Salesforce Cloud eCommerce Integration
Clarity Connect integration with Salesforce Cloud CRM
How companies integrate Salesforce Cloud CRM to grow eCommerce revenue
Salesforce is one of the most well known brands in the CRM workspace. Salesforce Cloud CRM is their flagship product based around advanced cloud functionality. Since the CRM Database sits in the cloud, interface and access can be achieved in many different ways. Salesforce Cloud CRM has real-time data access on most smart devices, including those running Android OS, iOS, Blackberry OS, and Windows Phone OS. Mobile access includes the ability to customize and edit most fields, have leads routed to any device, take calls from contacts and directly log the call to the contact. With Salesforce Cloud CRM at your fingertips, your data is never far from mind.
Beyond the advanced and cloud features offered by Cloud CRM, Salesforce has filled out the suite with the CRM features people have come to expect, coupled with new additions that make client workflows even easier to track(e.g. social media tracking of contacts). Salesforce's Data.com service integration offers crowdsourced business information for over 210 million companies. If the feature you're looking for isn't offered in the baseline CRM, Salesforce's AppExchange offers nearly 2000 third party addons, nearly half available at no charge.
Clarity Connect enables the following integration capabilities for Salesforce Cloud CRM:
When organizations assess the benefits of an ERP integration to their eCommerce website, there are several key factors to consider. Below, is an outline of recommended considerations and steps to complete:
Security
This is always a major concern for two-way integrations. A cloud eCommerce platform and public facing storefronts typically have complex security constraints. Clarity has developed a middle ware layer called Clarity Connect that allows customers to securely push data to the Clarity Connect middleware that interfaces with Salesforce Cloud CRM APIs. This allows data to go past the company firewalls, and isolate the data that needs to be sent and received from the public facing storefront. Clarity connect dramatically reduces the surface area for a potential security issue and creates an intermediate clearinghouse confirming data is securely pushed and pulled between the internal ERP platform and the external eCommerce storefront.
Performance
Salesforce Cloud CRM instances are usually secure and housed in a different physical location than the public facing website. Without a middle ware layer, this would potentially cause major lags in data load times and other performance metrics. Clarity Connect enables a rapid load time and intelligent refreshing of the externally facing data to reflect internal updates in real time. By effectively pushing updates on a real-time basis, details that would otherwise take minutes to load on the site now load within milliseconds as they're cached on the external interface. In addition, specific customer data that needs to be pulled from the ERP system in real-time is pulled in dynamically using AJAX loading techniques to dramatically improve performance.
Shipping and Freight
Due to the nature of Clarity's past projects we have extensive experience with not just the standard UPS, USPS, FedEx, DHL and other standard carrier integrations for shipping costs and package tracking and returns but we also specialize in helping setup and configure the pick list and label printing, scanning and implementation of the physical packing stations and picking process to improve internal workflows as well. In addition to being able to provide support for the actual order management and processing of orders for different carriers we also specialize in working with freight carriers to automate the quotes, pricing, bill of lading setup and processing, obtaining customer specific pricing, and dynamically providing freight shipment status as well.
Taxes, Customs and Duties
Many companies operate abroad, but few currently operate with fully automated processes for their international transactions. Clarity delivers in domestic taxes and integration with internal ERP tax tables, custom tax tables, and setting up external API integration but also offers extensive specialization in international taxes, customs and duties as well. Specifically, Clarity delivers customs and duties integration to dynamically pull this information from the ERP platform or enable third party integration for this component as well to pull the most up to date customs and duties data in real-time for global payments and ordering.
Quotes and Workflows
In addition to managing and placing orders, many business find their processes run smoothest with a streamlined human interaction to facilitate the process. This can apply for all orders or orders within a certain segment of business. In either case, Clarity Connect is able to pull in the Salesforce Cloud CRM sales order documents and help streamline the quoting workflow. In addition to helping with notification e-mails and embedding quotes, Clarity's Salesforce Cloud CRM Sales Documents integration directly pulls quote status and allows the ERP system to trigger workflow steps. This reduces the chances of human error. Alternatively, some clients prefer a simple web interface for their sales team. This allows sales team members to focus just on their quotes and orders, instead of logging into the ERP system to manage this data. Connect’s middle ware tool updates your ERP system seamlessly.
ECommerce integration to Line of Business (LOB) Applications
Most mid-large sized businesses integrate several, if not dozens, of LOB applications to streamline their workflows. In addition to Salesforce Cloud CRM eCommerce integration, Clarity offers full customization capabilities to tightly integrate other LOB applications such as order fulfillment tools, support and ticketing tools, CRM and service tools, email and newsletter/marketing applications, etc.
Timeline and Risks
As a final consideration, we highly recommend a full internal audit of the prioritized list of requirements as well as an external review by an expert, like Clarity. This is vital to ensure your desired outcome. In addition, it's critical to establish timeline criteria if there are hard deadlines. Setting clear objectives for prioritized deliverables with clear contingency plans will help smooth the process significantly.
Clarity and Salesforce Cloud CRM integration
Salesforce Cloud CRM integration has the ability to boost your ERP and eCommerce operations to new heights. Clarity is an expert in helping deploy over 1,200+ successful projects, and optimizing clients’ processes. To learn more about how your team can take full advantage of Salesforce Cloud CRM, please speak to a Clarity consultant today.