How Rapid Response Revival uses Salesforce to scale its life-saving mission.

Sudden cardiac arrest is a leading cause of death globally with poor survival rates associated with a lack or delay in defibrillation. In fact, for every minute without defibrillation, the chance of survival for someone with sudden cardiac arrest decreases by 10 percent.

Rapid Response Revival understands that every moment counts and wants to see a defibrillator in every home and business. The Australian-based company is committed to making that possible and has developed the world’s first personal automated external defibrillator (AED). The portability, cost, and ease of use of the CellAED® device combine to make defibrillation more accessible than ever.

After several years of research and development and rigorous assessment from medical device regulators, Rapid Responsive Revival has launched into several markets and began shipping devices to customers towards the end of 2022. The business has turned to Salesforce to power its go-to-market strategy, including customer engagement and education.

Rapid Response Revival has applied the latest advances in technology to develop CellAED® which is up to one-tenth the price, size, and weight of conventional AEDs. The device received its first regulatory approval in May 2021, kicking off the search for a solution that would help Rapid Response Revival get to market quickly. Salesforce took the time to understand the company’s needs and presented a scalable solution.

“We could be selling as many as a million devices a month in the future. We needed a CRM that could scale effortlessly or things could fall apart,” said Scott Casey, Chief Information Officer, Rapid Response Revival

The solution encompassed everything the business needed to go to market. It was also deployed in less than two months with support from Salesforce consulting partner AFDigital and AppExchange partner StoreConnect.

Total go-to-market solution deployed in less than two months

Rapid Response Revival has now launched in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Europe and most recently South Africa and is using Salesforce to generate and manage sales and also pre-sales while ramping production.

Marketing Cloud Advertising helps Rapid Response Revival create awareness of its mission and the benefits of CellAED®. The targeting and automatic retargeting of ads to those most likely to buy helps drive conversion and optimise return on ad spend.

“When you are launching a completely new product category, you can spend a lot of time and money on public awareness campaigns, but it’s important for us to manage our costs. Marketing Cloud Advertising helps us make the most of our advertising spend by targeting health professionals and others who already understand the challenge we are trying to solve,” said Hillebrand.

Combined with press and other marketing activities, the targeted ads helped the company secure almost 10,000 pre-sales in just over six months—this is nearly 10x the typical volume sold by leading suppliers annually. The vast majority of of these customers were people who purchased for their home and business needs and had never owned an AED before.

Rapid Response Revival uses Marketing Cloud Personalisation to activate its data and personalise communications at scale. Journeys include a mix of operational, marketing, and educational updates and are tailored based on customers’ preferences and role. For example, those who have directly purchased a device may receive both operational and educational emails whereas other household members may receive educational emails only.

Hillebrand commented that the flexibility to really personalise these journeys is important to minimise unsubscribe rates and ensure cut through of vital educational emails.

“CellAED® is just one part of the chain of survival. In order for it to work, we need to ensure everyone can recognise the signs of a sudden cardiac arrest and knows to call emergency services first before starting CPR and using the defibrillator,” said Hillebrand.

As part of its go-live, Rapid Response Revival launched ecommerce on StoreConnect from the AppExchange. StoreConnect is fully integrated with Salesforce which allows the company to capture a complete view of customers and orders. It also leverages Salesforce CPQ to streamline pricing for bundled orders.

Hillebrand shared Rapid Response Revival can now quickly spin up new online shops for different regions and different partners. The company can also just as easily scale customer service with Service Cloud.

“We know that as a new product, customers will undertake a lot of research before they purchase. Service Cloud helps us provide timely and accurate responses to customer queries to improve the overal customer experience and build consumer confidence,” said Hillebrand.

Rapid Response Revival has built a Knowledge base of answers to frequently asked questions that helps its support team provide the right answers fast. This Knowledge base will soon be used in tandem with Einstein Bots to respond to these questions automatically.

“AI-powered solutions like chatbots are absolutely critical for our scalability and ability to provide really good customer service. We’ll be able to answer common questions really quickly and make it even faster and easier for everyone else to get in touch with a live operator,” said Hillebrand.

Rapid Response Revival’s growth strategy relies on partners such as first-aid training providers who will help the company reach a broader audience. The company is just starting to onboard these partners and has created a portal on Experience Cloud to collaborate on opportunities.

The portal will be expanded in the future to empower partners with all the tools and information they need to market and sell directly. This will include Salesforce CPQ which will simplify quoting and order management for bulk orders placed by businesses and other organisations. The efficiencies provided will be key in minimising the time between order placement and distribution.

“Partners will play a significant role in scaling our business which is why we need a platform that allows us to jointly own and collaborate around the customer. We also have a product with a limited shelf life which means we need to be really efficient in how we manage these sales and get products shipped out to customers,” said Hillebrand.

Rapid Response Revival is now on the cusp of scaling up manufacturing and has established custom workflows on Salesforce Platform to manage customer memberships. It is also using Platform and reporting in Lightning Console to manage supply and demand.

More broadly, the company is continuing to raise awareness and educate customers on how to respond to sudden cardiac arrest.

“What we’re doing is not just about getting a product into people’s hands. It is about the whole customer experience and making sure that when there is a sudden cardiac arrest, customers are ready and know what to do,” said Hillebrand.