Salesforce Service Cloud, a comprehensive customer service system, may just be what you need to stand out from your competitors. Yet this product comes with so many powerful tools that you may hesitate about which ones to include in your own system. We’re here to help you with that. This article explores the key features and how they can benefit your company. But first, let’s discuss the types of problems the Service Cloud can solve.

Common problems Salesforce Service Cloud helps solve

Companies come in all sizes and operate in different industries but often grapple with similar customer service challenges. Here are the problems that you can fix with the aid of the Salesforce Service Cloud.

  • Repetitive tasks. Agents are often bogged down by repetitive tasks, such as answering frequently asked questions and digging up relevant customer data. Not only are tedious tasks demotivating—they prevent customer representatives from offering value-added services.
  • Subpar use of customer data. Customer data offer insights that can enhance employees’ performance and boost the company’s bottom line. But you need the right tools to benefit from these datasets.
  • Increasingly demanding customers. In today’s world, agents must be equipped to handle customers who are used to getting results with just a few taps on their screens. They should also be ready to provide personalized services, anticipate queries, and offer the best-fitting products.
  • Communicating across multiple channels. Customers expect to be able to reach your business using various channels, from traditional phone calls to modern chat platforms. And agents should not ask the same questions that have already been answered in a different channel. 
  • Tracking employee performance. Customer-facing employees must perform at their best, as their successes and failures greatly affect the company. Management needs a way to track agents’ performance. After all, you can only manage what you can measure.

These problems are surely familiar to you. Now, let’s discuss the tools to help your teams deal with them.

The main features of Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce has equipped Service Cloud with all the necessary tools to help your teams tackle common customer service problems. Here are the top Service Cloud features you should include in your system.

Features of Salesforce Service Cloud

Case management

Count on AI-powered routing recommendations to ensure all cases are assigned to agents with the right qualifications. This feature also allows representatives to see chronological records of customer interactions across channels, including chat, email, phone, and social media. It sends out activity updates and triggers alerts when an action is required. The unified view of customer interactions and notifications enables agents to provide personalized services without delay.

Knowledge database

Equip your agents with a knowledge base—complete with accurate and concise articles and FAQs—that will allow them to easily find the answers they need to assist customers. They can also send this content to customers with just a click. 

This feature also lets you build a knowledge base accessible to your customers. You can make it available on the self-service portal, company website, or customer community. 

Omni-channel routing

This feature augments omni-channel support. It lets you route tasks from multiple sources and assign them based on the priority level to the available employees with the relevant skill set. Administrators can check the progress status and how long the employees worked on specific tasks. 

They can also gather data on key metrics (such as average handle times and service level agreement compliance) to gain insights, improve processes, and boost employee performance. 

​​Lightning service console

Boost your agents’ productivity with a user-friendly dashboard that provides a 360-degree view of customers. The Lightning console brings all key resources into one place, including customer profiles, case histories, access to subject matter experts, and a knowledge base. This enables representatives to efficiently address queries, anticipate customer needs, and deliver first-rate service.

Live chat and chatbots

Built-in live chat capabilities allow agents to run real-time conversations with customers. Salesforce chatbots support these conversations by using natural language processing to understand and resolve routine issues, such as modifying orders and verifying claims status. The bots can also analyze complex requests and route them to qualified agents.

Service analytics

Gain access to AI-powered analytics and reporting tools that offer insights into customer satisfaction and agent performance. You can leverage large data sets to predict trends, track key performance indicators, identify product issues, determine customer churn risks, and recommend the next best actions.

AI capabilities

Einstein, Service Cloud’s built-in AI, offers advanced capabilities that streamline customer service operations, from analyzing incoming cases to making next-step recommendations. Native to the Salesforce platform, Einstein is easy to set up and control. Thanks to its user-friendly interface and controls, you can easily automate repetitive tasks, gain insights into customer sentiment, and offer predictive models for smart decision-making. 

Scroll down to learn more about the implementations of these features.

Successful implementation of Salesforce Service Cloud in practice

How exactly do businesses leverage Service Cloud? Let’s take a look at two companies that have used this powerful Salesforce product to their advantage.

  • BlueChip.io used the Service Cloud to gain a 360-degree view of its customers, improve communications across channels, and streamline operations. They leveraged AI-powered tools to efficiently distribute workload among the agents. They also enhanced the multichannel customer experience by integrating the Salesforce Digital Engagement extension into Service Cloud. 
  • Flexistax relied on the Service Cloud to get a comprehensive view of customer interactions. They also leveraged its AI capabilities to simplify processes and automate repetitive tasks. 

The results impacted the companies’ bottom lines, cutting costs and boosting revenue.

Conclusion

Salesforce designed Service Cloud to solve problems customer service teams commonly encounter. The right features to include in your system will depend on your specific needs and circumstances. But whatever feature set you select, the user-friendly portals and advanced AI tools of the Service Cloud will boost your teams’ efficiency and deliver exceptional customer experience.