The One Key topic to focus on at Salesforce World Tour London 2018
You’re a busy executive, and you have managed to eke out some time in your schedule to attend the 2018 Salesforce World Tour London on Thursday, May 17th, at ExCeL. Undoubtedly, you will have heard great things about it; there’s a ton of stuff to see, attend and take part in. Most importantly, it’s a lot of fun (including the various after parties!)
It’s bewildering though, right? There is so much great stuff – what do you focus on in order to get the best out of it?
Well, here are my recommendations for this year’s event. These are based on many years of attending and observing how the Salesforce solution has evolved.
Before I get to that though, here’s a brief guide:
General points (location, logistics etc):
Location: The event is held at the ExCeL conference centre which is located way beyond East London. It is between Canary Wharf and London City Airport. You can access it on the DLR and the best stop is Prince Regent. (Please note that the Customs House stop is closed at the moment).
Food and refreshments: Salesforce provide ‘lunch’ in the exhibition area in the form of sandwiches/finger food/snacks. There are usually very long queues. The same applies for the hot and cold drinks – there are a few stands, but also long queues. On the ‘fun’ side, there are also novelty snacks such as fresh popcorn. At the end of the event, Salesforce lay on beers/soft drinks and snacks.
There are, of course, various other food and refreshment outlets within the conference area. These range from fast food types to casual dining. At peak times there will be long queues. In addition, you should expect to pay premium prices.
Registration: You have to register and get a badge to enter the event. It is fairly straightforward because Salesforce have simplified the process. In recent years, they have increased the number of registration desks so that even at the busiest time, you can get through quickly.
Keynote Speech:
This is THE must-attend session. It is usually given by a top Salesforce exec (from the US). Get your seat early as the auditorium is always completely full! If you cannot get into the auditorium, there are overflow rooms which show a live stream. Note that whilst this session is being conducted, all the other events, such as the Cloud Expo, are closed.
This session describes and illuminates the key innovations that Salesforce has developed over the last year and how they are helping their customers succeed. I like this session because it really focuses on the customer perspective through real examples, and less on the technology of Salesforce.
Cloud Expo and Breakout Sessions:
The Cloud Expo is the exhibition area for Salesforce and its partner ecosystem. It also houses the various areas covering the detailed ‘tech stuff’. It is a large space, and there are a myriad of different stands covering a whole host of topics, solutions and partners. If you are a first-time attendee, this is a really exciting event. But you can easily get sucked into spending all your time at just one or two stands and miss the rest. Therefore, it’s best to have one or two key themes in mind that you are interested in focusing on.
There are also several breakout sessions. Once again they are very popular and you may find that they are full if you do not get there early enough.
Target the key one or two and make a bee-line for them!
I hope that’s been helpful.
THE ONE KEY TOPIC TO FOCUS ON
So what’s the one key topic to focus on? Well, it is Customer Experience, or more specifically, how you can improve the experience for your customers.
My reasons for this are:
Consumers are now expecting a new paradigm in customer service and experience. Largely, this has been driven by global tech brands such as Amazon and Apple. It has also been further amplified by tech disruptors in industries such as Financial Services.
The spread of the smartphone, as well as further innovations in technology, mean that consumers now expect to be served at their point of need in a frictionless manner. Consumers are no longer prepared to repeat their issue to different departments or functions, enduring long waits on the phone to a call centre.
Customer loyalty is even more difficult to obtain. Of course, competition is fierce, but it is not only that. In more industries than before, the environment has changed so that customers can switch to other brands and services at little or no penalty or additional cost. The rapid rise of comparison sites has fuelled this even further, as they make it easier for consumers/customers to find better value.
Detail topics that support this include:
Omnichannel experience – creating a consistent look, feel and function that is made available across all your service channels
360 view of customer and interactions context – capabilities that can bring together all customer info so that the person serving can understand better and view any recent interactions
Self-serve – Artificial Intelligent innovations are now available to put relevant information directly into the consumer view, hence making the service frictionless
To learn more about why customer experience is so important, I suggest you read the following article: “It’s a ‘post CRM’ world! To win, businesses need to move to a Customer Experience Platform”.
Have a great World Tour!
Next steps: To discuss this and/or meet up with Vinod Mistry at the Salesforce World Tour, please contact him at vinod.mistry@vnmconsult.com, or on +44 7771 662746.