We must be more agile and successful in the technological solutions needed for business
Pep Aguilo
The hospitality sector is facing a particularly serious challenge with the COVID-19 pandemic. Precisely for this reason, the customer experience must be enhanced with all the tools and opportunities offered by technology.
For today’s case study, we spoke with Pep Aguiló, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Analyst at Meliá Hotels International, a leading hospitality Company in Spain and one of the largest in the world, with more than 380 hotels in the world on four continents. As Pep Aguiló tells us in his interview, Salesforce adds the special sauce needed to adapt the business to the new normal. In addition to telling us about the use of Salesforce in his current job, he talks about his experience with the platform and why he would recommend Salesforce training to anyone.
How has Salesforce changed your career path? What are you doing now?
I can say that there is a before and after since I first heard the word Salesforce. I was unaware of its existence. But since then I have had the opportunity to participate in different projects for multinational companies in the tourism sector, where I have learned different platforms such as Sales and Service Cloud, DMP and Marketing Cloud.
Since I joined Meliá Hotels, my professional career has been mainly focused on the Marketing Cloud platform. It is a challenge to be able to work and explore the world of marketing automation with the vision of a company of the size and importance of Meliá.
Given your long career in the hospitality industry, how do you think Salesforce is helping to power the recovery from this challenging time for the industry?
Salesforce tells us day in and day out that the fourth industrial revolution is already a fact, that we are in the midst of a digital transformation and that by using the right technology tools we can improve our customers’ experience.
Regarding the current situation, the hotel sector is one of the hardest hit in this economic and health crisis, so we have made an effort to adapt the user experience to the new normal. The availability of technological tools for customer service, such as Service Cloud and marketing automation, such as Marketing Cloud, helps us to understand our customers’ behavior and to communicate in a more personalized way, fine-tuning both the timing and the way in which we relate to our guests.
As the IT Marketing Lead, what challenges are you facing right now?
At the IT Marketing section, we are responsible for digital communication through our own channels. Guided by the objective of digitalizing and facilitating key points in the customer lifecycle, our main focus is on new automations. We must ensure that the result of the work being carried out in the other areas reaches our clients and facilitates the day-to-day running of our hotels. Immersed in the reactivation of the sector, we must be able to be even more agile and successful in the technological solutions necessary to provide an outlet for all the initiatives proposed by the business.
You have several official Salesforce certifications. Why did you decide to start taking Salesforce training?
In my case, I started out as a self-taught person, relying on my colleagues’ know-how, doing research online to find documentation and participating in the community of Salesforce specialists. Although it was a very good starting point, I have been able to improve it thanks to the range of training available to us today.
And what do you think you have gained with these certifications?
Certifications serve a number of purposes. The main one is to prove that you are knowledgeable in the subject. But they also help us to discover functionalities and processes of which we are unaware. They make us go deeper, and therefore question the solutions that we thought to be the best, and thereby making us better professionals. Each of the certifications I have done has helped me and I continue to use the knowledge I have acquired in my everyday work.
Lastly, why would you recommend that people take Salesforce training?
Training is always advisable, in any field. Also, when you want to advance in the tech world, you should focus your learning on specialist fields that offer added value to your profile.
Recent studies estimate that in five years nearly 50,000 direct jobs related to the Salesforce ecosystem will be generated in Spain. Without a doubt, it is a technology in constant growth and that is becoming consolidated in companies that are leaders in their sectors.
In my more than seven years in the world of Salesforce, I’ve seen how these specialist profiles are in ever greater demand.
In each of the success stories we are publishing here, we are telling the story of a professional who has made that extra step in their career thanks to Salesforce.
If you want to be the next specialist in one of the biggest job-creating platforms in the technology sector, get in touch with us now for further information about courses such as that of Marketing Cloud Administrator or Sales Cloud Consultant.
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