ShareBuilder 401(k) Taps the Small Business Market Thanks to Salesforce CRM Deployment

Challenge

• ShareBuilder 401(k), a subsidiary of ING Bank, decided to target the underserved small business market (from 1 to 50 employees) and offer on-demand 401(k) plans; this required an extremely efficient solution that would help ShareBuilder provide high quality service to this large and diverse market.
• The company needed a system to enable automated, scalable sales operations including lead stage management, call priorities, customer activities, and tasks in a real-time manner.
• The inside team manages large volumes of inbound prospects each day so a solution that helps rank and prioritize leads based on sales team interactions, as well as the actual Web content consumed by prospects, was essential.
• Web automation and lead prioritization tools were a must to focus and deliver efficient, quality sales efforts.

Solution

• ShareBuilder selected Salesforce CRM Enterprise Edition—launching it in tandem with a well-defined lead stage process in 30 days to 15 users with Microsoft Outlook integration.
• Web-to-lead capabilities allow the company to track a lead back to its source for better channel management.
• The addition of AppExchange apps enables sales tracking all the way back to the search keyword enabling more efficient AdWord buys.
• Marketing campaigns are measured through Salesforce CRM to track which channels and campaigns are most efficient for driving qualified leads and closes.
• Reports and dashboards track and monitor leads, lead stages, open leads, number of closes, sales team activity, and more to adjust demand generation as needed.
• The accounting group runs reports from Salesforce CRM using post-sale data uploaded weekly to process payments to partners like Costco.
• AppExchange apps Manticore Technology and Ringlead have been essential to establishing a best-in-class nurture Web and sales activity integration into Salesforce CRM; this automates lead development for the team and includes real-time lead scoring.
• Three custom tabs: Assets Under Management, AEs, and Tracker—a mashup that tracks the install process—align Salesforce CRM with the way ShareBuilder does business.
• One user is learning to develop custom apps with Force.com; the company attends the local user group to stay on top of new features.

Results

• ShareBuilder improved sales per rep by 67 percent since deploying and optimizing its Salesforce CRM processes.
• Because reps now know when a prospect is on the company Web site and the content consumed, sales team has more relevant conversations with the most engaged prospects.
• Boosts in sales productivity are attributed to targeted marketing and near real-time, dynamic lead scoring engine.
• The company views its use of Salesforce CRM as one of its competitive advantages.
• The AppExchange offers a vital resource from which to find apps that meet the company’s present and future business needs.