Salesforce Launches Automotive Cloud

SaaS technology providers have cracked the market. Cloud services are transforming the world of business as we know it, but where do you go from there? 

Customising their offerings to suit different industries makes good sense, and there’s been a lot of investment in this in recent years. 

Salesforce is one of the leaders in this area, offering industry specific solutions for communications, consumer goods, education, healthcare, non-profit, government and more. 

The latest offering from Salesforce Industries is Automotive Cloud, which ‘leverages the full power of Customer 360 and delivers a single source of truth for the automotive industry’. We’re going to take a closer look… 

Why is an Automotive Cloud needed? 

The industry is not immune from digitalisation – far from it. Cars are now mobile computers, and the data collection involved in making, selling, buying, financing and driving cars has increased exponentially.  

Salesforce research found that customers don’t find the digital experience of buying a car easy, nor the process post-purchase. 93% of companies think that first-party data will substantially improve the customer experience. This can be collected throughout the browsing, buying, financing, and driving experience. Think about your own car – do you connect your phone to your car? Does your insurance or finance company offer you discounts for good driving? Does your car have a navigation feature? These are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to collecting data from ‘connected vehicles’. 

Salesforce have taken this insight and created a solution for the automotive industry, to help improve and personalise the customer experience: Salesforce Automotive Cloud. 

What is Salesforce Automotive Cloud? 

Automotive Cloud is a new product designed to cater to automakers, dealers and finance groups. It’s powered by Driver 360, the industry-specific version of Salesforce’s Customer 360.  

Driver 360 collates customer data into a ‘single source of truth’, allowing organisations across the entire automotive buying and driving spectrum to get real-time intelligence across the life cycle of their customers, and vehicles.  

What are the new features? 

Driver Console gives teams a detailed view of customer interactions, including browsing, purchasing, servicing and more. Within Driver Console, there’s Household Management, which does what it says on the tin: allows automotive companies to form a wider picture of the driving history of a whole household. 

Vehicle Console gives access to critical vehicle information, useful for automakers, dealers and finance groups. Information they have access to includes odometer readings, vehicle market value, and real-time service and repair data. 

Automotive Data Foundation is the standards-based data foundation that the Automotive Cloud is built on, allowing for compliant, safe and flexible data processing. 

Automotive Lead Management allows automakers and dealers to access customer and vehicle history and generate leads, which can be sent to their local dealership. 

Dealer Performance Management is a tool for automakers. It allows them to analyse data on dealership performance, to help the decision-making process on sales agreements, collaborations, forecasts and more. 

Flow for Automotive is click-based, not code-based, making it easy to build automated processes that simplify the customer experience and free up employee time and resources. 

Analytics for Automotive gives insights into the sales, customer and vehicle lifestyles, helping businesses make more informed decisions faster. 

Salesforce Genie was announced at Dreamforce 2022, and is the new tool across the Salesforce platform that unifies all customer data in real-time. The automotive industry would be able to view all customer data in real-time, from a single customer profile. 

Partners and Pricing 

Watch this space, the Salesforce ecosystem can extend the power of Automotive Cloud. Many Salesforce Partners specialise in automotive services, so the tailored support available is excellent.  

When it comes to pricing, subscriptions start at $300 per month, per user, which would be billed annually. As always, there are extras and add-ons that would bump this price up further. 

Thinking of implementing Salesforce? You’ll need to source the right team, and have the resources in place to leverage the best functionality in the future. Get in touch for a consultation with one of our Salesforce Recruitment Specialists. We can help with planning, forecasting, and getting you the talent you need.