Experience Cloud
Why do you need it?

Salesforce Experience Cloud offers more than just digital experiences—it promises to transform how businesses engage with customers, partners, and employees. But is your organization ready to unlock its full potential, or will implementation challenges hold you back? Discover the possibilities and pitfalls, and learn how Smartbridge can guide you through the journey.

Salesforce Experience Cloud is the best way to create and manage personalized, branded online experiences for their customers, partners, and employees. These experiences can take the form of websites, portals, forums, and mobile apps, all integrated with the Salesforce ecosystem.

But with so many ways to achieve these types of portals and sites, why is Experience Cloud the way to go? If you already are using Salesforce as your CRM, it makes perfect sense to evaluate the upgrade. Experience Cloud has a range of features that make it a compelling addition to a company’s Salesforce ecosystem, particularly for creating well-thought-out portals, intranets, websites, and other digital experiences.

Experience Cloud is for
• Partner Portals •
Experience Cloud is for
• Customer Portals •
Experience Cloud is for
• Employee Communities •
Experience Cloud is for
• Customer Communities •
Experience Cloud is for
• Knowledge Sharing •
Salesforce Consulting Partner

Consulting Partner

Salesforce Managed Services Provider

Managed Services Provider

Salesforce Experience Cloud Professional Services

  • Customizable templates and themes. This accelerates the deployment process and ensures that the portal or site remains consistent with your company’s branding and design standards.

  • Integration with Salesforce data and workflows. This level of integration ensures that your portals are not just static sites but are dynamic, data-driven environments that provide users with relevant and up-to-date information.

  • Advanced access controls and security. Enhanced security and compliance, ensuring that only authorized users have access to certain information, thereby protecting your business data.

  • Personalization and content targeting. This personalization drives higher engagement and satisfaction by delivering relevant content to the right audience at the right time.

  • Mobile optimization and responsive design. As more users access portals and websites via mobile devices, this feature ensures that your digital experiences are accessible and user-friendly across all platforms.

  • Community management and analytics. These tools help you monitor and enhance user engagement within your portals, enabling continuous improvement based on real-time insights.

  • Content management and CMS integration. Simplifies content creation and management, making it easier to keep your portals and sites up-to-date with fresh, relevant content.

You need Experience Cloud If…

Not every company needs Experience Cloud on top of Sales and Service Cloud – you can probably get all the functionality you need with those two standard clouds on their own. But when are they not enough? Here are the 4 key purposes for Experience Cloud, assuming you want to create meaningful experiences for your audiences.

Customer Experience

Enhancing Customer Self-Service Capabilities

Reduce the burden on your customer service teams by enabling customers to find answers and resolve issues independently. Experience Cloud allows businesses to create customer portals and communities where users can access knowledge bases, FAQs, and peer-to-peer support forums. This reduces support costs and improves customer satisfaction by providing immediate, 24/7 access to resources.

Building Customer Loyalty Through Personalized Experiences

Personalizing customer experiences is crucial for building loyalty and retaining customers. Experience Cloud allows companies to create branded, personalized digital experiences that cater to individual customer preferences and needs, enhancing engagement and loyalty.

Partner Experience

Employee Experience

Streamlining Partner Collaboration

If you rely on a network of partners, such as distributors, resellers, or franchisees, you need a platform to facilitate collaboration and communication. Experience Cloud provides a secure, centralized portal where partners can access shared resources, submit orders, track performance metrics, and collaborate on marketing campaigns.

Improving Employee Engagement and Collaboration

If your employees are dispersed or remote, maintaining engagement and collaboration can be challenging. Experience Cloud can be used to create internal communities where employees can share knowledge, collaborate on projects, and stay informed about company news and updates.

Will you need other Salesforce applications if you have  Experience Cloud?

While Salesforce Experience Cloud can function independently, integrating it with other Salesforce cloud applications can enhance its capabilities. For example:

Sales Cloud

Integrating Experience Cloud with Sales Cloud allows you to share sales-related information and updates with community members, facilitating collaboration and communication.

Service Cloud

This integration enables you to provide customer service resources, such as knowledge bases and support forums, directly within the Experience Cloud site.

Commerce Cloud

If you’re running an e-commerce site, integrating with Commerce Cloud can enhance shopping experiences and streamline transactions within your community.

Marketing Cloud

You can leverage Marketing Cloud to create personalized marketing campaigns for users in your Experience Cloud community.

While it’s not mandatory to use other Salesforce clouds, doing so can create a more cohesive and feature-rich experience for users in your Experience Cloud.

Potential Pitfalls of Experience Cloud Implementations

There are typical issues that arise with the early implementation or adoption of Experience Cloud.

Some companies are struggling with Salesforce Experience Cloud implementations due to several common challenges. These challenges often include difficulties with data migration, where transferring data from legacy systems to Salesforce can be complex and lead to issues such as duplicate or inconsistent data.

Additionally, user adoption can be a significant hurdle, as employees may resist changing their workflows or fail to fully leverage the platform’s capabilities due to insufficient training.

Customization challenges also arise, particularly when companies lack the technical expertise needed to tailor Salesforce to their specific needs.

For instance, some businesses face issues with integrating Salesforce Experience Cloud with other systems, leading to delays and increased costs. Others struggle with defining and managing their customization requirements, which can result in over-customization or suboptimal configurations that don’t fully meet the business’s needs. Security concerns, particularly around setting up appropriate user permissions and protecting sensitive data, also present challenges during implementation.

These issues can lead to project delays, cost overruns, and even implementation failures, which is why companies often turn to experienced Salesforce consultants to guide them through the process and mitigate these risks​.

If you have doubts as to whether Experience Cloud is a fit for your organization, or have problems such as the ones above, let’s discuss it. Smartbridge offers no-obligation 30 minute calls with a Director or Senior Manager of Salesforce services, skipping sales altogether. Reach out or book on their calendars instantly!

Keep Reading: Experience Cloud for Order Process Modernization Case Study

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