Keenan & Associates Ensures Unified Customer Data and Pipeline Visibility with Salesforce CRM

Challenge

• Keenan & Associates, a full-service insurance broker, needed greater pipeline and opportunity visibility, a central repository for contact and lead data, and more accurate reporting.
• As the largest privately held insurance brokerage and consulting firm in California, the company wanted greater coordination between sales teams in multiple divisions, and between sales and customer support.
• Employees relied on a combination of individual databases and Vignette’s Collaboration Suite that was cumbersome and ineffective.
• Keenan required an easily deployable solution with low administrative overhead that could integrate easily with existing business intelligence tools. It also wanted an intuitive interface that employees would readily adopt.

Solution

• Keenan chose Salesforce CRM Enterprise Edition for its cloud-computing model, and because sales reps liked its user interface.
• With assistance from salesforce.com partner Astadia, Salesforce CRM was deployed to 110+ employees in sales and support with high adoption rates.
• The Salesforce CRM call center manages employee benefit cases; unifying customer service and sales data provides instant visibility to issues.
• Integration with Microsoft Outlook keeps a record of customer communications and helps reps be more efficient.
• Using the Force.com platform, Keenan built custom tabs for competitive tracking, reports, email campaign results, product information, commission calculations, and more.

Results

• Keenan management now has complete pipeline and opportunity visibility. Comprehensive reports encompass all sales activities for more accurate measurement and forecasting.
• A central repository of customer and lead information enables more regular tracking of opportunities; sales and customer service organizations are more tightly integrated.
• Email marketing campaigns are more targeted, and success rates have increased significantly.
• Salesforce CRM’s cloud-computing model eliminates infrastructure and reduces administration. New applications can be added easily, as needed.
• Keenan is evaluating AppExchange solutions and integration with Business Objects for greater data-mining functionality.