Eric Berridge - Customer Obsessed: A Whole Company Approach to Delivering Exceptional Customer Experiences

Cover design: Bluewolf

Copyright 2016 by Eric Berridge. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.

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ISBN 978-1-119-32603-8 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-119-32604-5 (ePDF); ISBN 978-1-119-32606-9 (ePub)

Fifteen years ago, Eric Berridge and I sat in a coffee shop and discussed how Salesforce would be a game changer for businesses. Salesforce had a vision to revolutionize enterprise softwarewith a new technology model based in the cloud, a new pay-as-you-go business model, and a new integrated corporate philanthropy model. Today, Salesforce has grown from a groundbreaking idea into a Fortune 500 company, the largest customer relationship management (CRM) company, and one of the most innovative companies in the world.

Companies of every size and industry now expect to do business with the speed, agility, and economics delivered by cloud, social, mobile, data science, and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. Like Salesforce, Bluewolf has always prioritized the needs of customers and brought to life not just the technology but also the strategies that help customers accelerate their growth.

In his book, Customer Obsessed: A Whole Company Approach to Delivering Exceptional Customer Experiences, Eric shares what he has learned over the last decade and a half of helping companies create the next generation of digital experiences on the Salesforce Customer Success Platform. He looks at data, design, and culture through a customer-first lens. Utilizing data, including real-time analytics, and designing intelligent customer journeys are key to knowing customers and engaging with them across sales, service, and marketing at every touch point.

But more important than the technology is building a company culture that focuses on the well-being of all stakeholdersnot just shareholders, but also employees, customers, our communities, and even the environmentto achieve the highest levels of success.

As business leaders, we have a responsibility to improve the state of the world. Contrary to what the famous economist Milton Friedman said or what many of today's business leaders think, the business of business is not just business. The business of business is to improve the state of the world, and I've found that making the world a better place and climbing the Fortune 500 rankings are not mutually exclusive.

Eric offers incisive advice for establishing a stakeholder culture and connecting at an emotional, rather than transactional, level. As he points out in the book, millennialswho make up at least 50 percent of the workforceare teaching us that the future of work lies in creating workplaces where employees feel a higher sense of purpose. That means fully integrating values like equality, diversity, transparency, and giving back to the community into the fabric of a company.

This is what we have done at Salesforce with our equal pay initiative and our 111 integrated philanthropy model, which leverages company resources for public good by donating 1 percent of product, 1 percent of equity, and 1 percent of employee time to help nonprofits achieve their missions. Bluewolf has committed itself to diversity and giving back via the Pledge 1% movement, donating 1 percent of its equity, time, and product to nonprofits.

This book reaffirms why Bluewolf is a leader in the cloud consulting industry and a Salesforce Global Strategic Partner. Customer Obsessed offers insightful, practical strategies for any CEO, entrepreneur, or business desiring to understand what it takes to be a customer-first company, establish a thriving culture, and drive success through all levels of their business.

Marc Benioff

It's no secret that cloud computing is our global technology future, and while there are many cloud solutions available, Salesforce and its ecosystem are the dominant players in today's customer relationship management (CRM) market. They have 18.6 percent market share, their closest competitor has 6 percent, and International Data Corporation's (IDC) 2015 report highlights the tremendous growth of the Salesforce ecosystem$272 billion in gross domestic product (GDP) impact worldwide by 2018.

For over 15 years, Bluewolf has been customizing Salesforce and delivering transformative results for clients, and we're just scratching the surface of this immense opportunity. Why is that? While public cloud spending surpassed $50 billion worldwide last year, it still represents less than 3 percent of total spending on IT. We are still at the inception of IT innovation, but more than ever, we're seeing companies recognize the value of Salesforce and other cloud solutions to transform their business. We are also in the midst of the evolution of design and design thinking, two business elements that are beginning to appear more and more in forward-thinking conversations. As these markets grow together, we'll start seeing some powerful results and partnerships between Salesforce and companies like IBM iX.

As Salesforce's longest running partner, Bluewolf has a deep understanding of how and why Salesforce's technology helps deliver an exceptional customer experience. While we consider ourselves technology agnostic, Salesforce plays a large role in our work and features prominently in many of the stories and examples you'll read in this book.

While Bluewolf uses Salesforce, the purpose of this book isn't to sell you on their particular cloud solution; it's to take you on a journey through the current digital landscape and provide insight into how to sustain competitive advantage in a diverse, rapidly evolving global economy. Whether or not you use Salesforce, this book will provide you with a strategic framework to drive business transformation for your organization and your customers, and give an understanding of how cloud technology influences, and is influenced by, current trends and developments in design, analytics, and customer and employee culture.