Sage

Salesforce is helping us become the business we want to be. Instead of product-centric, we’re customer-centric.”

- Sue Goble, Chief Customer Success Officer, Sage
 
12,000 employees

1.4

million cases managed in few months

 
 

Sage helps more businesses thrive with Salesforce

From coffee machine makers and media broadcasters to florists and cruise operators, the list of businesses that rely on global accounting software company Sage to manage their finances, operations, and HR is as broad as it is long. 

With over two million customers relying on Sage accounting, financial management, and payroll software, across more than 20 countries, the FTSE 100 company is one of the UK’s largest technology brands. Sage is also a transformation success story, having pivoted from a perpetual licence software business to a software as a service (SaaS) model. Nearly 70% of the company’s total revenue is now derived from software subscription.

Salesforce has been key to this transformation enabling Sage to build stronger connections and unlock richer insights. “Customer success is fundamental to Sage’s vision of being a great SaaS company,” said Sue Goble, Chief Customer Success Officer for Sage. “With Salesforce, we can deliver greater value at every stage of the customer journey.”

 

Consolidating 50 CRM systems on a single global platform

Sage isn’t just focused on setting up its customers for success; it also wants to empower its 13,000 colleagues and drive innovation. And that means maximising visibility, efficiency, and agility across multiple teams and geographies. “Salesforce has enabled us to create a more integrated view of our customers and our operations globally,” commented Goble. “It is crucial plumbing for us.”

Salesforce is so crucial that it is fully integrated with Sage Business Cloud, the company’s digital environment for finance and people. “As part of our transformation to a SaaS company, we wanted to build a single global technology stack and prioritise integrations with our cloud products,” explained Kerry Sinclair, Executive Vice President of IT at Sage. “Salesforce is our core CRM platform and will eventually replace more than 50 legacy systems around the globe.”

 

Sage accelerates deployment of its cloud products to new regions

Sage’s partnership with Salesforce began in 2015, when the company needed to create greater alignment between its people, processes, and products. “Salesforce is helping us become the business we want to be,” said Goble. “Instead of product-centric, we’re customer-centric.”

Salesforce sits at the heart of Sage’s Global Model Office, which brings together a range of specialist cloud solutions to form an ecosystem that underpins how Sage sells to and engages with its customers. Although the implementation is still underway, Sage has closed more than 340,000 opportunities since Salesforce went live.

Sage has already used Salesforce to reimagine its business and the customer experience in its two largest markets – the UK and US – and will be bringing more regions on board in the coming months. “We decided to focus on our biggest markets first and to then implement in other countries as we expand the reach of our native cloud products,” explained Sinclair. “With a successful template in place and a host of happy advocates, the plan now is to accelerate our global roll-out.”

This phased approach has increased the speed at which Sage can deploy native cloud products in new regions, while creating a consistent customer experience in each geography.Real-time visibility of customer support

Unlocking a 360-degree view of customers’ digital journeys

To help customers get maximum value from its products, Sage needs to understand where each customer is on their journey – and where they want to go next. By unlocking these insights, Sage can guide customers towards the features and solutions that will help them manage and grow their businesses.

When customers engage with Sage – either in person or through one of its products – the interactions are captured in Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. “We now have 360-degree visibility of a customer’s digital journey with us, which means our teams can deliver a more personalised, joined-up experience for customers,” explained Sinclair.

For example, views of online support articles are tracked in Service Cloud, which means agents already know what steps have been taken to try to answer a query when a customer gets in touch. This not only saves the customer time but also helps the Sage team quickly diagnose and resolve any issues.

More than 1.4 million cases were managed via Service Cloud in few months.

“Salesforce’s approach combines simplicity with efficiency, which makes it a perfect fit for Sage,” commented Sinclair. “It’s not just about the platform’s features, but the connections Salesforce enables between colleagues and customers. It maps really well to our sales and success model.”

Richer insights empower Sage’s people to make smarter decisions

For small businesses, the goal is to offer a fully-digital buying journey, from the moment they first engage with Sage’s marketing content, to the point where they trial a product and then ultimately subscribe. By making the subscription process simple, quick, and seamless from start to finish, Sage is putting these time-poor business owners at the heart of their own experience from the outset.

For larger businesses, Sales Cloud helps to accelerate the qualification of leads, while giving Sage’s sales teams insights that will help them address customers’ priorities. This means businesses are immediately guided to the right solution, which results in a faster time to value for customers. “Bringing together Sales Cloud and Service Cloud enables us to drive new, digital experiences for our customers and enables our teams to make better-informed decisions about how to serve those customers,” commented Sinclair.

Additional business intelligence from Tableau CRM helps to build an even richer picture, by giving Sage access to key subscription metrics at a country, segment, and ultimately product level. “The reports and dashboards are very powerful,” said Goble. “Our teams can now create their own intelligence around customer data on a daily basis, which means they can make smarter decisions. And the quality of the data is getting better and better.”

Colleagues in sales and service use Chatter to collaborate in real-time on new opportunities and queries, which means a faster response for customers.

Intelligent apps and integrations accelerate digital transformation

The integration between Salesforce and Sage’s own cloud-based products is also helping to deliver a better, more seamless in-product experience for customers. They can self-serve on simple tasks, such as changing their account details or paying their subscription, and will also be prompted to turn on additional functionality that will add greater value.

New integrations and apps are critical to Sage’s digital transformation and its Global Model Office. With MuleSoft, it can accelerate the development of apps by establishing critical integrations between Sage’s ecommerce platform and backend systems, such as subscription management. MuleSoft also handles the flow of information from Sage’s customer feedback platform into backend reporting systems.

To ensure data is protected in these apps and other systems, Sage uses Salesforce Shield, which helps to strengthen compliance and governance.

Sages transforms how people think and work

By supporting the digital transformation, Salesforce has played a part in making Sage a more dynamic and rewarding place to work. The company has seen significant increases in its employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) and Glassdoor rating. It was recently named as a top company to work for in six different countries based on Glassdoor reviews, giving it the momentum and reputation to attract the best talent in the industry.

The digital journey at Sage is far from over. The introduction of new integrations and innovations will continue to make Sage’s cloud ecosystem even stronger and its customer experiences even richer. “We want to transform the way people think and work so their organisations can thrive,” said Goble. “With Salesforce, we can engage more proactively with customers at each stage of their business journey.”

 
 

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