BlackBull Markets grows faster and more sustainably with Salesforce.

BlackBull Markets was founded in 2014 out of a desire to provide retail investors with the same experiences and resources typically enjoyed by institutional investors. These include faster trade execution and smaller price spreads as well as personalised account management.

Demand for these services has helped the New Zealand-based company grow quickly and it now competes amongst the top brokerages internationally. Benjamin Boulter, Global Head of Partnerships at BlackBull Markets, shared that while the company continues to expand its offering, growing sustainably is a key focus.

“Scaling a business can be quite difficult in the current environment and one of the things that helps us grow more sustainably is Salesforce,” said Boulter. “It provides us with a single view of our clients and automates the delivery of timely and relevant information to help them take the next step with us.”

With these automated journeys and streamlined support, BlackBull Markets is growing faster and more efficiently while continuing to provide exceptional experiences.

When Boulter joined BlackBull Markets, the company was about to move its support team from Desk.com to Service Cloud and they paused to think about what more they could do with Salesforce to automate and grow the business.

“We knew we needed more scalable systems so when our book of clients becomes ten times bigger, we’ll be able to provide the same level of service without exponential increases in headcount," explained Boulter.

Salesforce has provided this scalability and enabled more automated engagement. With the rollout of Pardot, for example, BlackBull Markets has developed hundreds of trigger-based emails that help move clients through the customer lifecycle. Clients are put on these journeys as soon as they apply and they receive several hundred billion possible combinations of communications based on their account details and actions.

Boulter shared that these nurture journeys represent a phenomenal leap forward in engagement and efficiency. “Now everytime a client completes an action they get an email with personalised information and it is all automated as opposed to before when we were sending out individual emails and campaigns manually. This removes any potential for human-error and frees up time that would have otherwise been spent by several full time employees.”

The automation and personalisation of email journeys has helped BlackBull Markets to drive a 3x increase in lead conversion. In addition, sales and support teams are now both using Salesforce and have used Trailhead to learn and optimise its capabilities. They also have more time and more data to focus on deepening client relationships. Some of this information is captured in Salesforce directly while the rest is pulled in from BlackBull Markets’ trading platform and client portal. Both systems have been integrated with Salesforce to provide a central view of clients’ accounts and trades.

“Now everything is in one place and our teams can come in, open up Salesforce and start working through emails and live chats,” said Boulter. “It has significantly increased our efficiency and we’ve been able to reduce our average response time from 48 hours to a couple of hours.”

BlackBull Markets is also now able to clear out all of its support tickets in a single day whereas in the past it would typically clear just half and leave almost 500 remaining until the next day.

The automation and scalability of Salesforce has proved especially valuable this year as BlackBull Markets transitioned to remote working while handling an increase in leads and customer activity. “It has been a very turbulent year which has meant lots of market activity. We’ve been very lucky that we’re set up as we are and have been able to manage processes like lead allocation through Salesforce,” said Boulter.

The company is now planning to extend its use of Salesforce to streamline processes like onboarding and provide a better client experience. It also has plans for a new client portal which will be integrated with Salesforce and support channels including live chat. The integration between Salesforce, the portal, and BlackBull Markets’ client database will additionally provide a near real-time flow of data for up to the minute client insights.

“In such a large market it’s impossible to compete just on price which is why we’re so focused on our people and the experience of our clients. That’s really what sets us apart and what will help us to compete amongst the best in the market,” said Boulter.