ICE Integrates Data and Customizes Salesforce CRM Using 30-Day Trial; Improves Efficiency, Drives Sales, and Lowers Costs

Challenge

• Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) operates global commodity and financial marketplaces while sharing space with salesforce.com as one of Wired magazine’s top 40 most innovative companies in the world in 2007.
• ICE needed a CRM tool that was expansive enough to consolidate all global participants in one database to improve customer support and enhance sales efforts.
• The current CRM tool was rarely used and too costly to maintain. 
• With a huge range of systems used by traders, maintaining and accessing key customer information was difficult.

Solution

• As a company that develops and offers its own APIs, ICE was intrigued by Salesforce CRM’s open API and customizable application.
• From the free Salesforce CRM demo, ICE built a prototype that integrates nightly Oracle data feeds and incorporates customized tabs. ICE was able to deploy Salesforce CRM Enterprise Edition to 179 users across the globe with Microsoft Outlook integration.
• ICE integrates the Salesforce CRM customer portal, empowering customers to submit problems and track the status of their issues.
• Using Salesforce CRM Marketing, ICE develops targeted, measurable campaigns that drive its global sales efforts.
• ICE uses custom tabs such as Project Milestones, Purchase Requests, and Trading Information to mold Salesforce CRM to fit the unique process requirements of ICE’s business.

Results

• Salesforce CRM is the most widely used third-party tool across ICE’s global organization.
• A unified view of the customer stimulates collaborative efforts to support and promote new products to each customer.
• Information that was once lost or inaccurate is now captured in one, universally accessible location.
• Case resolution using Salesforce CRM, which once took days, weeks, or even a costly personal trip, is now accomplished in minutes with less cost.
• Easily capturing, analyzing, and disseminating information globally results in dramatically improved customer care and sales efforts.
• ICE now rapidly implements changes that instantly benefit the entire company and its customers in this new, more intuitive development environment.