iTOO boosts sales conversion by 60%

Headquartered in South Africa, iTOO is a specialty insurance provider serving entrepreneurs, niche start-ups, and innovators across nine countries in Africa. The company sets itself apart with its deep expertise, forward-thinking vision, and ambitious, people-oriented culture.

Poor data and inefficient processes hinder scalability.

iTOO has grown tenfold over the past decade and has ambitions to grow another tenfold in the next 10 years. As a fast-moving business that prides itself on operational excellence, iTOO wants to keep its brand and culture alive as it grows.

The company has always been a sales-oriented organization, but as a market leader, it needed to adjust its approach to become more targeted. Sales teams relied heavily on spreadsheets, emails, and frequent meetings to stay aligned, but this approach made it difficult to access reliable data, gain visibility across accounts, or generate actionable insights. 

Service teams faced similar challenges. Limited transparency into client interactions and manual processes made it harder to deliver a consistent, high-quality customer experience as the client base continued to grow.

To support its ambitious growth plans, iTOO invested in a new approach that would free its highly-skilled teams from repetitive manual tasks. By equipping them with tools that increase efficiency and visibility, teams can focus on the work they enjoy most and deliver greater value to the business.

Financial Services Cloud simplifies relationship management across 1,000+ brokers.

In 2023, iTOO transformed its sales and service operations by implementing Financial Services Cloud. The platform now supports relationship management across more than 1,000 brokers, including lead nurturing, funnel management, opportunities, and service interactions.

Previously, iTOO could only record engagement at the broker company level. Today, sales teams can track interactions with individual stakeholders, which means they can have tailored and relevant conversations – with the right people at the right time.

Sales teams increase conversion rates by 60%.

Salesforce gives sales teams real-time visibility into quotes, deal status, and pipeline health; insights they simply didn’t have before. Managers can now quickly spot stalled opportunities and identify specific products or broker segments that require greater sales effort. They can also pinpoint broker companies that might need additional training or motivation to position iTOO’s products more effectively.

This increased visibility has helped streamline processes and increase iTOO’s sales conversion ratio by 60%. Greater transparency has also broken down silos, strengthening collaboration between sales, underwriting, and service teams.

Teams can clearly identify and act on cross-selling opportunities.

Salesforce has also unlocked new cross-sell and upsell opportunities. With a broad portfolio of specialty insurance products, an analysis at iTOO revealed that the average customer holds just 1.5 products, highlighting major growth potential within its existing client base.

Before Salesforce, uncovering these opportunities required sales reps to search across multiple documents and systems. Now, Salesforce presents a complete view in one place, allowing reps to quickly identify product gaps and act on them during broker conversations.

Digital claims logging makes service more scalable, with 60% now submitted online.

On the service side, iTOO began by migrating claims management to Financial Services Cloud. Previously, claims were emailed to team inboxes to handle. Today, 60% of claims notifications flow directly into Salesforce, increasing efficiency and enabling teams to handle higher volumes as the client base grows.

Salesforce also gives service teams access to richer claims data. In the past, iTOO only recorded completed claims; now, teams capture data across the entire claims lifecycle, which means the company has a better understanding of its clients.

While many cases are still dealt with via email and phone, with Salesforce in place, iTOO is growing a new team focused on serving smaller brokers via digital channels. “By digitalizing services with Salesforce, we can work with brokers and customers that would otherwise be out of reach, while keeping other teams focused on building personal relationships with our largest brokers,” commented Mark Robinson, Head of IT, iTOO.

Automation and integration drive greater efficiency across the business.

iTOO has just started its automation journey with Salesforce Flow. By introducing micro-automations for processes such as renewals, iTOO can reduce human error and repetitive manual work, freeing teams to focus on higher-value activities. It’s also starting to tap into Financial Services Cloud’s data processing capabilities to source additional business insights.

The company has integrated Financial Services Cloud with several solutions from the Salesforce AppExchange to support seamless claims ingestion, digital document generation and signing, and enhanced security. iTOO is also currently implementing MuleSoft to simplify enterprise-wide integrations and accelerate time to market for new initiatives. “Salesforce’s AppExchange ecosystem is incredibly powerful for us. We can quickly bolt on third-party solutions to solve new challenges as they arise,” confirmed Robinson.

A unified platform lays the foundation for agentic AI.

Salesforce has unified iTOO’s teams around a single, customer-centric platform. With more than 100 active Trailhead profiles, employees are actively building Salesforce skills for the future.

With the data and architecture now in place, iTOO is exploring agentic AI to drive the next wave of efficiency. An Agentforce proof of concept is planned for Q1 next year, starting with internal AI augmentations to streamline operations, followed by data-driven insights for underwriters and, eventually, digital service agents.

“We’re an ambitious, people-oriented business. Salesforce helps us stay maverick and entrepreneurial while attracting top talent. When you lead a team, you need a vision that excites people, and Salesforce helps us bring that vision to life,” said Naylor.

Financial Services Cloud provides iTOO with a connected platform that brings together data, teams, and technology. With a powerful ecosystem of AppExchange partners and integration through MuleSoft, iTOO can extend and adapt the platform as its business evolves. It now also has real-time visibility of customer and business performance data, which helps break down silos and fuel decision-making. This unification of teams and data will support iTOO’s first steps into agentic AI. “We aim to support entrepreneurs and innovators so they can conquer risk to advance the world, and we see Salesforce as an important partner in helping us unleash the potential of the business to achieve this goal,” concluded Naylor.