Salesforce in the Transportation and Logistics Industry
The transportation and logistics (T&L) industry is one of the fastest changing in the world at the moment, and has been since the internet revolution and dot-com explosion. With new innovations coming everyday through technological advancements and automation capabilities, it can feel like a full-time job just keeping up.
Like any industry that’s subject to wide, sweeping changes and massive pivots at a moment’s notice, the businesses and entrepreneurs that are quick and eager to adjust thrive. And those who don’t run the risk of shrinking profit margins, becoming outdated, and forced closures.
The Age of the Customer
Some changes such as AI and self-driving trucks are widely known and quickly accepted throughout the industry. But one that’s often overlooked is Salesforce CRM and its powerful implications within the transportation and logistics industry.
According to Bob Hitt, a highly experienced industry leader, widespread implementation of Salesforce technologies is a key to excellent customer service in the emerging digital world.
“In order to meet customer expectations,” Hitt said. “CRM products — sales, service, marketing, and commerce apps — must tightly integrate with inventory, transit time and shipment status information.”
One of the major downfalls that runs throughout most industries is a lack of execution. Many companies do not link their inventory and shipment status to their CRM software, and customer experience suffers because of it.
Customer service and generating not only a memorable, but a memorably good experience each and every time is paramount for a business to be successful in the modern world. They expect a clean, user-friendly experience each and every time. And that’s where Salesforce comes in.
Turning one-offs into repeats
One common problem that persists throughout transport and logistics companies globally is the lack of a total, unified customer view centered around effective sales practice and exemplary customer service.
An organization or company may fulfill initial orders through an enticing price point or quicker shipping process, but reliable, consistent customer service is the way you turn initial orders into repeat customers. Repeat customers are the lifeblood of any successful business, regardless of industry.
Predictive insight
AI can be leveraged into predictable insight and other highly actionable pieces of data about prospects new and old. This data can then be given to your sales team so that they can focus on the right opportunities at the right time.
Salesforce Sales and Marketing Clouds
Implementing the Salesforce Sales Cloud can help you turn quotes (both speculative and queried) into tangible orders while creating a clearer and more accurate pipeline for your greater organization. This 360-degree view of the customer and the service their getting allows you to fully understand and correct any bottlenecks in your processes.
The Marketing Cloud, on the other hand, allows you to deploy and deliver personalized marketing assets and campaigns to potential customers. Sometimes a personalized marketing drop is what it takes for a customer to be converted into a lifelong user of your services.
The Digital Supply Chain
In previous eras, the pursuit of greater profitability and favorable margins involved the long, arduous task of cutting costs, pushing worker productivity, and the maximization of preexisting capacities.
Today, a more efficient future is on the horizon. A future dictated by digital technology, data, and a seemingly never-ending amount of power behind a single laptop. The future of business is smaller in a physical sense, but unimaginably larger in scope and actuality.
Smart, intentional work coupled with technological literacy, execution, and optimization is the key to success in the next decade and beyond. Through a variety of its technological functionalities, Salesforce provides businesses with all the tools they need to take that next step and not look back.
Internet of Things (IoT)
Building out a connected IoT allows every vehicle, container, pallet, person, and individual process to be tracked and managed reliably. Sensors enable data to be delivered to your organization and successfully leverage it into value.
By fully embracing and using the Salesforce IoT Cloud, you can bridge your data streams together and view all of the information flowing throughout your network. This IoT Cloud functions beautifully with the new, AI-enhanced Einstein Analytics (formerly known as Wave).
Artificial intelligence (AI)
AI will change the way decisions are made and professional, company-wide goals are executed moving forward through this modern, highly digitized era. Fleets and cargo flows will be heavily dictated by the burgeoning tech and shape how businesses plan moving forward.
Smart orders and augmented reality (AR) headsets
Automated robot leaders already exist within the transportation and logistics industry, drone-lead delivers are just starting, and technological innovators are currently in the advanced stages of testing out smart order picking through the use of augmented reality headsets
Transform Through Efficiency
Like many other markets both new and old, the transportation and logistics industry is undergoing massive, sweeping changes at the moment. And since the beginning of time, change has always meant two things: risk and opportunity.
Some businesses will adapt and thrive and seize the opportunities given to them, while others will drag their feet in the sand, refuse to change, and die at from the sword of those who do. Salesforce and other modern advancements are critical in future-proofing any operation.
Predictive intelligence and the supply chain
One of the major keys to success in the modern, digital world is the successful leveraging of data into tangible steps that are not only high value, but also highly actionable. Salesforce uses predictive intelligence to turn your real-time data from multiple sources into usable information to optimize your supply chain directly.
Management capabilities
The Salesforce Platform allows you to take the data you’ve collected (think global trade routes, traffic information, weather, or even transit delays) and utilize to improve and streamline your cargo management and parcel handling processes.
Curating High-Value Data
The future is already beginning to appear and materialize in the transportation and logistics industry. A new breed of logistics providers has emerged, businesses that own no physical assets (think fleets, trucks, and warehouses).
These businesses are able to provide a tangible service by aggregating information about other high-value assets and housing them in one place that’s easy to access and implementing. Business empires have been built off the simple idea of leveraging data and streamlining the solution process.
In an article published by Forbes, contributor Sarwant Sing goes into detail about the future of the transportation and logistics world. He believes that data very well could become what fuel used to be.
“With big data we are seeing the conversation shift from estimating the volume of data, or Big Data, to the variety and value of [the] date,” he wrote. “This is a useful conversation to have because an unbelievable 90 percent of data is pure spam.”
Salesforce and its powerful Service Cloud can be leveraged to optimize every aspect of your organization’s operations, enhance transportation, while significantly reducing paper-heavy processes.
This curation of high-value, actionable data is paramount to successfully pushing your business operations forward and embracing the world as it changes around us.
A Globally Trusted Platform
Since its creation, Salesforce has quickly found its feet as a globally trusted powerhouse. Businesses around the world trust the SaaS giant to solve a multitude of their transport and logistics problems without compromising customer success and happiness.
The SaaS giant brings solutions in the most efficient, streamlined way possible, providing you and your organization with complete configurability whilst lowering your overall cost of ownership. You get more out of less, a staple of this new and ever-changing digital world we find ourselves in.
Salesforce is, was, and always will be a business built upon the core principles of adaptation and innovation, an undying dedication to the constantly evolving future around us.
Integrating the multi-dimensional software into your preexisting business organization is one of the best ways to not only prepare for the future, but lean into the changing world around us.