Yeti Coolers
Yeti Coolers
As business heats up, YETI stays cool with Salesforce.
“Don't be afraid of the cliff — jump,” says Matt Reintjes when asked what advice he’d give to companies that are just starting out. He’s the CEO of YETI Coolers, a fast-growing company that started with a simple mission: to build a better cooler designed for serious outdoor enthusiasts rather than for mass-discount retailers. Fly-fishing aficionados and other enthusiasts have embraced the company’s innovative products, and YETI’s annual revenues now top $450 million.
Heating up without melting down
For YETI, “jumping” meant rapidly increasing its distribution channels and expanding its product line from just coolers to additional lifestyle products like drinkware and apparel. “You never want to be a spectator of your growth curve,” adds Reintjes. “But make sure that you always stay true to who you are.”
Staying faithful to YETI’s mission meant looking for ways to deliver the same type of personalized experiences the company provided when starting out to thousands of new customers and hundreds of new resellers. As its field sales team grew to hundreds of reps, YETI found it challenging to keep tabs on customer information and order histories using a hodgepodge of disparate systems, spreadsheets, and paper sticky notes.
Managers weren’t able to see where teams were succeeding and where they needed more support, so the managers couldn’t easily see how the company could continue to grow. That’s when the founders tapped Salesforce to add a new level of visibility to the company’s sales, marketing, and service processes.
Now the company has a single point of customer information and order history that’s updated in real time. “Salesforce lets us have a multipronged approach to engage both consumers and our customers,” Reintjes explains. Over the past two years, YETI’s approach has easily scaled to support revenues that have grown almost 900% by delivering personalized interactions and exceptional experiences.
Today, YETI finds, wins, and manages new partners and customers with automation. It automates sending personalized email communications, transactional emails, invoices, order confirmations, and shipping notifications — in effect, the entire order management process.
With Salesforce integrated with YETI’s back-end ERP system, all of the company’s data is synced in real time. And YETI’s sales reps can use mobile devices to access and collaborate on up-to-date account and opportunity information from anywhere, ensuring they’re always ready for the next dealer interaction.
To increase customer loyalty and encourage repeat purchases, YETI’s marketing team educates customers through a personalized journey including everything they need to care for and use YETI products. Marketing also suggests complementary products for future purchases. Meanwhile, the customer support team uses Salesforce’s unified view of every case to provide fast answers for service requests — ranging from product issues to shipping delays — to provide a more consistent support experience.
Ready for the next epic adventure
In just two years, YETI’s revenue has grown from $50 million to $450 million. As the company continues to expand into new products and markets, YETI shows no signs of slowing down. Through it all, the increased visibility that Salesforce provides the company has helped every team provide a more consistent and personalized experience while enabling management to identify areas of improvement as well as forecast needs more accurately.
“It helps us deliver on our core values,” explains Reintjes. “With Salesforce we can continue to grow our business and know we’re always ready for the next adventure.”