Challenge

• Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) needed a cost-effective solution to centralize information and foster collaboration across multiple business units and external partners.
• Siloed contact management systems prevented a consolidated view of communication touch-points; businesses expressed frustration over receiving multiple calls from the agency.
• The CEO/Commissioner could not get contact history regarding a particular company he planned to visit, which became the impetus behind the DEED’s search for a solution. 
• The agency required a tool that could be customized to raise the qualitative level of the service it provides.

Solution

• DEED was attracted to Salesforce CRM on a number of fronts: quick time to market, scalability, and the hosted cloud-computing model.
• After considering solutions from SugarCRM and Entellium, the agency selected Salesforce CRM Enterprise Edition—initially deploying it in tandem with the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce to 160 users in four weeks, with a phased roll out to over 210 the following 11 months.
• The agency migrated data from four legacy systems, in the process of consolidating all information into one Web-based system.
• Salesforce CRM automates task generation, alerting staff to follow-up or refer customers to service from other DEED/Chamber Partners.
• Reporting functionality allows managers to be appraised of service issues, which helps them tailor service where it is most needed.
• Custom objects and renamed tabs were created to replicate what DEED had been using in other systems. 
• Data privacy is a key issue, and security rules ensure certain layers of the application stay hidden from certain branches and individuals.

Results

• The agency is on the way to achieving its goal of a centralized view of all touch-points with the business community.
• Improved service and non-redundant contact stems from greater collaboration and a new customer-centric approach. 
• With no programming and no database administration required, Salesforce CRM costs a fraction of what it would have to build a homegrown product of the same caliber.
• Staff who travel extensively can arrange client meetings on-the-fly and are aided by an integrated mapping feature.
• An easy-to-navigate, intuitive user interface smoothes user adoption.
• Word of the project’s success spread to Economic Developer partners in several other cities and counties who have inquired about acquiring Salesforce CRM licenses.