It was yet another exciting year at one of our favorite annual events, Salesforce Connections. Two days packed full of insightful conversations and thought-provoking content left us energized for what’s ahead in our industry.

This year’s event put AI front and center – but, importantly, it didn’t focus just on AI. It covered the interplay between AI, data, and technology, and how those elements need to come together seamlessly to enhance marketing, commerce, and customer experience.

Here are a few of the themes we’re keeping top-of-mind for our CX strategies coming out of Connections.
 

Connections are Key

Cheesy? Maybe. True? Definitely. At Connections we learned about the importance of… well, connections.

AI is a powerful tool for organizing and acting on data and identifying patterns quickly – but its outputs are only as good as its inputs. Many companies continue to struggle with disconnected data and siloed teams, which means they can’t take full advantage of AI technology. It also means that customers aren’t getting the seamless experiences they demand and deserve.

Brands must unify their data, systems, and teams to build AI-enhanced CX. On the data front, Salesforce Data Cloud can help, especially in combination with our Merkury platform which helps cleanse and enrich data with person-based identity. Bringing teams together is also a necessary, albeit sometimes difficult, step for creating connected experiences and using technology investments to their full potential. Marketing, IT, sales, commerce, and other groups need to be aligned on goals and approaches. Read our latest Customer Engagement Report to learn more about how to bridge those gaps, especially between IT and marketing.
 

Data Ownership is Non-Negotiable

Another key theme that emerged from Connections was the importance of data ownership. Welcome to the AI Enterprise, the main keynote, highlighted that building large language models (LLMs) off your own data, not just publicly available data, was critical for using generative AI effectively. Data ownership provides greater visibility into customer behaviors, historical insights, and cross-channel journeys, all of which give AI deeper quality data to work with and marketers more information to improve CX.

Data ownership also provides more control to the brand, which is important for ensuring that AI is used ethically. We know that AI can create biased outputs and models. Full ownership of the data gives the brand greater oversight to be able to combat or prevent those biases. Learn more about ethical AI from our ebook.
 

The Customer Reigns Supreme

With all the excitement around tech and AI, we can’t lose sight of the why behind innovation: creating better customer experiences. The most sophisticated tech on the planet won’t move the needle for your CX unless there’s a clear use case matched to a customer need. Our keynote presentation with Galderma demonstrated what it looks like to use AI and tech in a way that matters to consumers, showcasing their Cetaphil Product Finder and Skin AI tool.

Connections attendees also learned about the importance of having a customer-centric model. Our session with Valmont presented an example of an in-depth customer journey map and provided an important reminder that demographic data won’t cut it for great CX.

It’s also important to remember that not all customers are excited about or trusting of AI. There’s a balance to strike between using automation to increase efficiency and infusing the human touch where appropriate. A recommendation from the main keynote can help with this – keep AI use cases simple to start. This can help not just with acclimating your customer to AI, but also with securing internal buy-in through small, immediate wins.
 

Conclusion

These topics are just the tip of the iceberg of what we learned, experienced, and shared at Salesforce Connections. We also celebrated 20 years of partnership with Salesforce during the event, met with countless fellow experts, and showcased three products that create scalable end-to-end journeys with Salesforce clouds.

Are you interested in seeing the demos for yourself, or just want to chat further about any of the Connections content? Reach out to us here.