Silver Chef

We’re completely data-driven and can better understand and meet the needs of customers and dealers. Salesforce has been a true partner in helping us achieve this and is really invested in our success”

Damien Guivarra, CEO
 

34%

increase in prospect-to-customer conversions

 

Silver Chef creates new recipe for customer success

Silver Chef has helped fund the ambitions of more than 32,000 customers, from start-up cafes to large restaurants and hotels. Its Rent-Try-Buy® solution for equipment funding is especially attractive to new business owners as it allows them to rent the products they need to get up and running. It minimises upfront costs and makes it easier for businesses to adapt to market conditions and trends.

Now after thirty-two years in operation, Silver Chef is scaling to offer its flexible financing options to more businesses in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Using Salesforce, it’s also transforming the experience of customers and partners, and making the process of applying for finance lightning fast.

Single-customer view helps personalise every touchpoint

Silver Chef initially used Salesforce to track sales activity. However, as it sought to personalise the customer experience, the data captured was no longer sufficient. “Our sales team previously gathered customer information by talking to service reps or pulling information from contracts,” said Damien Guivarra, CEO of Silver Chef. “We integrated Salesforce with our finance and contract management systems to create a single-view of customers that everyone could use to better support them.”

This was in 2016 and sales still benefit from more information about dealers, customers, contracts, and also the assets being financed. They can engage more personally with customers and dealers, and present them with the right opportunities at the right time.

The more recent use of Pardot has helped Silver Chef to automate and personalise customer touchpoints, including emails and website experiences. Customer journeys and tailored offers are triggered and sent based on customer data and behaviour. For example, if a customer takes up only part of their finance offer, they are sent a reminder in 12 months that more is available. Those interested can click on the offer, automatically notifying a sales rep to get in touch.

These types of nurture campaigns have increased conversion rates by 34% and resulted in $5 million worth of repeat business in under two years. Silver Chef has additionally increased its prospect-to-customer conversion rate from 8% to 42%.

“We’ve done a lot of work to make sure we send out offers appropriate to customers’ credit and repayment history. It is safe exposure for us, and is the right thing to do for our customers,” said Guivarra.

Streamlined experience fuels customer success

As a Certified B Corporation motivated by purpose rather than profit, Silver Chef wants to help customers succeed. After tailoring its sales and marketing, it sought to streamline its application process. It wanted to make the process easier and faster for customers and dealers, and also more efficient. It involved several manual, time-consuming steps and approvals were often delayed. Silver Chef was managing most of the customer relationship on Salesforce already, and decided to use the platform to build out an online application tool.

Now being rolled out to more than 1,000 partners as part of Silver Chef’s accredited dealer networks in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the online application tool has completely automated workflow so that dealers can submit an application and have it auto-approved within minutes.

Dealers log onto the tool from a secure partner portal powered by Community Cloud. They then work with the customer to determine the finance required and complete the application. Salesforce integration with third-party systems and credit bureaus makes ID and finance checks seamless and allows offers to be generated almost immediately. Salesforce also drives an automated contract management process using Conga and DocuSign to respectively create and execute contracts.

What this means for customers is that they can visit one of Silver Chef’s dealer partners and be approved for finance in less than two minutes and walk out with their new equipment in less than an hour. This full digital experience allows partners to deliver the Silver Chef product 7 days a week.

Driving loyalty and growth

The efficiencies gained internally are incredible, helping Silver Chef grow its business while reducing time spent processing applications. “By automating workflow with Salesforce, we can provide a really great customer and partner experience and continue to grow without adding headcount the way we would have done in the past,” said Guivarra. “We’ve seen processing times drop by more than 50%, while also increasing data quality through the use of validated third party data services.”

The improved experience of its customers and dealers has helped Silver Chef to increase its Net Promoter Score and the business is exploring new ways to drive loyalty using the data in Salesforce. It has already integrated Salesforce with its partner loyalty platform, ensuring that dealer activity is accurately captured and rewarded. Also, management are now using dashboards to analyse business data daily. They’re able to more easily identify trends spot opportunities to improve customer and dealer support.

“We’re completely data-driven and can better understand and meet the needs of customers and dealers. Salesforce has been a true partner in helping us achieve that and is really invested in our success,” said Guivarra.

 
 

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