Versature

 

Versature boosts customer satisfaction and retention with Salesforce

From desk phones to video-conferencing, Versature provides SMEs in Canada and the US with the latest cloud-based telephony systems. But what makes Versature exceptional isn’t just its sophisticated telecoms services, but its customer experience.

Through lead nurturing and onboarding to support and renewals, Versature customers can expect personalized and proactive engagement every step of the way. And during COVID-19, they were rapidly provided with access to the additional services they needed to keep their businesses running, plus the help required to set them up.

As a result, Versature has an annual churn rate of under 5%, compared to an industry average of around 21%. “With Salesforce, we have a 360-degree view of customer data and seamless processes, so we can focus all our attention on the customer and their needs,” said Jonathon Moody, President and COO at Versature. “These days, customers are after more than just stand-alone products – they want holistic solutions and great wrap-around services. And with Salesforce, we’re able to meet those demands.”

Instant access to business data simplifies a merger.

Versature balances the traditional and digital worlds for its customers, providing desk phones as well as advanced unified communications features, such as video conferencing, SMS, browser-based calling, voicemail-to-email, mobile apps, and integration with other cloud-based platforms, including Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, and Zoho. Founded in 2003, the award-winning company hosts around 30 million calls, for almost 100 million minutes of business conversations on the Versature network every year.

With such good retention rates and a reputation for satisfied customers, it’s not surprising that US-based company net2phone was keen to acquire Versature in 2018. And when the company was able to slice and dice its data in real-time to provide net2phone’s management team with the information they needed, it helped seal the deal.

“Thanks to Salesforce, we could provide instant visibility of the business data needed for the acquisition,” confirmed Moody. “Net2phone’s managers were so impressed that they started to rollout Salesforce themselves before the transaction was even completed, and have now integrated the entire net2phone business onto the platform.”
 

Explore the products that are helping Versature grow.

 
 

Sales Cloud

Find customers, close deals, and grow accounts faster with Sales Cloud.
 

Service Cloud

Increase customer satisfaction using the #1 platform for service.
 

Pardot

Unite marketing and sales on a single platform for B2B marketing automation.
 

An integrated platform enables greater agility.

Versature has used Salesforce since 2011 to capture and consolidate its data. The company currently has Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Pardot, and Einstein, as well as a range of solutions from the Salesforce App Exchange, which simplify key processes, such as customer billing and commission payments.

“We don’t just have a CRM system, we have an integrated business platform that supports every stage of the customer journey. And if we need to add functionality to meet new customer or business expectations, we can have it up and running in a week not a year,” said Moody.

With Salesforce, the company cannot only deliver customer-centric services, but it also has the agility it needs to cope with change – whether that’s doubling head count as a result of a merger, or coping with COVID-19.

Additional services help keep businesses running during COVID-19.

When the pandemic hit, Versature had a double-edged challenge. Not only did it need to empower its own employees to work from home, but it also had to deal with a high volume of calls from customers who suddenly needed to access services they’d never used before. “It was a very uncertain time. With a young sales team, we weren’t sure whether we were going to be able to achieve much during lockdown, but we actually achieved our highest sales months yet. And all while helping our customers get up and running with the solutions they needed to keep going,” revealed Marissa Homere, Director of Marketing at Versature.

The telephony company also launched a range of new products and integrations that were suddenly in high demand. “We were already seeing growing trends in the industry for video-conferencing, browser-calling, and increased security,” explained Homere. “The arrival of COVID-19 and everyone working from home amplified these trends, so we expedited bringing these capabilities to market.”

To make it easier to sell them, Versature’s sales team now has the Salesforce High Velocity Sales experience, which includes all the key data sales reps need in a single interface. With greater integration, reps no longer have to look for information in other systems, which makes it easier to focus on the prospect or customer at the end of the line.
 

We don’t just have a CRM system, we have an integrated business platform that supports every stage of the customer journey. And if we need to add functionality to meet new customer or business expectations, we can have it up and running in a week not a year.”

Jonathon Moody, President and COO, Versature

A data-driven marketing team makes more intelligent spending decisions.

Managing leads and sales is easier from the outset with Pardot. New leads from Versature’s website and external vendors are automatically scored, prioritized, and distributed via Pardot to make sure tracking is airtight. “With Pardot, we can track KPIs such as the percentage of leads that become opportunities, the number of touchpoints, the time from lead to client, and the sales conversion rate and compare them to industry averages,” explained Homere. “This means we have the transparency to make sure we’re getting good ROI from our lead generation partners, and can work collaboratively with them to ensure we’re getting the best leads.”

Pardot also helps reps get in touch with new leads promptly. “The probability of converting a lead is massively increased if you can make contact within five minutes,” explained Homere. “With Pardot, we can achieve this.”

Versature can also gain insights into its marketing investments, for example it can identify specific verticals where it’s performing well and whether it’s worth investing more marketing and advertising dollars. “We’re now a data-driven team and can make more intelligent decisions about how we spend. As a result, we’re achieving more than our competitors at a much lower cost,” revealed Homere. 

Personalized service is key to retention rates.

Once a lead has converted, Versature has a seamless onboarding process with Service Cloud. “Smooth, personalized, and thorough onboarding not only improves customer satisfaction and adoption, which is a big focus area for us, but also reduces the volume of support calls at a later date,” explained Moody.

Technical support and customer success teams also rely on Service Cloud to provide the experience for which Versature has become known. When a customer has a query, they’re connected to an advisor within two minutes. With Service Cloud, the advisor knows exactly who they are, which solutions they have, and whether they’ve called before, which makes for a much easier call for both the customer and the agent.

Versature’s customer success team uses Service Cloud to proactively manage renewals, and is key to the company’s high retention rate. Armed with an automatically calculated client engagement score that’s based on product usage and engagement, the team can identify customers that may be less likely to renew and get in touch to start a discussion or offer help. 

Connected data paints a full picture of the business.

With all prospect and customer data within Salesforce, from the origin of the lead and conversion timescales to the onboarding experience and number of support calls, Versature can better understand its customers and its business. It can also empower staff to collaborate across departments with the single goal of providing a flawless customer journey.

“We have the same quality of data and business intelligence as a much larger enterprise with dedicated data scientists,” said Moody. “With stats to take out the guesswork, we can afford to take risks to see if new things work – from billboard advertising to piloting new features with clients.”

To help it continue to optimize its investment in Salesforce, Versature has hired a dedicated Salesforce Architecture and has just started to roll out Einstein Analytics. “Our plan is to combine more complex data in our reports and predict churn risk more accurately,” revealed Moody. “Salesforce works at two levels – it helps us make incremental improvements that add up to a better customer experience, while giving us the freedom to experiment with more radical innovations, and accurately measure their success.”
 

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