Clear boosts revenue growth with a 2x increase in licence renewals

Clear (from the makers of Cleartax) is a fintech SaaS company trusted by 4,000+ enterprises, 1,00,000+ tax practitioners, and over five million Indian taxpayers. The company’s services – which range from accounts payable automation, to tax and compliance lifecycle management, to treasury and secretarial compliance automation – help CFOs create a connected finance ecosystem.

To Clear, customer-centricity means offering every enterprise a simple, seamless, and consistent experience on its platform.

Bridging data silos with a single, unified platform

When the Enterprise division of Clear approached Salesforce, it had grown 5x in six months. But with customer data scattered across spreadsheets, teams struggled to deliver consistent customer experiences.

Internal collaboration was also a challenge without a common CRM platform. Key account managers needed an integrated and real-time customer view to deliver better service.

“Customers loved the experience of our online GST filing platform – but they sometimes needed technical support,” says Archit Gupta, Founder & CEO, Clear. “Our goal was to proactively identify their struggles, and offer timely help.”

Clear began looking for a single, unified platform that would help scale up customer support, while also enabling sales, marketing, and service teams to deliver a consistent customer experience.

Sales automation enables a 2x increase in licence renewals

Today, Clear uses Salesforce to automate and streamline its customer experience and sales cycle. Teams can now fulfil customer needs faster and with less friction.

Through deep system integration, leads flow into Salesforce from Clear’s platform, improving lead visibility and response time. Salesforce Marketing Cloud also captures leads from various marketing channels, along with their product preferences, buying behaviour, and other relevant information, and pushes these to the CRM. This helps teams identify what prospects are really interested in, allowing Clear to approach and nurture them in a targeted manner.

Teams can also prioritise high-intent sales opportunities, track conversions, and manage entire deals through to closure. Predictive intelligence based on historical sales data makes it easy to prioritise deals for optimal conversions.

Based on the terms of each deal, Clear platform users are granted a user licence with a clearly-defined duration, user cap, and other limitations that prevent platform overuse. Data flows from Clear’s platform to Salesforce, giving teams complete visibility into how customers are using each product. So, when a licence is up for renewal, pricing is easier to calculate.

“Earlier, our licences were managed manually – which meant that we didn’t always know when they had expired, or if the user cap had been breached,” recounts Gupta. “But with automated processes, licence renewals have been on-time and up-to-date.

“We’ve seen a 2x increase in our renewal rate, thanks to improvements in licence management,” says Gupta.

Meanwhile, customer onboarding and communication have been streamlined. So, if a customer has a question about payments or invoicing, their email is automatically routed to the finance department for faster resolution. Similarly, any breaches in SLAs are automatically escalated to the next level.

“We’ve put in a number of processes to manage customer issues quickly and transparently,” says Gupta. “Even billing will eventually be automated. So, customers can have a smooth experience at every touchpoint.”

A unified CRM platform helps teams work smarter

With a single customer view, sales teams are more tuned in to customer needs. Plus, they’re better able to identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities.

“We're seeing our account managers engage smarter, close deals faster, and offer customers more relevant products,” says Gupta.

At the backend, streamlined approvals and automated workflows supercharge employee productivity. “All our teams across sales, marketing, operations, legal, and support are collaborating easier with a unified platform,” says Gupta.

Clear has also built an online community for its channel partners and distributors using Salesforce Experience Cloud.

“We now have a complete channel management solution that makes it simple to onboard partners, and monitor channel sales,” says Gupta.

‘Clear’ customer visibility helps agents resolve 90% of service tickets within SLAs

Apart from sales, Clear’s entire service cycle is managed on Salesforce Service Cloud.

“Having a single source of customer truth helps us support customers better throughout their filing journey,” says Gupta. “With data integrated from the Clear platform, we know exactly where the customer is stuck, and can proactively offer assistance.”

Salesforce is closely linked to JIRA to help the engineering team respond faster to technical support tickets. Service agents are also empowered with knowledge articles to resolve customer queries quickly.

“Today, 90% of our tickets are closed within defined SLAs,” says Gupta.

Next: Chatbots and collaboration tools will improve customer engagement

Going forward, Clear wants to augment service with chatbots that offer live support. Customer queries captured via these tools and other support channels will be consolidated on a single platform for faster ticket creation and resolution.

The company is also looking to connect Salesforce to Slack and other tools for higher engagement.

“The end goal is to have a unified view of customers across all channels of engagement,” says Gupta. “This way, we can deliver the connected and personalised experiences that customers deserve.”

With the right investments in technology, Clear is all set to achieve its goals.

“We’re making it easier than ever for customers to manage their finances, and improve their relationship with money,” says Gupta. “That wouldn’t be possible without platforms like Salesforce helping us understand and support customers better, every step of the way.”

Clear has always made tax and compliance simple. Now, with automation and a single source of customer truth on the Salesforce Einstein 1 Platform, teams across touchpoints are empowered to serve customers faster and smarter. The result? Higher customer satisfaction and revenue.