Salesforce Einstein Delivers Smarter Customer Relationship Management

Salesforce is the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform. The company claims that they have changed the way enterprise software is delivered and used, defining the cloud computing space. Today, companies big and small depend on their technology to drive business processes and better connect to their customers. The platform enables you to manage all interactions with customers and prospects, empowering organization to grow, scale and succeed. All Salesforce products run entirely in the cloud so there’s no expensive setup costs, no maintenance and employees can work from any device with an internet connection – smartphone, tablet or laptop.

How Salesforce Uses AI in Their Business

Today people live in a hyperconnected world where every digital interaction — from phone call to purchase to page view — adds to a never-ending onslaught of data. And with the advent of the internet of things (IoT), even inanimate objects like cars, refrigerators, and clothing generate additional data by themselves millions of times a day.

All this data can be used to increase sales, fine-tune marketing, and provide the immediate and personalized service today's customers want. But how can one’s business turn a bottomless ocean of data into the steady stream of insight needed to fulfill those expectations? Artificial intelligence is the answer.

“We are the first company to bring the power of AI to CRM with Salesforce Einstein. Salesforce Einstein is not a “general AI” offering that attempts human-like perception, thinking and action. Rather, it is an intelligence capability built into the Salesforce platform and focused on delivering smarter customer relationship management (CRM). The features are designed to discover insights, predict outcomes, recommend actions and automate tasks,” said Deepak Pargaonkar, Senior Director-Solutions Engineering, Salesforce India.

Importance of AI in today’s world

A lot of things have aligned to make this an exciting time for major advancements in AI. It is definitely not something you can ignore. Customers expect you to provide them with truly personalized experiences.

“AI is already transforming your customers’ expectations. Think of the consumer who lives by Uber, Google, and Amazon. If he walks into a department store to buy a suit, what does it take to provide him the same level of service he’s grown accustomed to? Retailers are expected to know who he is, his size and his preferences. And they should be able to suggest the perfect pair of shoes to go with whichever suit he chooses.

The same principle applies across every type of business. Customers give you their data in exchange for experiences.. They expect you to use it to provide fast, smart, personalized engagement across every interaction,” he said.

Suppose AI as an iceberg. What you see as a user is just the tip — but beneath the surface is a support system of data scientists and engineers, massive amounts of data, labor-intensive extraction and preparation of that data, and a huge technology infrastructure. It takes a specialized team of data scientists and developers to access the correct data, prepare the data, build the correct models, and then integrate the predictions back into an end-user experience such as CRM.

“We’ve designed Salesforce Einstein so that all those challenges are ours instead of yours. That means everyone can now use AI to work smarter in their CRM,” he added.

According to a recent study commissioned by IDC with Salesforce, by 2021, AI-powered CRM activities could increase global business revenues by $1.1 trillion and create 800,000 net-new jobs. The global market for AI in CRM is estimated to jump from $7.9 billion in 2016 to $46.3 billion by 2021

Pargaonkar said that the permeation of AI is a foregone conclusion. It’s not a matter of should we use AI, but a question of when. In the coming years, we’ll definitely see a rise in AI tools in India and read more stories around its efficiencies and business outcomes.