JSW Steel forges positive and profitable customer relationships using Salesforce

JSW Steel is one of India’s leading steel producers. The flagship company of the $22 billion JSW Group has a production capacity of 28 million tonnes per annum, and exports its products to over 100 countries.

Ironing out sales inefficiencies

Previously, most sales processes were manual and time-consuming. Data was scattered across systems, making it difficult for teams to get a unified customer view.

“We needed a single source of customer truth across our products and teams to serve customers better,” says Shah. “We also wanted to improve sales productivity by reducing the time spent on admin tasks. Salesforce was our top pick because it’s one of the best enterprise CRMs in the world.”

Transforming sales reps into sales-smiths with powerful productivity tools

Today, JSW Steel manages its entire sales cycle on Agentforce Sales. From lead nurturing to order tracking, sales processes have been automated to fulfil customer needs faster. 

Leads from all sources (call centre, websites, and third parties) are consolidated on a single platform. So, sales reps have complete visibility into where a deal is stuck, and how to bring it back on track quickly. 

The solution allows sales reps to track their activities in a disciplined manner. This has helped them grow customer contact lists by 78%. In fact, the number of engagements being tracked has increased by 71%, and customer data quality scores have improved by 67%. 

“Last year, we generated 12,000+ leads through Salesforce, thanks to better sales efficiency and automation,” says Shah. “Converted leads contributed to roughly 3.07% of our overall sales volumes, compared to just 0.03% a year ago.” 

Further, field sales visits have been streamlined for optimal efficiency. Using the Salesforce mobile app, sales reps can easily capture customer information on-the-go. 

A 360-degree view of each customer – including their purchase history, strategic moves, and new announcements – enables reps to have more meaningful customer conversations. 

“Steel may be a basic commodity, but its applications - and customer needs - are diverse,” explains Vinay Shroff, Chief Marketing Officer, JSW Steel Limited. ‘“With Salesforce, our sales teams have all the data they need at their fingertips to connect with customers 1:1, personalise experiences at scale, and deliver value at every touchpoint.”

Even customer onboarding has been simplified through the CRM.

“It now takes us less than a minute to create a new customer account, compared to two days previously,” says Shah.

Since Salesforce is integrated with the company’s ERP system, all orders, invoices, ledgers, outstanding payments, and commercial documents can be tracked on the CRM itself.

Channel partner engagement teams also use Salesforce to select, onboard, and track the performance of distributors. Pricing teams use it to manage memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with customers. Through Chatter, all these teams can collaborate seamlessly to deliver connected customer experiences across touchpoints.

Meanwhile, powerful out-of-the-box analytics help the leadership team make better-informed decisions with real-time visibility into sales performance.

Invigorating customer relationships with an intuitive self-service portal

A self-service portal built on Salesforce enables customers to easily track their orders, real-time shipment status, ledger details, MoUs, and more. 

“Over 1,600 customers use the JSW Sambandh-Customer Portal today to self-serve,” reports Shah. “They love its flexibility and simplicity.”

Adds Shroff, “With the JSW Sambandh-Customer Portal, we’ve been able to create a key differentiator for our customers to enjoy the JSW customer experience.”

Sales reps have also benefited from the portal. “Since fewer customers are calling in with requests for documents, sales reps are saving about 20-30 minutes per day,” observes Shah. 

Customers can also log their product feedback on the portal. This data is routed to a complaints management module built on Agentforce Service which streamlines the entire process of complaint investigation and resolution, as well as corrective and preventive action.

“Our application engineering team is now a lot more efficient in how they handle complaints across 14 plant locations and 9+ product verticals,” says Shah.

To implement Salesforce, JSW Steel enlisted PwC’s help. 

“PwC played a key role in our digital transformation journey,” says Shah. “Their agility and in-depth knowledge of the manufacturing industry helped us build critical processes faster. 

“We also worked closely with the Salesforce Customer Success Team to identify process gaps, implement action plans, learn about Salesforce best practices, and plan our future roadmap. With their help, we’ve increased Salesforce adoption, and realised business value quicker.”

Moulding seamless customer experiences with a unified CRM

Now, Shah and his team want to extend the benefits of digital transformation beyond JSW Steel to other group companies, through an ambitious digital strategy called ‘Aikyam’. 

Using Agentforce Sales and Agentforce Service, the Indian conglomerate has built a single group interface, enhancing distribution, customer experiences, and supply chains for its large project division across steel and cement businesses. Creating a single customer view across group companies has equipped JSW client managers to personalise customer conversations and capitalise on cross-selling opportunities.

“Technology is an essential part of our growth strategy, and the Salesforce platform enables greater collaboration between the sales teams of different business entities by providing them with the data and tools they require to manage customer requirements and relationships more efficiently through a single group interface,” says Parth Jindal, Managing Director, JSW Cement and JSW Paints. 

“With the launch of the Aikyam initiative, we want to revolutionise the way JSW works with large clients in the infrastructure and building industries space,” adds Jindal. 

“In a group as diverse as JSW, we’re enhancing customer touchpoints across our steel, cement, and ecommerce verticals with Salesforce,” says Dheeraj Sinha, Group CIO, JSW. “The platform has become a critical success factor in our customer journey.”

Going forward, JSW Steel intends to use Salesforce to deepen customer engagement, automate marketing, and improve sales efficiency further. The company also plans to build a unified dealer management system on Salesforce.

“By bringing all our distributors, retailers, and influencers onto one platform, we'll be able to engage and support them better, while also gaining effective market insights.”

From a strategic perspective, JSW Steel is looking to expand into new markets. They also want to stay at the leading edge of technological advancements. 

“With high-tech platforms like Salesforce, we want to continuously improve our business processes, and take customer experiences to new heights,” says Shah.