How Salesforce’s Partnership With Meta Gives Rise To Conversational Commerce

Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that his technology company, Meta, now partners with software giant Salesforce might not have come as a surprise. Preceding the announcement there had been apparent indications that such a partnership was imminent. Notably, Marc Benioff, the chair and co-CEO of Salesforce, has expressed interest in social media platforms, particularly Twitter. In a short interview with CNN’s Poppy Harlow, Benioff disclosed his intention of buying Twitter if the ball was in his court. Indeed, in his remarks, the Chair of software giant Salesforce believes Twitter, a giant microblogging company, remains ‘the most un-monetized brand.’

While Marc Benioff’s interest in Twitter might be informed by his desire for more profits, his company’s partnership with Meta’s Whatsapp puts another foot forward in the race. According to a Bloomberg report in May this year, Salesforce’s revenue increased the most in two years. Mainly, the increase in profits is the upshot of digital transformation amid the growing adoption of software-as-a-service(SaaS) products. More significantly, Marc Benioff, during Salesforce’s Dreamforce 2022 conference, disclosed his company’s readiness to make more profits. The company reaffirmed its goal of reaching $50 billion in revenue by the fiscal year 2026 -- nearly double current sales levels. To reach that target, it also has set a new profit margin goal of 25%.

Now, it’s longer news that a CRM giant and a social media giant have initiated a partnership. However, the question is, what does this partnership portend? What will be the fate of e-commerce websites? Let’s start by dissecting the power that Meta’s Whatsapp wields.

What is the role of Whatsapp in today’s business?

Whatsapp, a giant messaging platform, has emerged as a force in today’s business. According to a data report by Statista in January this year, Whatsapp was the most downloaded messaging app worldwide. While Whatsapp may appear as a social media platform for the fun and merry of it, it has been acting as an instant e-commerce solution lately, particularly with the creation of Whatsapp Business API.

Right from 2019, Facebook (now Meta) and its products have been the focal point of business management for small business owners. In 2019, a US Chamber of Commerce survey of 4,000 business owners and employees in the United States discovered that  Facebook (now Meta) is a widely used platform among business owners for commercial purposes. Additionally, the survey's results showed that small businesses use Facebook’s products(WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger) for marketing, communication with customers, and disseminating general information about their business. Above all, many small business owners said Facebook helped them increase sales and customer satisfaction.

Now Meta's WhatsApp has improved its commercial services. Today, Whatsapp Business gives two options to users; Whatsapp Business for regular business owners and Whatsapp Business API for large businesses. Without a doubt, the critical features of WhatsApp Business include automated responses, message statistics, a business catalog, and other business-enhancing features. On the other hand, Whatsapp Business API is a more complex business solution. It helps large businesses take control of their businesses with its unique features. Hootsuite, a popular social media management platform, describes WhatsApp Business API as a powerful tool that can improve business outcomes at every stage of the customer journey on its website.

Why Businesses Prioritize Conversational Commerce Now

In today’s world of digital transformation and unlimited choices, it is no surprise that more businesses prioritize their consumer relationship through conversational commerce to ensure consumer retention. Conversational commerce is a way of interacting with your customers more like having a conversation than the traditional, impersonal exchange of goods for money using messaging apps. It's a way to create relationships with your customers by making them feel heard and important.

Lately, personalized interactions have become the demand of consumers. In fact, according to a report by McKinsey & Company, a survey of 1000 US adults by Epsilon and GBH Insights discovered that the majority(80%) want personalization from retailers. The efforts to make the customer journey more satisfying constitute what is known as conversational commerce. Conversational commerce is a new paradigm that aims to make interactions with customers just as effortless and enjoyable as chatting with friends—while making sure the information being exchanged is accurate.

Without a doubt, the customer journey is a critical part of business operations. The customer journey refers to the path a customer takes from first discovering your company to becoming a loyal repeat customer. Indeed, when there is a poor link between lead generation and lead conversion, lead retention becomes a considerable problem that affects business growth. For instance, according to Baymard Institute, a known Copenhagen-based research institute, 69.99% of online shoppers abandoned their carts after filling them. Evidently, that’s a significant drop in lead conversion, which is crucial to business growth. The journey between lead generation and lead retention is riddled with personalized commercial efforts.

Therefore, a business owner needs to understand where along this path customers are having trouble and what they can do to make their experience more seamless. This seamless, personalized interaction is what Whatsapp Business does to businesses. Certainly, a business’s understanding of how customers interact with the brand at every stage of their relationship will help businesses create better products, better marketing campaigns, and better sales tactics.

Is Salesforce a true force?

Headquartered in San Francisco, Salesforce is a reputable cloud-based software platform that helps businesses manage customer relationships, automate workflows and organize data. The platform is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) system by companies across all industries, including automotive, retail, and financial services. A leading CRM platform that has maintained the top position over the years. In fact, the recent surge in the adoption of cloud-based services has made Salesforce a formidable force in the comity of CRM service providers.

As a matter of fact, the company accounts for over 150,000 companies using its platform. In fact, the United States has the highest percentage of its companies using CRM, at 62.1%. Below is a chart of the percentage of users by sector in the US.

Source: infoclutch.com

A recent International Data Corporation(IDC) research revealed that by 2026, Salesforce and its ecosystem of partners would create 9.3 million jobs worldwide and generate $1.6 trillion in new business revenues. Equally important, the company’s stock is one of the top performing as named by top Wall Street analysts. Additionally, the CRM giant aims for a higher adjusted operating margin in the 2026 fiscal year.

Salesforce(Largest CRM Platform) x Whatsapp(Social Media Giant): the end of e-commerce websites?

On the 20th of September, Mark Zuckerberg announced on his Facebook account that his company now partners with the CRM giant Salesforce. In his announcement, he disclosed that all businesses that use Salesforce’s platform could use Whatsapp Business messages to answer customer questions, run marketing campaigns and sell directly in chat. This means Whatsapp will embed Salesforce Customer 360,  a suite of customer engagement applications that help businesses connect with their customers in an omnichannel way, to promote seamless communication through the Whatsapp Business API. Without a doubt, for such a partnership to form between two giants, there is no other word to describe it than ‘grand.’ Yes, it is grand.

Source: Facebook.com

The new integration will allow businesses to manage customer relationships and deliver real-time marketing campaigns. As the world of e-commerce moves towards providing instant solutions, Salesforce is not slumbering. Recently, the company announced the Salesforce Genie. The company dubs the Salesforce Genie ‘the real-time platform for customer magic.’ Specifically, the genie’s role is to process real-time data on a large scale to help businesses use this data to not only meet their customers’ needs but also personalize the whole process.

Real-time means you can instantly act on information; it's a crucial part of doing business in the 21st century. Suppose a case you need to ransack an eCommerce website for a product you have been looking at buying, or the customer service agent sucks at communicating while you describe your needs. You will quickly go for another option with quicker, real-time answers. Certainly, as a business owner, your customers are constantly connected to the internet and their mobile devices, which means they're also interacting with other businesses online all the time. You need to be able to respond to their needs quickly and efficiently if you want to win them over.

Gartner, a leading technology research and advisory company, found that brands risk losing 38 percent of their existing customer base due to poor personalization efforts. Certainly, the world of digital marketing has become increasingly competitive. There is an increase in the number of businesses coming online and trying to compete. According to Nasdaq, it’s estimated that by the year 2040, 95% of purchases will take place online.

Undoubtedly, the market is saturated, and it's getting harder for companies to stand out from their competitors. Hence the most loyal customers find convenience, value, and emotional engagement in brands. Direct marketing has become the order, and Whatsapp API provides this business solution for more business growth. Ultimately, with its partnership with Salesforce, they will be a force in digital marketing–that which could threaten the subscription to creating e-commerce websites soon.

Growth Marketing Strategies To Leverage The Partnership

According to Zach Boyette, a Forbes Council member and Co-founder of Galactic Fed, a growth marketing agency, the next frontier of marketing is growth marketing. He disclosed this in a Forbes publication in November last year. Growth marketing is a marketing methodology that focuses on driving growth for businesses. It's a holistic approach to marketing that helps business owners understand customers and their behavior, then helps them find ways to reach them more effectively. Below are the growth marketing strategies to leverage the Salesforce x Meta partnership:

1. Business Automation

Business automation is an integral part of having a successful business. It can be the difference between thriving and falling apart. Business automation streamlines your business so it runs more smoothly and efficiently. Automating your business allows you to focus on what’s important: growing your company. The best way to automate your business is by using programs that already exist in the cloud so that you can get started right away. Ultimately, you can leverage this partnership for this growth marketing strategy.

2. Optimized Onboarding Process

A well-optimized onboarding process is crucial in ensuring that your new customers are successful with your product and continue to use it. Your users are going to have a lot of questions, so you need to make sure you're prepared to answer them. You don't want to miss out on opportunities to convert those new users into long-term customers. Evidently, the seamless interaction you need here is one of the core goals of the Salesforce-Meta partnership.

3. Lead Retention

Lead retention is a process that involves keeping leads, which are potential customers. Lead retention aims to ensure the company can engage with customers throughout their purchase journey and deliver a consistent brand experience. With the Salesforce-Meta partnership, lead retention is made more accessible.

4. A/B Testing

A/B Testing is showing different versions of a page or ad to different sets of people and comparing the results. It’s used to determine which version is most successful, so you can make changes to optimize it. With more third-party data, your A/B can be more efficient. Since the Salesforce-Meta partnership will use data-driven decisions to meet customers’ needs, it won’t be a bad idea to leverage the partnership.

5. Omnichannel

Omnichannel marketing is a technique that combines multiple channels to reach customers. It is often used by businesses that want to increase customer engagement and brand loyalty. The idea behind omnichannel is to provide an experience consistent across all these different channels so that customers don't have to learn a new way of interacting with the business based on what channel they're using at any given time. Ultimately,  business owners can leverage the partnership as it includes initiatives such as the Salesforce Genie and cloud API.

Conclusion

Conversational commerce is taking a new wave and the adoption of new technologies alongside new operating models is a necessity for businesses who care about their growth. The growth in internet use, e-commerce, and digital transformation has fostered new demands from customers. These demands are highly personalized experiences which the coming together of the CRM giant Salesforce and social media giant Meta seeks to find instant solutions to. Ultimately, it's now up to businesses to choose growth marketing strategies that suit their needs to leverage the partnership. As the saying goes, if you snooze, you lose.