Salesforce Usage Report 2020: Revenue growth in the age of customer experience

In a new decade, businesses will use Salesforce differently. The customer and how they buy demands it.

Customers are more informed than ever, have higher expectations and a multiplying number of channels to engage with your business across.

They are increasingly self-educated in the buying process, with Gartner suggesting that only 17% of b2b sales time is spent meeting with potential suppliers and as little as 5% with individual sales reps.

Businesses need to build journeys that reflect this and meet them with what they want, where, and how they want to engage.

The single most important output of Salesforce will be in the superior experience that it enables businesses to create for their customers. Across connected, consistent and dynamic journeys.

We have to realize that this journey is not linear and that it’s outside of the seller’s control. When you have six to ten decision-makers involved in a two-year process – the decisions naturally loop back and forth revisiting the need, alternative solutions, and internal debate. The information and actions from Salesforce have to be malleable enough to accommodate this.

Almost half of the time spent on purchasing decisions (40%) is spent offline or communicated internally through the buyer group, away from your sales and marketing outreach. (Gartner)

When we realize that there is no clear hand-off between digital and in-person and that the journey offline has to reflect our online activity, there is only one thing to sell on.

Openly available information. Seamlessly providing all the information that the customer wants, when they need it, and at every touchpoint.

Salesforce is the meeting ground for insights and its ecosystem is the engine room for delivering information that makes these buying decisions easier.