Select Business Needs for Your AgentExchange Solution
When you create an AgentExchange listing for your solution, you select up to 3 categories called business needs. Business needs describe what your solution does or the challenge that it solves. Learn how business needs help customers discover AgentExchange solutions. Then review guidance for selecting business needs.
Business Need Categories and Subcategories
Business needs are divided into categories and subcategories. Categories align with general business processes or tasks. Examples include sales, service, and marketing. Each category contains one or more subcategories. Subcategories align with specific business processes or tasks that relate to the category. For example, in the sales category, there are subcategories for forecasting and contract management.
In the AgentExchange Partner Console, you can select up to 3 business needs per AgentExchange listing. You can choose categories, subcategories, or some combination of the two. Your category and subcategory selections are independent. Selecting a category doesn’t add the related subcategories to your listing. Similarly, selecting a subcategory doesn’t add the related category to your listing.
Example
Appy’s Maps is a data visualization solution that customers can use to view Salesforce CRM data on open-source maps. Sarah, a marketing specialist at Appy’s Maps, chooses three business needs. Two business needs are subcategories: Sales Intelligence and Geolocation. The other business need is a category: Analytics (1). Category and subcategory selections are independent, so the subcategories related to Analytics remain deselected (2).
AgentExchange Listings and Business Needs
Business needs appear as badges in the summary area of AgentExchange listings. These badges help customers understand whether a solution is likely to help them solve their challenge. They’re especially useful to customers who arrive at listings from sources outside AgentExchange, such as advertisements or third-party searches.
Example
Luis is a Salesforce consultant who’s designing a Sales Cloud implementation for a client. He plans to include a geolocation app in the implementation. He performs a Google search and sees the Appy’s Maps AgentExchange listing in the top results. When he visits the listing, he sees that Geolocation (1) is listed as a business need, and he’s impressed by the solution overview video. He contacts Appy’s Maps to arrange a live demo.
AgentExchange Search and Business Needs
Business needs are also available as filters for AgentExchange search results. These filters help customers focus on solutions that are relevant to the challenge they’re solving.
When a customer applies a business need filter, its effect on search results depends on whether the filter is a category or subcategory. If the customer applies a subcategory filter, AgentExchange shows only the solutions that are tagged with that subcategory. If the customer applies a category filter, AgentExchange shows solutions that include the category and all of the related subcategories.
Example
Luis wants to benchmark Appy’s Maps against competing solutions. He performs a keyword search on AgentExchange and applies filters to narrow the results. He applies the Sales Cloud filter because he’s designing a Sales Cloud implementation. Then, he applies the Geolocation business need filter. Geolocation is a subcategory, so AgentExchange shows only the solutions tagged with Geolocation in the results. Luis identifies two alternatives to Appy’s Maps with this filter combination, but he hopes to find a few more.
To widen the focus, he removes the Geolocation filter and applies the Analytics filter (1). Analytics is a category, so AgentExchange shows solutions tagged with Analytics along with the related subcategories, including Dashboards & Reports and Data Visualization. From these results, Luis identifies two more solutions to benchmark.
Tips for Selecting Business Needs
As you consider the business needs for your listing, follow these tips.
Tip
Details
Talk to prospects and customers.
To understand the business needs of your target market, talk to your prospects and customers. When you speak to them, ask about:
Their top business goals or challenges
How they discovered your solution
Whether the business needs on your listing feel accurate
Experiment, then monitor the results.
You can update your listing’s business needs at any time. Try experimenting with different combinations of categories and subcategories. Take note of when you applied the changes, and then monitor the impact using AgentExchange Marketplace Analytics.
If you can’t find a subcategory match, select the most closely related category.
The categories and subcategories in the Partner Console cover many, but not all, common business needs. If your solution addresses a business need that isn’t available in the Partner Console, choose the most closely related category. For example, if your solution assists with a specific process in the sales cycle, choose Sales.
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