Guess Who Is Using Salesforce for More than Just CRM

You may think Salesforce is only for large enterprise companies who do million-dollar deals, but it’s also used by some of the most popular consumer brands around the world. Brands you are very familiar with and have probably bought at various times of your life (both at home and at the office).

We’ve gathered a few examples of these brands, but we’ve hidden the names from you. These companies use a variety of Salesforce products like Salesforce CRM or Sales Cloud.

After reading their stories, take a guess at who the brands are. (We’ll reveal the answers at the end of the post.)

Sweetening the Sales Conversation

Company A is in the sweets business and has over 1,300 field representatives who visit stores and large retailer channel partners across the U.S. and Canada every day. Anyone who’s been a sales rep knows how challenging it can be to juggle brand and promotional materials with their everyday tasks. Back at the office, meanwhile, management is keen to have updates on how the reps are doing so they can track the conversations and sales back to their department metrics and overall business goals.

To optimize the entire sales team’s workload, Company A built a custom mobile app on the Salesforce platform. Reps now have instant access to planning tools, near real-time analytics, brand and promotional materials, and marketing insights, right from their smartphones or tablets. They’re able to have more meaningful conversations with retailers with access to store-level point-of-sale insights, share updated business information, and generally adapt to any sales situation immediately.

From a management perspective, the custom mobile app helps develop current and future sales talent through immediate access to data such as route analytics and call histories and notes. Changes to route details can be made on-the-fly or adapted based on the latest analytics.

A senior director at Company A said, “We plan to expand Salesforce across multiple route-to-market opportunities, including possible social marketing integration.”

Topping the Charts of a Streaming Service

Company B is a global digital streaming service that offers everything from music to podcasts. Their streaming platform lets people listen and share their favorite songs and artists with others, enjoy playlists based on their previous listening history and favorites, and more. With over 10 million active listeners in 15 countries, it’s important for Company B to preserve its culture and personality while maintaining a high level of customer service and collaboration.

They turned to Salesforce for everything from collaboration to tracking progress against quarterly targets to recognizing group and individual achievements to helping customers. Salesforce Service Cloud and Sales Cloud help them create 360-degree customer views and enabled easier collaboration between employees to help deliver the amazing service their known for. “As we’ve become spread out geographically, Salesforce helps us work as if we’re all still sitting in the same office,” their VP of sales, EMEA told Salesforce.

Keeping the Vending Machine Stocked

People can find Company C’s soft drink products in the four corners of the globe. From its origins in North America to the smallest villages in Asia and the tourist sites of Europe, people have been drinking this soft drink for over 125 years.

Keeping a vending machine stocked with this soft drink is a challenge, since typically a delivery representative had to visit and check on each machine. Sometimes a restock wasn’t necessary, while in other cases, the machine had been sitting empty for some time.

Company C decided to partner with Salesforce and see how their Einstein AI technology could help. By analyzing a photo taken with a smartphone or tablet, Einstein Vision is able to recognize, identify and count the varieties and quantities of soft drink bottles (or cans) in a machine. Then, Einstein combines that information with other data, such as seasonal variations, weather information, and upcoming promotions, to automatically calculate a restocking order and date.

“In a few clicks, I could have this order completely automated, and I could rely on Salesforce Einstein AI to make decisions for my business.” – Salesforce Chief Scientist Richard Socher said at a presentation of the technology.

Empowering Nonprofits

A nonprofit from Texas, Company D, helps economically disadvantaged students enter college and complete their degrees. They provide one-on-one coaching that connects them to resources that support them in their goals of post-secondary education.

Company D uses Salesforce Einstein to surface insights about the students that rapidly identifies students in most need of support by their coaches. Einstein sifted through the six-year’s worth of data the company had gathered to identify the at-risk students much faster than they were able to do in the past. “For the first time, our coaches can rapidly identify on a day-to-day basis which students are most in need of their support,” said the CEO.

Have You Guessed Who’s Using Salesforce?

Think you’ve got an idea of who the four companies are? They all use a combination of Salesforce solutions, from Sales Cloud to Service Cloud, and even a custom mobile app that’s integrated with their CRM platform.

Here you go, here’s the answer key: Company A is Hershey’s, Company B is Spotify, Company C is Coca-Cola, and Company D is College Forward.

To set up your business for success with Salesforce like these companies, learn more about the essential foundations of a successful software project by downloading our free eBook Roadmap to Successful Salesforce Implementation.

Thayer Tate

Thayer is the Chief Technology Officer at SOLTECH, bringing over 20 years of experience in technology and consulting to his role. Throughout his career, Thayer has focused on successfully implementing and delivering projects of all sizes. He began his journey in the technology industry with renowned consulting firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers and IBM, where he gained valuable insights into handling complex challenges faced by large enterprises and developed detailed implementation methodologies.

Thayer’s expertise expanded as he obtained his Project Management Professional (PMP) certification and joined SOLTECH, an Atlanta-based technology firm specializing in custom software development, Technology Consulting and IT staffing. During his tenure at SOLTECH, Thayer honed his skills by managing the design and development of numerous projects, eventually assuming executive responsibility for leading the technical direction of SOLTECH’s software solutions.

As a thought leader and industry expert, Thayer writes articles on technology strategy and planning, software development, project implementation, and technology integration. Thayer’s aim is to empower readers with practical insights and actionable advice based on his extensive experience.