Raven Industries Meets Service and Support, Telephony Integration, and Diverse CRM Needs of Four Businesses with One Salesforce Solution

"With our diverse business units, we typically struggle with buying something that will work for everyone. In Salesforce, we have a solution that we can use across the organization because of its broad capabilities and flexible operation."


Challenge
  • Raven Industries, a leading industrial manufacturer with four distinct operating units, wanted to improve its overall customer relationship management capabilities
  • Prompted by the needs of one business unit for a service and support application that provided remote access and seasonal scalability, Raven decided to replace its disparate CRM pieces with a common on-demand solution that met the unique needs of each of its businesses across service and support, sales, and marketing operations
  • Consolidating its disconnected contact management systems, automating manual customer service operations, and providing seamless access to information in Raven's IBM AS/400 database were high on the priority list for the new solution
  • Integration with the company's Avaya phone system and low-cost system administration also were key

Solution
  • After an extensive evaluation that included Siebel CRM OnDemand and SalesLogix, Raven selected Salesforce for SFA and service and support
  • The company selected Salesforce for its deeper functionality, on-demand architecture, and broad applicability to Raven's businesses, each of which has its own product line
  • The Force.com Web Services API powers bidirectional integrations with IBM AS/400-based quoting and back-office applications, creating a seamless opportunity-to-quote-to-order process through Salesforce
  • Using the Force.com Telephony API, Raven linked Salesforce to its Avaya phone system to provide "screen pops" for incoming calls and automated outbound dialing from within Salesforce
  • Up next, the company will use Salesforce to provide executives with real-time dashboards and customers with self-service support access

Results
  • The company now has one central database where employees share knowledge about customers, products, and solutions to common issues
  • Raven can now link customers to distributors, providing deeper insights into how its products are sold and supported through the channel
  • With a rich repository of customer information, Raven can perform trend analysis and take the guesswork out of tracking department performance over time
  • The company has dramatically reduced IT support costs, because the Salesforce hosted delivery model requires no hardware and nontechnical administrators rather than programmers can perform maintenance and customization
 
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