It switched to the new Lightning version of the Salesforce Service Cloud, trained an internal Salesforce specialist to provide guidance for others, and helped its people, step-by-step, to become familiar with a gradual rollout of new functionality within the platform.
Appsolutely was heavily involved in the Lightning implementation and increasing the Salesforce adoption rate. The result? CB employees have really taken to Salesforce. Ronald Janssen, IT director at CB, takes us through this success story. Or should we say: love story?
“We implemented the Salesforce Service Cloud at CB over six years ago. It was mainly used by our customer service department. Our business office, debtor management and finance people also initially embraced it. However, over time we noticed that their enthusiasm waned. They did not consider Salesforce as a tool, but rather as an obstacle. People didn’t enjoy working with it. This was a real shame, because you can do so much with it. "
“So we asked ourselves: ‘Do we want to continue with our investment in Salesforce?’ But during our discussions it became clear that we had full confidence in the platform, and that it could indeed help in optimizing our customer service. We therefore felt it was worthwhile breathing new life into the use of the Salesforce Service Cloud.”
"The Appsolutely experts are goal-oriented, pragmatic and knowledgeable, but also appreciate the value of fun. We understand each other, and that created a positive atmosphere during our collaboration.” - Ronald Janssen, IT Director at CB
“Although we had no complaints about the Salesforce business partner we used at the time, we nonetheless decided to look for a smaller partner who better matched our employees. One who could also temporarily become part of our team. We asked Salesforce directly, who immediately recommended Appsolutely to us. It was a masterstroke, because there was an instant click. The Appsolutely experts are goal-oriented, pragmatic and knowledgeable, but also appreciate the value of fun. We understand each other, and that created a positive atmosphere during our collaboration.”
“We drew up a four-step plan together with Appsolutely. The first phase involved upgrading to Salesforce Lightning, so we would have the latest version to work on. In parallel, we decided to go for the low-hanging fruit: carrying out small improvements that quickly increased satisfaction among the users. We recently completed this phase, faster than expected.”
“I had imagined that most of this phase would be taken up by upgrading to Lightning, because it required quite a bit of customization. However, I was pleasantly surprised. The implementation of Lightning was rapid and smooth. This created plenty of space for carrying out improvements that would increase the adoption rate. For example, processes and screens that were unpopular in our customer service department were made more user-friendly. In doing so, we got rid of the main annoyances, and the department is now enthusiastic.”
"The perception of Salesforce was improved even before the team delivered anything." - Ronald Janssen, IT Director at CB
“How we completed the implementation so quickly and successfully? We drew up an agile plan together with Appsolutely, a scrum master and the functional application management (FAM) team, and then rolled out it in phases. The first step was to migrate a limited number of users, who were allowed to try the system out. We then addressed the problems they encountered, and gradually rolled out an updated version to other users.”
“This team was fully integrated into our organization. That turned out to be an important success factor. By physically sitting next to the end users, giving lots of demos and putting a whiteboard showing backlogs in the department, everyone felt involved. The perception of Salesforce was improved even before the team delivered anything. We also hired a young professional who fully mastered Salesforce. He was brought up to speed by the Appsolutely experts. In this way, both the FAM and our own specialist could directly support the other CB employees."
“After the implementation, we no longer wanted to depend solely on the knowledge and expertise of an external Salesforce partner. The Appsolutely consultants were open to helping train our own Salesforce specialist. That may not seem like standard practice, but it is for Appsolutely. In fact, it was always their intention to make us independent in our use of Salesforce.”
“We completed the first phase in March 2020. And we have every intention of continuing our collaboration with Appsolutely for the remaining ones. Unfortunately, phases two, three and four were delayed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. But nonetheless, we want to link our telephone exchange to Salesforce. Further developing our internal expertise in this software platform is also still high on our priority list.”
“The negative perception of Salesforce within CB is gone. With this project, we have shown that it has a great deal to offer. It’s a powerful tool for helping both ourselves and our customers. In that respect, our goal has been achieved: happy employees. And that has a positive impact on our customers.”
