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In today’s digital-first world, customers expect instant responses, personalized recommendations, and seamless experiences across every touchpoint. Yet many businesses still operate through scattered portals, disconnected apps, and outdated communication channels.
Suppose you have a parcel and want to track your order, raise a support ticket, or view product documentation, all of which usually require switching between platforms. It can lead to frustration, poor engagement, and a dissatisfying experience. To eliminate this hassle, courier companies use Salesforce Experience Cloud, providing quick access to your parcel.
Salesforce Experience Cloud eliminates the hassle of navigating the platform by bringing everything together into a single, connected, branded, and interactive digital experience.
What is Salesforce Experience Cloud?
Salesforce Experience Cloud, previously known as Community Cloud, is a digital platform that allows businesses to connect and build their relations with users. It helps create features and functionalities for websites, digital portals, and mobile applications that connect customers and businesses. It is an online gateway to personalized and interactive experiences for users.
It acts as a central digital gateway where users can:
- Access personalized information
- Collaborate with teams
- Raise cases or track requests
- Engage with knowledge articles and support resources
With low-code, no-code, and pro-code capabilities, Experience Cloud allows organizations to scale their digital presence faster while maintaining full control over branding, data access, and security. It is widely used to create:
- Customer self-service portals
- Partner relationship management (PRM) portals
- Employee communities
- Online support and knowledge hubs
Key Features and Functions of Salesforce Experience Cloud
Let’s explore the core features that make Salesforce Experience Cloud a powerful platform for building digital experiences.
1. Experience Builder
Experience Builder is a low-code, drag-and-drop tool that allows users to create professional websites using pre-built templates. Even non-developers can design, manage, and deploy digital experiences quickly without needing to write code.
2. Personalization & Audience Targeting
Experience Cloud allows businesses to personalize content based on user profiles and data. Specific menus, pages, and content can be shown to different users, improving engagement, conversions, and user satisfaction.
3. Managing Leads & Cases
Users can register new leads and create support cases directly within the portal. This streamlines workflows between Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, improving sales follow-ups and customer support efficiency.
4. Mobile Publisher
Mobile Publisher enables businesses to convert their Experience Cloud site into a branded mobile app for iOS and Android. It delivers a native mobile experience with push notifications and personalized content.
5. AI Integration
Experience Cloud integrates with Einstein AI and Agentforce AI to offer intelligent recommendations, automated responses, and guided user journeys, enhancing self-service and support efficiency.
How does Salesforce Experience Cloud work?
The use of Experience Cloud in Salesforce enables a secure, customized, and two-way exchange between internal teams and external users. The ideal working of Salesforce Experience Cloud is explained below.
Step 1: User Authentication
Whenever an external user logs into the branded portal with their unique credentials, the platform verifies their identity against existing Salesforce records, including contact information and account data, via single sign-on.
Step 2: Security Filtering
As users have assigned licences, profiles, and sharing rules, the platform limits the data visibility. The platform filters the database to show the relevant data of their support cases.
Step 3: Data Interaction
The integration is a two-way street that includes:
- Read: The users can view CRM data securely in the portal’s interface. Users get custom reports, articles, and their personal data, like purchase history.
- Write: This helps execute the modification and creation of new records. The Salesforce Experience Cloud examples for write interaction include submitting a new support case, a new deal, or updating personal details.
Step 4: Real-Time Updates
A Salesforce Experience Cloud Implementation helps businesses update new information in the core CRM in real-time. The Salesforce CRM automatically updates records submitted by external partners, making it easier for internal sales agents to identify changes.
Step 5: Branding and Content Delivery
The Salesforce CMS system manages the marketing and support content that is visible on the Site using the low-code Experience Builder tool. Both these tools together manage the look and feel of the website.
Step 6: Salesforce Experience Cloud Architecture
As Experience Cloud is built directly on the Salesforce platform, it ensures a seamless integration with the CRM data. The architecture of the experience cloud is secure and customizable, which works based on the following layers:
- Foundation: The Salesforce Experience Cloud provides a secure window into your already-stored data.
- Sharing Model: This is where organisations decide which data external users can see, thereby helping maintain Security.
- Presentation Layer: Using Lightning Web Components (LWC) and Aura frameworks to render the website with low-code interfaces and drag-and-drop.
- Identity Layer: For a seamless, trusted identity experience, Salesforce Experience Cloud manages user data via Single Sign-On.
Benefits of Salesforce Experience Cloud
Salesforce Experience Cloud delivers value not just at a technical level, but also at the business and user-experience level.
1. 24/7 Self-Service with Personalized Data Access
One of the biggest advantages of Salesforce Experience Cloud is that it allows customers to resolve their queries anytime, without depending on live support agents. Through a self-service portal, users can:
- Raise and track support cases
- Access FAQs and knowledge articles
- View order history and account details
- Interact with chatbots for quick assistance
Since the portal is connected directly to Salesforce CRM, users also see only their own personalized data, which improves trust and usability. This not only increases customer satisfaction but also reduces the workload on support teams.
2. Increased Partner Productivity and Revenue Growth
Salesforce Experience Cloud enables businesses to create dedicated partner portals where partners can work independently without involving internal teams at every step. Partners can:
- Register and track leads
- Access pricing and sales documents
- Monitor deal progress
- Manage orders and opportunities
This removes delays caused by manual coordination, speeds up the sales process, and helps partners focus more on selling. As a result, businesses see better partner productivity and improved revenue performance.
3. Reduced Operational and Support Costs
By shifting routine tasks and common queries to self-service portals, Experience Cloud significantly reduces the cost of customer and partner support. Instead of handling repetitive requests through call centres or emails, users can:
- Find answers through the knowledge base
- Submit and track cases on their own
- Update their information without agent involvement
This reduces dependency on high-cost support channels and allows businesses to allocate resources more efficiently, leading to lower operational expenses.
4. 360-Degree View of Customer Interactions in One CRM
Since Experience Cloud is built directly on Salesforce, every interaction—whether it is a case submission, order update, document download, or chat—is captured inside the same CRM system.
This gives teams across sales, service, and support a complete 360-degree view of the customer, including:
- Past purchases
- Support history
- Communication records
- Engagement behavior
With all data in one place, departments can work together more effectively and provide faster, more accurate solutions to customers.
5. High Scalability and Reliable Performance
Salesforce Experience Cloud is designed to handle large volumes of users and traffic without performance issues. Whether a business has a few hundred users or millions of customers and partners, the platform can scale smoothly.
- Built on Salesforce’s global cloud infrastructure, it ensures:
- High availability
- Fast performance
- Secure access across regions
This makes Experience Cloud a reliable long-term solution for businesses planning to grow their digital operations.
Need for businesses to integrate Salesforce Experience Cloud
With the digitally paced world, businesses can’t grow solely on their products. So, Salesforce Experience Cloud implementation has become vital as it offers:
- Reduced Service Cost: If you have a Salesforce Experience Cloud License, you can shift simpler issues to self-service portals, lowering the cost per interaction.
- Boosting Sales Cycle: Helps partners to access leads, pricing, and sales documents, streamlining the sales process.
- Enhanced Data Accuracy: Users can update and manage their information in real time. Allows customers to update information themselves.
- Brand Consistency: Instead of managing separate websites, portals, and content systems, the brand touchpoints are centralized and consistent.
- Increase Loyalty: It focuses on collaborations and community engagement that transform customers from passive buyers into promoters, building long-term relationships.
Job Opportunities with Salesforce Experience Cloud
As more businesses adopt Salesforce Experience Cloud for portals and digital experiences, demand for skilled professionals is skyrocketing. According to IDC, the Salesforce ecosystem is expected to create 9.3 million new jobs globally by 2026, many of which will be linked to Experience Cloud.
Since this isn’t a beginner-level role, professionals should first build a solid Salesforce foundation before moving into Experience Cloud-specific skills. With the proper training, these roles offer strong career growth and high earning potential.
Below are key Experience Cloud career paths, along with responsibilities, skills, and salary details:
1. Salesforce Experience Cloud Consultant
Consultants work closely with businesses to design portal solutions, map processes, define user journeys, and ensure the portal delivers measurable ROI. They translate business requirements into scalable Experience Cloud implementations.
Key Responsibilities
- Gathering business requirements
- Mapping processes to Experience Cloud capabilities
- Designing user access, security, and content structure
- Ensuring scalability and ROI for the business
Required Skills
- Salesforce fundamentals
- Business strategy & process mapping
- UX understanding
- Security & sharing model configuration
Average Salary
$120,000 – $140,000 annually (varies by region & experience)
2. Salesforce Experience Cloud Developer
Developers are responsible for building and customizing Experience Cloud sites, integrating with other Salesforce Clouds, and creating dynamic user experiences using LWC and Apex.
Key Responsibilities
- Customizing Site UI and components
- Integrating portals with Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and APIs
- Building Lightning Web Components (LWC)
- Managing data flow between Salesforce and portal users
Required Skills
- LWC / JavaScript
- Apex
- Salesforce API Integration
- Experience Builder & CRM data models
Average Salary
$125,000 – $150,000 annually.
Conclusion
Salesforce Experience Cloud is transforming how businesses interact with customers and partners by creating unified, secure, and personalized digital experiences.
As companies continue shifting toward scalable, digital-first platforms, the demand for Experience Cloud skills is skyrocketing.
If you’re looking to build a future-proof Salesforce career, S2 Labs can guide you every step of the way from fundamentals to advanced Experience Cloud development.