Straight through to service success

After nearly 90 years in business and 30 years of providing hire-purchase loans for motorcycles in the Malaysian city of Johor Bahru, FCC (Foh Chong Credit Sdn Bhd) was ready for change.

The credit company launched a new business model in 2011 to build direct relationships with its customers and not via motorcycle dealers. However, that strategy thrusted FCC into a saturated market of small motorcycle dealers and large multinationals that offered similar business models.

To ensure that its service standards were on par with if not better than the competition, FCC adopted salesforce.com’s Partner Portal solution, which it positions as a “self-service” channel for its dealers to perform traditional fax-based services online, thus cutting down on data entry and time to process applications.

As a result, customers applying for FCC loans could start using FCC’s credit facilities more quickly and efficiently than before.

Overall benefits are online straight-through processing of applications (including credit checks, approvals, and payment tracking), on-demand reports of application and loan statuses, and online submissions for vehicle registration and agreement printing.

FCC reaped the benefits of implementing Sales Cloud and Partner Portal within a year.

Internal data entry was reduced by extending the credit application process to the motorcycle dealers. Time is also saved from not needing to handle phone queries when faxes do not get through. Reports are easily generated and all parties enjoy greater transparency of information. FCC also expects to be able to cap the number of staff when its business grows.

In effect, FCC has managed to put its data on a CRM platform that would allow for extendable business customisation and scalability.

This quantum leap in business efficiency and operational change inspired a brand new vision for the company, says its general manager, Siow Wen-Yee. “FCC’s vision is to extend our customer base to the entire state of Johor and eventually, to the rest of Malaysia.”

Siow is enthusiastic about partnering salesforce.com to overcome other challenges.

A major hurdle for the Johor Bahru company has been to attract technical staff – many of them prefer to work in nearby Singapore for the higher wages. “Salesforce.com has helped alleviate this by having a solid support system, providing good partners who understand the business side of systems development, which gives any entrepreneur the peace of mind to focus on her business.”

Another challenge concerns its size. As a small business, “it needs to provide the same level of service as a multi national and at the same time, react to customer requirements as quickly as that of a sole proprietorship”, Siow explains. FCC also needs to deal with competition from unlicensed lenders, as well as the motorcycle dealers who help FCC to sell its loan products, because they may have their own loan products to promote.

“Salesforce.com helps us to manage this relationship well; with salesforce.com products, we are able to decide what information we can share with our dealers and what we can’t. With the great support of our salesforce.com partner Nait Consulting, we have so far been able to manage this delicate balancing act.”

When Siow was introduced to salesforce.com’s solutions, they seemed to meet her demands head on. She was especially impressed by the “Play-doh” nature of the products, whose mix-and-match modules allowed her to “create a business system where you are limited only by your imagination”.

She was also given a demo application tailored to her requirements, which put her mind at ease that the application was appropriate for her business and intentions.

Her faith in salesforce.com paid off. FCC’s market share in Johor state grew from 7% to 20% within a year of introducing the new business model and solution. “Salesforce.com gives us a competitive edge from a technological perspective, which makes FCC an easier sell.”