World-leading Provider of Financial Derivatives Trading Drives Revenue and Client Growth with Salesforce CRM

Case Study

You won’t hear Alastair Hine talking about the Sales Cloud, the Service Cloud, Chatter or any of the other Salesforce CRM solutions IG Group has deployed. The CIO and Marketing Director for this world-leading provider of financial spread betting and Contracts for Difference (CFDs) prefers to talk in terms of one single, seamlessly integrated Salesforce CRM platform; one which is being used to manage relationships with more than 130,000 clients worldwide – all the way from lead capture to acquisition, and ongoing client support and care. Salesforce CRM enables IG Group to capitalise on a steadily increasing lead volume and also retain the focus on building strong, long-term relationships with prospects and customers. In addition to better tracking and sharing capabilities, IG Group has also customised the cloud customer relationship management (CRM) solution to enable sales, marketing, and client service teams to collaborate more easily and stay mobile.

IG Group trades in financial derivatives. The British-based company, through its two major brands IG Index and IG Markets, is a provider of financial spread betting and CFDs – a CFD is an agreement to exchange the difference in value between the price of a contract when it is opened and the price when it is closed.

According to Hine, IG Group’s use of Salesforce CRM is reflected in three key words: recruitment, retention, and reactivation. The Sales Cloud was initially deployed to support the client recruitment process, introducing one shared sales application that eliminates fruitless tasks and allows the sales professionals and their managers to focus on what matters most: client recruitment and selling. The Sales Cloud ensures the IG Group teams stay on top of everything that’s happening in their deals, in real time, with updates on people, documents, accounts, and deals pushed immediately to their Chatter feed. They can also get real-time updates from the road on their preferred mobile device. “Salesforce CRM is a wall-to-wall deployment at IG Group,” Hine explains. “Some 700 of the 952 staff use Salesforce CRM every day to manage client relationships. It really is the heartbeat of this organisation.”

Chatter is a valued component of the CRM platform among staff. They regularly use the private social network to create a group, which gives everyone a shared view of any client activity. For example, if a client notifies IG Group of an event, the team can discuss the issue immediately, without having to wait for a case to be set up.<

A complete client view at their fingertips

Having been a user of the Sales Cloud since 2007, adding the Service Cloud into the business was a natural next step for IG Group. The addition has expanded the company’s capabilities and allows it to provide more consistent customer support – no matter where personnel happen to be. The Service Cloud supports client enquires worldwide, either by web, phone, or email, through three ‘follow the sun’, 24x6 Customer Services Centres – one each in the UK, Japan, and Australia. With a single console for every interaction, Salesforce CRM gives the IG Group agents a complete client view at their fingertips. Customisable workflow tools enable the team to automatically transfer, escalate, or close the thousands of cases received each day, and keep client services fluid and fast-moving. Meanwhile, CTI integration, case collaboration, and knowledge base help IG Group to serve up the right answer the first time, across every channel.

IG Group has also deployed a Salesforce CRM-powered customer portal to provide clients with fast, rewarding, 24x7 self-service. In the online environment, they can receive case updates, search the knowledge base, or interact with agents – all without picking up the phone. “The easy-to-use reporting functionality enables our team to quickly identify the key topics that arise in the portal, and view at a local or global level what our clients are struggling with. We can then take action to isolate those problems and remedy the issues they face,” says Hine.

Integrated document management system

Building on the quick and easy customisation capabilities of Salesforce CRM, IG Group has also introduced a stream of valuable, custom services to support its day-to-day operations. A comprehensive document management system has been deployed, for example, to provide all staff with a single oracle for client records, correspondence, product data, and other information. This unified source of documentation is a vital link in IG Group’s ‘know your customer’ compliance policy and anti-money laundering strategy.

Salesforce CRM has also been integrated with IG Group’s Omniture online marketing and web analytics solution. “The integration enables IG Group to align its marketing data with its client data,” says Hine. “We can identify the marketing spend by client, by region, or by product area to help plan future campaign focus and spend. It also offers the flexibility to track and record responses to online advertising: the volume of enquiries, the source, and whether or not those leads ultimately lead to new business revenue.”

IG Group has even created a system for managing requests for new Salesforce CRM and other IT functionality. A dedicated IT delivery and project management tool, integrated within Salesforce CRM, enables Hine’s team to manage every aspect of the project’s requirements, functionality, schedule, cost, and workflow. Moreover, it also provides a project audit trail, so the company can learn from previous success – and minimise the risk of project over-run.

More collaborative approach to working

Hine adds, “Using Salesforce CRM, IG Group has developed a more collaborative approach to working. This allows IG Group to shift its client support staff structure from one that is person-based to one that is knowledge-based. By combining the Sales Cloud and the Service Cloud, information is now easily available by all relevant employees, and customer service staff have the ability to access customer details and tap the knowledge of colleagues, whether they are nearby or out on the road.”

Prior to adopting Salesforce CRM, IG Group used various access databases, spreadsheets, and other siloed applications. The result was that these systems were not integrated, and that led to a significant amount of unnecessary manual tasks and duplication of efforts. Moreover, clients could end up being frustrated by the lack of joined-up communication in the company – and the need to repeat their enquiry every time they contacted the Service Centre. All that is now in the past: looking ahead, IG Group will introduce more mobility and a greater degree of process automation across the business. This ranges from an automated customer card expiry warning system, to the integration of a business process management (BPM) system built on the Salesforce CRM infrastructure.

“There’s no limit to what we can do with Salesforce CRM – almost anything is possible,” says Hine. “The solution will play a vital role in helping IG Group expand its operations in the UK and overseas – establishing new markets and growing existing client bases, while also focusing on quality of service, the extent of our offering, and delivering advanced technology for existing clients.”

Results

• Enabled company to successfully recruit, retain, and re-activate more financial spread betting and CFD clients worldwide
• Helped expand operations in the UK and overseas, establishing new markets, and also focusing on quality of service
• Allowed sales, marketing, and client service teams to collaborate more easily and stay mobile
• Provided updates on people, documents, accounts, and deals – pushed immediately to sales Chatter feed
• Underpinned consistent, high quality, and seamless service experience in three global Customer Services Centres
• A complete client view at their fingertips
• Introduced fast, rewarding, 24x7 self-service via integrated client portal
• Customised and deployed a stream of valuable, custom services to support day-to-day operations
• Supported ‘know your customer’ compliance policy and anti-money laundering strategy
• Helped track and manage marketing spend by client, by region, or by product area and increase campaign return on investment

IG Group