New Automotive Cloud Helps the Industry Deliver on the Promise of Connected Vehicles

Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the global leader in CRM, has announced Automotive Cloud, a new product built specifically for automakers, dealers, automotive finance groups, and their customers. Automotive Cloud helps deliver exceptional service and experiences with Driver 360 across every customer interaction, drives revenue through better lead conversion and collaboration, and leverages industry-specific automation, intelligence, and real-time analytics for increased productivity and cost savings. 

The automotive industry is amidst a massive transformation as it rises to meet the demands of the digital age. Only 1% of automotive customers are delighted with their car buying experience, and just a quarter of automakers and dealers believe their companies have adapted well to selling online.

To build new revenue streams and fix the broken customer experience, the industry must tap into new opportunities created by new selling and servicing models, connected vehicles, subscriptions and partnerships, and the wealth of data these new offerings make.

“The automotive industry is facing a new digital imperative amidst massive upheaval brought on by the rise of direct-to-consumer models and the dawn of the electric vehicle age,” said Achyut Jajoo, SVP & GM of Manufacturing and Automotive, Salesforce. “But with great disruption comes great opportunity, and companies accelerating into the digital-first future with technology like Automotive Cloud can gain a competitive edge while simultaneously future-proofing their businesses.” 

Enabling real-time personalization and intelligence across the entire customer and vehicle lifecycle – whether customers are browsing for a new car, making a purchase, looking for financing options, or servicing their vehicle — Automotive Cloud will power the industry through this period of historical transformation.

With Automotive Cloud, marketing teams can set parameters to automatically rank and route qualified leads to share the most high-touch prospective customers directly with the customer’s local dealership. Dealer managers can view purchase agreements over time to track inventory performance and determine which dealers are meeting their forecasts and sales agreements to manage inventory and vehicle allocation better.

Service teams can set up alerts notifying them when a customer’s lease is about to expire or automatically remind their customers they are due for an oil change when their odometer hits a particular milestone. IT teams can create customized flows with clicks to automatically alert every customer who owns a specific model that their vehicle has been recalled.

Deliver Best-in-Class Service and Customer Experiences With Driver 360

Driver 360 provides out-of-the-box solutions built with industry-specific data models and processes for the automotive industry to accelerate time to value.

• Driver Console provides service teams with a complete view of every customer interaction through continuous touchpoints and customized alerts, from car browsing and purchase history to service journeys. With features like Household Management, automotive companies can combine their data to create a holistic picture of a household’s vehicle ownership and previous interactions, allowing dealers and other ecosystem partners to personalize support further, offers, and sales.
• Vehicle Console gives any team member at an automaker, dealer or finance group easy access to comprehensive vehicle information – such as odometer readings, vehicle market value and real-time service and repair information.
• Automotive Data Foundation, built on industry standards like the STAR Standard, is the backbone of Automotive Cloud and creates a trusted, standards-based data foundation that encourages interoperability, intelligent data protection, global regulatory compliance, and flexible data sharing.

Drive Revenue Through Better Lead Conversion and Communication

New selling models and the expectations of today’s digital-first customers mean automakers and dealers must collaborate more efficiently than ever to drive sales, manage inventory, and provide better customer experiences.

• Automotive Lead Management drives collaboration between dealers and automakers by enriching leads with unique customer and vehicle history, enabling them to route the most high-value leads straight to the individual’s preferred dealership, along with a complete snapshot of their wants, needs, and history.
• Dealer Performance Management makes it easy to analyze dealership performance by region and monitor lead pipelines. This enables automakers to target their efforts and better coordinate sales agreements, site visits, partner collaborations, demand forecasts, channel incentives, and more.

Leverage Industry-specific Automation, AI, and Analytics for Increased Productivity and Cost Savings

With rising prices, supply chain constraints, and heavy investments in electric vehicles, automotive companies need intelligent automation and AI, powerful analytics, and connected data to reduce costs, identify new revenue streams and drive more informed decisions.

• Flow for Automotive provides intelligent automation with click-based configuration and integration tools to simplify the build and delivery of branded and automated experiences like vehicle order status updates or shipment delay notifications to help team members complete more tasks with fewer resources, boost efficiency, and deliver better customer experiences at scale.
• Analytics for Automotive provides automotive companies insights to monitor and improve their business. It comes with purpose-built dashboards that give a detailed overview of sales and business performance, customer and asset lifecycle, and revenue trends to efficiently deliver faster and better business outcomes.
• Salesforce Genie helps automotive companies unify their customer and vehicle data across all channels and interactions, such as customer inquiries, service requests, and vehicle data, into a single, real-time customer profile.

Industry Leaders Like Astara and Toyota Financial Services Are Using Salesforce To Deliver Better Customer Experiences.

• Astara offers a robust portfolio of products and services across car distribution, subscription mobility, connectivity, and data intelligence. “With Automotive Cloud, we will be able to increase the competitive advantage for our entire mobility ecosystem by connecting customer data and vehicle management together within the same platform,” said Antonio Rodríguez López, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer at Astara. “This will allow us to deliver the best customer experience and to increase our customers’ lifetime value.”
• Toyota Financial Services is one of the nation’s largest and most highly-rated captive finance companies. “We are in a new automotive era that requires innovations to provide our customers with the best experience possible,” said Angela Baker, Digital Information Officer, Agent Experience & Digital Interactions, at Toyota Financial Services. “Technology like Salesforce’s Automotive Cloud is exciting because it will help us build more meaningful relationships with our customers.”

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