Recap: Dreamforce Commerce Keynote 2019

The 2019 Dreamforce Commerce Keynote brought Trailblazers from Travelex, L’Oreal, and Kellogg’s to the stage to share their digital transformation stories. To meet the heightening customer expectations and enhance the experience, these brands are leveraging new technologies and models, such as AI and headless commerce.

New Commerce Cloud Announcements

Before hearing from the Trailblazers, Ray Grady, SVP Commerce Cloud at Salesforce, announced new features and functions for the platform.

• Einstein Design – Automatically generates user experiences and matches them to the right personas.
• Complete the Set – A new recommender set that enables merchants to provide recommendations for products that complement one another.
• Headless CMS – Empowers marketers to create content or experiences and push to any touchpoint.

“Commerce does not live in isolation,” said Grady. These new features and functions will help merchants combine every aspect of running a digital commerce business—from service and marketing to security.

Headless Commerce

Sushant Sahani, Global Head of Channels at Travelex, joined the stage to discuss the Travelex headless commerce journey. With cash being their core product, they needed a flexible model to create an omnichannel experience for a highly-regulated commodity. Headless allowed them to build an omnichannel commerce ecosystem while fulfilling orders in a compliant manner.

Sahani’s team at Travelex combined Salesforce native functionality with custom functionality via Commerce Cloud APIs. Using the MuleSoft Accelerator, Travelex integrated Service Cloud and Commerce Cloud to get to market faster and capture data from all internal and external systems into a single view.

From the Customer’s Perspective

A potential Travelex customer sees an ad for the brand on their Instagram feed powered by embedded commerce. They reach the Travelex site and notice it looks like your typical digital commerce site with a product display page and standard checkout flow. They can choose from multiple delivery options—home delivery or pick up in a physical location— and payment options. If the customer has a question, there’s an option to connect with a Travelex Expert through live chat powered by Service Cloud.

For the customer on the go, they can open the Travelex app on their phone to purchase currency. Once the customer is at the airport and reaches the revamped Travelex physical space, they’ll find iPads powered by Commerce Cloud, where they scan their QR code from the mobile app and pick up their currency order.

Sahani plans to “drive growth with commerce everywhere” through digital transformation. Before going headless, Travelex used a different order capture system for each channel—website, physical locations, and the app. With their universal storefront, they can move away from siloed applications and create a true omnichannel experience.

Digital is Transforming Every Industry, Including B2B

For B2B, mobile is the new business tool, which is why Kellogg’s is moving into a mobile-first era. The CPG giant is leveraging Commerce Cloud, Einstein, and loyalty features to build one-to-one relationships with B2B buyers.

Kellogg’s Head of Global B2B Ecommerce, Rob Birse, demoed the new yet-to-be-released B2B mobile customer experience for the audience. Kellogg’s designed the B2B site in a B2C style presentation and curates the experience based on the customer’s store type, size, and location.

Kellogg’s B2B Features:

• Suggested Order Driven by Einstein – Suggested Order combines data from order history, trends, and segmentation to make personalized order recommendations. For example, it may suggest to stock more of a specific item based on forecasted demand, or to add a product based on what other similar stores are stocking. Once the customer finalizes the order, they can checkout with a single click.
• Shelfie – In the mobile experience, customers can upload a picture of their store shelf. Einstein runs the image against shelving and placement best practices for their specific store type, size, and location. Then, Einstein makes recommendations to improve the shelf, such as switch Fruit Loops with Special K.
• Reward Program – Kellogg’s implemented a gamification program to incentivize best practices. For example, if a customer uploads a Shelfie or purchases products based on recommendations, they get points.

While the new B2B experience wasn’t live at the time of Dreamforce, Birse sees this as a massive revenue opportunity by helping customers in a one-to-one experience.

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Going Global with Salesforce

Michael Kingston, CIO at L’Oreal, declared that L’Oreal aims to be the first beauty technology company. While they’re a 135-year-old company, they leverage the entrepreneurial culture to invent new customer experiences globally.

With over 35 brands, L’Oreal needed a system architecture that allowed them to implement personalization at scale, but also allow brands to innovate based on their individual expressions. The Salesforce platforms enable them to make this possible by integrating data across brands and pushing new initiatives seamlessly across all businesses.

L’Oreal Brand Kiehl’s Personalizes the Experience in 25 Geographies

Kiehl’s has customers around the globe and needs to continuously optimize the customer experience to compete in the growing beauty marketplace. Salesforce Commerce Cloud enables them to seamlessly make changes to the customer experience with a “clicks not code” model.

Marketers at Kiehl’s leverage Salesforce Page Designer to easily customize the site without getting developers involved. The drag and drop functionality of Page Designer goes beyond adding image and text components. Users can add features such as Einstein-driven product recommendations to any page. Page Designer is tied to the Salesforce CMS, but it can also integrate with WordPress or Drupal.

Emulating the in-store experience online continues to be a significant pain point for beauty brands. Kiehl’s leverages Salesforce Commerce Cloud native functionality to translate the physical experience into a digital experience where shoppers are devoid of touch and smell. For example, Kiehl’s uses the “Complete the Set” recommendation feature to help customers determine which products to buy to build a skincare routine.

However, “the shopping experience doesn’t end when the shopper clicks buy,” said Amanda Hatker, Director of Product Management at Salesforce. Hatker demoed the new Salesforce Order Management system, which is built on the Salesforce CRM and connected with Commerce and Services experiences. With Salesforce Order Management, Kiehl’s customer service agents have a 360-view of each customer, including complete in-store and online order history, as well as tracking information for undelivered orders.

Whether you’re in B2B or B2C, the industry and customer expectations are evolving. Travelex, Kellogg’s, and L’Oreal are at the forefront of digital transformation and provide great examples of how you can reinvent your business to thrive in the changing environment.

Blue Acorn iCi has helped numerous brands, including Peter Thomas Roth, BluePrint Juices, and Star Furniture, to enhance their customer experience with Salesforce Commerce Cloud. If you need expert help in your B2B or B2C digital transformation, reach out to us here.