RAE Systems gains actionable insights into worldwide sales and customer service with Salesforce

Challenge

• RAE Systems needed an easy-to-use, easy-to-access customer relationship management (CRM) system to track and manage information about its products and distributors in multiple languages and using multiple currencies
• The company, which makes lifesaving wireless gas and radiation detection systems, urgently needed tools to support the delivery of efficient, reliable customer service
• Required an easy way to track types and frequency of repairs as well as a way to integrate information about assets, sales, services, marketing activities, and channel partners
• Wanted to gather all available data under one roof and make it accessible to employees globally; centralized data would also make it possible for management to pull reports on all business units

Solution

• Chose to replace an existing CRM implementation with Salesforce applications based on their flexibility, affordability, and ease of customization
• An initial deployment to the sales and service team in the U.S. was expanded to EMEA and Asia-Pacific by a single admin working with Salesforce.com Premier Support

Sales Cloud

• Created new profiles, roles, and hierarchies to match the structure of the business in different geographies
• Started using campaign management features to measure the leads generated by specific campaigns such as trade shows, direct mailings, and product announcements; the quality of leads; the cost of the campaign; cost versus sales, and more
• Monitoring performance by using reports and dashboards to keep an eye on everything from the number of leads to opportunities and product forecasting
• Using the forecast tool to obtain quick overviews of the sales pipeline and production requirements for manufacturing
• Integrated with with Eloqua for demand generation enhancements
• B2B and B2C customer satisfaction surveys on a quarterly bases measure customer care
• Added a Co-op fund management application to manage distributors’ marketing funds
• Products and price books are automatically updated thanks to integration with Oracle

Service Cloud

• Tracking the status of equipment repairs, warranties, loaner rentals, and user certifications with case management functionality ensures the information is easy to find and, not least, historically traceable
• Creating a specific relationship between certain case types and opportunities lets RAE manage warranty replacements, warranty repairs, and repair estimates in a unique fashion that also provides detailed insight into the economics related to the service teams
• Logging monthly customer satisfaction surveys as cases lets managers quickly compare survey results with reports from quality assurance
• Integrated with Oracle R12 Financials; service opportunities automatically generate orders in Oracle when reaching a specific status
• Built a client portal with Web-to-case functionality that lets distributors and end users log cases online
• Added Web-to-Case functionality from Salesforce for turnkey case creation on the RAE website; cases submitted online are routed and assigned as cases in the Service Cloud
• RAE is in the process of building a partner portal (PRM) for its distributors to access leads, generate opportunities, and log cases with the service teams

Force.com

• Downloaded an application from the AppExchange to manage the marketing Co-op Fund, which functions like a miniature bank for RAE Systems’ distributors; there is a readily available overview of each account, and budgets, requests and allocations for marketing funds are easily tracked
• Every time a distributor sells a piece of REA Systems equipment, it earns a marketing credit that is deposited in the Co-op Fund; credits can be used for marketing campaigns or trade shows
• A training contracts management app handles product issues and renewals, end user and distributor training logs, and mailing lists

Results

Sales Cloud

• Increased visibility into business operations thanks to built-in multilingual and multicurrency capabilities
• Improved decision making with better data, including a new ability to link leads, opportunities, and sales to the cost of specific campaigns
• Able to grow the company and support services without additional IT costs—for less than what it spent on the previous CRM system, RAE Systems has been able to deploy Salesforce applications to three times as many users

Service Cloud

• Integration with Oracle R12 Financials eliminated double data entry and saved between 25–30% of data entry time for the U.S. service team alone
• New insights from call center data such as the time spent processing warranties or how many instruments are exchanged for free makes management more effective
• Increased customer satisfaction