Optimum Lightpath Illuminates Customer Data and Extends Success with AppExchange-Inspired Solutions

“The AppExchange is like a model airplane store. Every week I go to browse and try new things. Inspired by the AppExchange, we develop cost- effective homegrown solutions as we need them, and if we can’t develop something, we know we can find it on the directory.”


Challenge
  • Optimum Lightpath, a business telecommunications services division of Cablevision Systems Corporation, had problems synchronizing customer data and needed a comprehensive CRM solution that could be accessed across all divisions
  • The company found itself plagued by an off-the-shelf contact manager that failed to provide a central repository of customer information accessible by different departments with different requirements
  • Rapid growth meant Lightpath needed to deploy a system that delivered greater insight into the entire sales and delivery process, while accommodating solutions that simultaneously evolve with the company

Solution
  • Optimum Lightpath rolled out Salesforce Professional Edition to 200 users, including sales, sales support, provisioning, marketing, and billing and collections; a subsequent upgrade to Salesforce Enterprise Edition provided deeper integration and customization benefits
  • The company tailored the system to grant access privileges and 100 custom fields, without consultants
  • A relational database links seven of 14 custom objects that consolidate customer data; three objects enable the company to view high-level billing information
  • Inspired by applications browsed on the AppExchange, a Lightpath developer created homegrown applications for each division; for example, using Web-to-Case as the survey component and dashboards that show aggregated results, the developer created a user survey tool
  • Thousands of leads from multiple Cablevision websites annually feed into Saleforce such that they can be tracked
  • Lightpath has integrated Salesforce with its provisioning system, MetaSolve

Results
  • With the ability to track actual and expected sales at regional, market, and individual levels, the company can better forecast and measure success
  • Lightpath enjoys anytime, anywhere access to wide-ranging information on orders such as time-to-process, along with any internal or external communications conducted over the lifecycle of the sale
  •  Dashboards provide management with a bird's-eye view of the entire business, and centralized information across sales, operations, marketing, and customer service encourages a unified, intelligent approach to attracting and retaining customers
  • Improved operational efficiencies and enhanced resource allocation give Lightpath a competitive edge
  • As a source for ideas, the AppExchange provides a low-cost means to developing in-house business solutions that extend the value of Salesforce
 
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