Belnick Customizes Salesforce CRM for Complete Business Solution

Challenge

• Belnick, a leading online seller of office chairs and furniture, needed a new business solution that would provide CRM, business analytics, and ERP functions. It had been using Excel spreadsheets to track business data, but wanted more robust reporting.
• The new system had to integrate with an existing Yahoo! Merchant Solutions storefront and a Microsoft Great Plains accounting system.
• Managers preferred a cloud computing-based solution that would not require large investments in hardware and software, but would be easy to deploy and maintain.

Solution

• Belnick chose Salesforce CRM Unlimited Edition over Microsoft CRM. Managers appreciated the solution’s cloud-computing delivery model, which minimizes infrastructure costs.
• The CFO – who had previously attended Salesforce.com Training & Certification programs – customized Salesforce CRM and rolled out a pilot by himself in less than 30 days. Salesforce CRM was ultimately deployed to more than 60 users in sales, marketing, and support.
• Belnick adapted the Salesforce CRM interface to reflect its unique business needs; custom tabs highlight orders, product lines, inventory levels, and credit card transactions.
• Orders submitted online through the Yahoo storefront are pulled into SQL via an integration with Salesforce CRM; entry and fulfillment are now paperless and all orders are processed through Salesforce CRM.
• Salesforce CRM Sales stores data on more than 30,000 accounts; tasks and activities keep deals flowing through the pipeline.
• Dashboards provide fast access to key, real-time business metrics; Force.com's connect for Microsoft Office lets Belnick extend analytics with Excel pivot tables and charts.
• Web-to-lead functionality brings leads into Salesforce CRM and automatically alerts the freight department when quotes need to be generated. Close rates can be easily monitored.
• With Salesforce CRM and Google AdWords, Belnick creates, manages, and measures search engine campaigns from within Salesforce CRM.
• Customer service agents use the Salesforce CRM's call center agent console—which was also deployed by the CFO--to log more than 400 support calls each day. Email-to-case functionality captures customer inquiries in Salesforce CRM.
• Belnick installed Conga Merge from AppExchange to easily create custom reports, forms and documents using information from Salesforce CRM.
• Pervasive Data Integrator from AppExchange provides integration with Microsoft Great Plains accounting software. Billing is posted through Salesforce CRM and reconciled with the general ledger in Great Plains.
• Force.com's connect for Microsoft Outlook keeps a record of critical email communications and events, and keeps customer information up to date.

Results

• Salesforce CRM Service enables Belnick’s 20 service agents to field more than 400 customer inquiries a day.
• Centralized repository for order and support information provides complete customer views for improved service.
• Integrated Salesforce CRM and search engine marketing functions enables coordinated, measureable campaigns for greater ROI.
• Fast access to key business metrics and advanced analytics facilitates improved decision making and better business planning.
• Paperless order entry system with real time order and warehouse information helps Belnick improve fulfillment times and better manage inventory levels.