The client is the commercial credit unit of one of the world’s largest automobile and truck manufacturers.
The Challenge
The client, a leading automotive captive finance company, offers a wide range of automotive financing options for leasing and purchasing, including a Commercial Line of Credit (CLOC) for fleet operators. Until recently, the client relied on a manual CLOC application process, hosted in Microsoft SharePoint. The legacy process required substantial time and manual effort and was also prone to human error. What’s more, the application required manual intervention for each successive CLOC application renewal for thousands of commercial accounts.
At its root, this was a data problem. There was no integration between the client’s CLOC application system and their Dealer Information System, which was the single source of truth for customer details on approved CLOC contracts. Consequently, users of the SharePoint application needed to work across multiple applications and update data manually, costing the company time and money. In addition, as with the primary application process, credit renewals lacked automation (e.g., automated validations) and were prone to manual errors.
The Solutions
After detailed consultation and consideration of the technology options, Persistent recommended replacing the client’s legacy SharePoint system with an integrated platform of Salesforce cloud solutions. The solution architecture relied on four clouds: Salesforce Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Interaction Studio, which enabled the online automation of the CLOC application creation process, along with workflow automation to reduce manual effort.
Data integration was key to the solution: Persistent set up a web application form (for commercial credit) on the client’s website and ported the data inputs directly into Salesforce. Next, we integrated Salesforce and Dealer Information System to fetch CLOC contract details to Salesforce and tied in the client’s Customer Domain System to generate a unique ID for every customer. The solution offered an enhanced user experience (UX), presenting a Customer View with all relevant details available on one screen, including status updates and automated notifications to customers and executives. We also implemented new cross-sell features to make customers aware of related opportunities and offerings.
The Outcome
The Salesforce/Persistent cloud solution enabled the client’s CLOC applications to be created automatically, improving agent productivity through automated workflows. The solution quickly reduced turnaround times, due to system integrations and automation – and both manual effort and human errors were reduced.
The client reported an improved User Experience (UX) thanks to the streamlined interface, and importantly, it also improved cross-selling via a series of features designed to promote sales of related financial and physical product offerings. The new cloud-based application solution is customer friendly, and provides a quick, easy, scalable portal that will expand – rather than limit – the client’s business growth in fleet sales and financing.
Technology Used
- Salesforce Sales Cloud
- Service Cloud
- Marketing Cloud
- Interaction Studio
