channels. We’ve seen the proliferation of omnichannel marketing throughout the years; however, not only do you have to reach the customer on their preferred channel, but you must also now be able to serve the customer on their preferred channel. Self-service and ecommerce applications can help you serve customers when and where they choose.

To learn more, download the 3rd edition SaaS For Dummies® eBook and visit Oracle.com/CX to learn more about Oracle’s Advertising and Customer Experience solutions.