Fisher & Paykel has been working with Salesforce for more than 10 years to support the front end of the business and most of the company’s consumer-facing technologies. The partnership journey started in B2B sales and then customer service for the Fisher & Paykel call centre, field service solutions and self-service, in addition to websites and marketing.
“We continue to work with Salesforce as they share the same values around trust, security and customer that we do at Fisher & Paykel. The company is highly focused on customer success, as well as security and privacy. For us, it’s about finding partners that align with our values and help bring our company’s strategy and vision to life,” Fisher & Paykel executive vice president of marketing & digital transformation, Rudi Khoury told Appliance Retailer in a recent interview.
Fisher & Paykel experienced a ransomware attack in June 2020 and since then, the company has focused on a full modernisation of its technology stack.
“We’ve made a lot of progress with Salesforce, but our focus during Covid was to upgrade and transform our own digital platforms to better service our customers and better protect our brand,” Khoury said.
“At the same time, we want to be human centred and allow people to experience the human element of our brand both internally and externally. We use Salesforce technology to standardise and automate our processes across the world which means training and onboarding is more streamlined. However, we continue to focus on the human aspect of learning.”
Another key focus for Fisher & Paykel is self-service and digital channels. While the customer contact centre and phone channels remain important, channels such as live chat and Facebook Messenger are gaining more momentum among customers, according to Khoury.
“The trend toward digital in all aspects of the customer journey has matured in the last couple of years. Some of it has retracted more recently but for the most part, consumers have made a step change with a strong preference to digital when it comes to research, buying, support and more.”
He believes the challenge for businesses and brands is bringing together a great digital and physical experience to deliver a seamless omnichannel experience.
“Fisher & Paykel has a relentless focus on self-service and automation. We have a range of initiatives focusing on how we improve things like order management and live chat, and other digitisation goals that we’re driving towards. We’re using Salesforce Service Cloud and Experience Cloud to carry out the automation and self-service, which is done on-platform to keep customer data safe and secure.”
Cybersecurity has garnered recent media attention, but it is something that has always been top-of-mind for Fisher & Paykel with a security and privacy-first focus.
“Whenever we think of doing something technology-related, we think about the security and privacy element. In this new world, chief information officers and business leaders need to be thinking of cybersecurity as much as they do with employee health and safety. Do it from the start and build it by design rather than leaving it as an after-thought,” Khoury said.