CORE Invests in Salesforce.com Certification & Training, Sees Immediate ROI With Salesforce CRM

Challenge

• CORE K12 Education, a leading provider of Assessment, Intervention and Professional Development in the K-12 marketplace, needed to improve the overall efficiency of its company.
• Formerly the Princeton Review’s K-12 Services group, CORE K12 wanted 360-degree customer views and improved communication between its Sales, Marketing and Customer Support teams.
• Reps found the previous solution inflexible and difficult to operate. Users had to log onto a VPN (virtual private network) to update customer information from the road.
• CORE K12 also wanted more frequent and consistent reporting, and an easy way to share information across the company.

Solution

• CORE K12 chose Salesforce CRM Enterprise Edition over other solutions for its cloud-computing model, flexibility, and ease of use.
• With help from Salesforce.com Consulting, CORE K12 deployed Salesforce CRM in just 2 months to more than 40 users in sales, marketing, customer support, and project management.
• The company’s administrator attended Salesforce.com Training & Certification courses where he learned to successfully implement Salesforce CRM and Force.com features including:

- Web-to-lead
- Scheduled reporting
- Data validation
- Forecasts
- Workflows and automatic approvals
- Role-based access and security
- Customizations
- Salesforce CRM and Google Apps integration

• Immediately after training, the administrator made user experience improvements, including custom configurations by role, and added a scrolling marquee to Salesforce CRM for company announcements.
• Lessons from Salesforce.com Certification & Training courses resulted in the establishment of an easy and accurate way for CORE to understand marketing campaign ROI using the campaign tab and packaged reports available in Salesforce CRM.
• The administrator also restructured how CORE K12 manages relationships and implemented the use of leads—in line with Salesforce.com Training & Certification best practices.
• Salesforce CRM consolidates data on over 140,000 accounts. Lead and activity management improves relationships and keeps deals moving toward close.
• Salesforce CRM Service tracks customer service issues; email to case functionality helps the support team respond to customers quickly.
• Reports and dashboards provide fast access to data and KPIs, scheduled reports are automatically sent to decision makers to ensure they have the most up to date information.
• Force.com's connect for Microsoft Outlook, Word, and Excel keeps a record of communications and ensures that Salesforce CRM data and local reports are always in sync.

Results

• With Salesforce CRM Marketing CORE K12 converted over 400% more leads and has run 9 more campaigns than last year.
• Reps act on leads in a timely fashion with improvement relationship management. Past-due opportunities have dropped from 25% to 1% of the pipeline.
• Salesforce.com Certification & Training courses resulted in immediate improvements in user experience and data management.
• Integrated campaign management lets CORE K12 easily calculate campaign ROI and spend marketing dollars more efficiently.
• Accessible and easy to use CRM system drives increased usage; as a result, data is more up to date and useful. Reports can be compiled in minutes, not hours, and operations was able to reduce headcount because reps can easily generate their own.
• Centralized data repository improves communication between sales and customer service and gives both teams 360 degree views for a better understanding of their customer base. Easy access to real time sales information and KPIs improves planning and decision making.