Click & Drag AI: Salesforce Releasing New Commerce Tools, Promising 3X Faster Development

• Updated on: 2019-06-18
• Read original article here

"You have to deliver an engaging customer experience wherever your customer is," Amezaga told me last week in a briefing. "It's needs to be fast, easy, connected, personalized."

The new commerce designer allows marketers to click, drag, and drop products and components in e-commerce sites. Salesforce's AI tool, Einstein, is one of those components that can dropped in for smarter product recommendations that are connected to previous customer behavior.

"Any company can deliver content on a website, but if it’s not connected to a customer, to backend data … it’s not going to succeed," Amezaga says.

A big part of the new announcement is new integration capabilities powered by a Salesforce acquisition from last year, Mulesoft.  Mulesoft helps large companies integrate complex technologies so that systems like ERP, payment systems, customer data, inventory systems, and all the other information you need for e-commerce can be connected to your websites and apps.

Building this way future-proofs your business, Amezaga said.

"This sets you up for the future," he told me. "When you're adding a channel, or you need a new connection endpoint, you don’t have to hire a new team. You can use your existing network to rapidly get that new touchpoint up and running."

Part of the new commerce experience?

Actually talking to customers, believe it or not. Although, maybe not via a human.

Salesforce is delivering an expanded Einstein bots service, which can help brands talk to customers wherever the customers want to engage. The bots use natural language processing to understand requests and respond, although they're not perfect or omniscient.

"The customer is demanding and expecting that you serve them where they want," Amazaga says. "Einstein bots help you scale your service ... a chatbot that has NLP can understand what the intent of that question is. And if it can’t solve it, can escalate it to a person."

The bots work on SMS, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, and Apple Business Chat, a messaging system that Apple has set up for businesses to interact with consumers. Now, Salesforce is adding WhatsApp and WeChat for better global coverage.

"Now, you have to click through 10 pages to find the 'contact us' number," Amezaga says. "This puts it up front and center: we can help you on your preferred channel."

CRM vendor Salesforce is releasing new AI-powered shopping experience design tools today, along with updated email marketing tools and new messaging tools that will allow companies to communicate to customers on virtually any messaging channel customers prefer.

Three times faster development, according to Bobby Amezaga, Salesforce's senior director of product marketing.

"You have to deliver an engaging customer experience wherever your customer is," Amezaga told me last week in a briefing. "It's needs to be fast, easy, connected, personalized."

The new commerce designer allows marketers to click, drag, and drop products and components in e-commerce sites. Salesforce's AI tool, Einstein, is one of those components that can dropped in for smarter product recommendations that are connected to previous customer behavior.

"Any company can deliver content on a website, but if it’s not connected to a customer, to backend data … it’s not going to succeed," Amezaga says.

A big part of the new announcement is new integration capabilities powered by a Salesforce acquisition from last year, Mulesoft.  Mulesoft helps large companies integrate complex technologies so that systems like ERP, payment systems, customer data, inventory systems, and all the other information you need for e-commerce can be connected to your websites and apps.

Building this way future-proofs your business, Amezaga said.

"This sets you up for the future," he told me. "When you're adding a channel, or you need a new connection endpoint, you don’t have to hire a new team. You can use your existing network to rapidly get that new touchpoint up and running."

Part of the new commerce experience?

Actually talking to customers, believe it or not. Although, maybe not via a human.

Salesforce is delivering an expanded Einstein bots service, which can help brands talk to customers wherever the customers want to engage. The bots use natural language processing to understand requests and respond, although they're not perfect or omniscient.

"The customer is demanding and expecting that you serve them where they want," Amazaga says. "Einstein bots help you scale your service ... a chatbot that has NLP can understand what the intent of that question is. And if it can’t solve it, can escalate it to a person."

The bots work on SMS, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, and Apple Business Chat, a messaging system that Apple has set up for businesses to interact with consumers. Now, Salesforce is adding WhatsApp and WeChat for better global coverage.

"Now, you have to click through 10 pages to find the 'contact us' number," Amezaga says. "This puts it up front and center: we can help you on your preferred channel."