Porter stays on the fast track in the logistics sector with Salesforce

In its early days, Porter used an in-house CRM tool to track sales leads and collect customer data. But as it pursued scale, the team realised that they would need to rapidly weed out inefficiencies related to bookings, lead conversions and driver onboarding.   

“We wanted our in-house development team to focus on our core product offering," says Shubham Gupta, AVP, Engineering, “and so looked outside for a feature-rich platform that we could deploy to manage all the other processes around offering a complete solution.

“Salesforce, with its strong analytical platform, reliable developer community, and data-driven approach, enables us to capture all data in one dashboard, contextualise client communication, and provide them with a complete solution,” he adds.

Porter started using Sales Cloud in 2016 for lead generation and sales pipeline management. “Whether leads come in from the Porter customer app, third-party data, or missed calls, with Sales Cloud we are able to bring them to one place and analyse the propensity of a lead to convert into a customer,” says Rathi. This streamlining process has reduced lead conversion time from 20 days to three - four days.

Driver-partners are a critical part of the Porter network and Sales Cloud has helped drastically reduce the entry barriers related to welcoming them on board. Onboarding a new driver used to be a three-step process. From scanning  identification documents for inclusion in the Porter database, to installing the app on their phones and finally being trained, driver onboarding previously took approximately six hours from start to finish.

“We have streamlined the driver onboarding process to simplify it, and with Sales Cloud, have cut this down to 45 minutes. In fact, we have on-boarded a higher number of drivers this year than in the past three years combined,” says Rathi.

Porter is also using Service Cloud within its contact centre for omni-channel case management and resolution. All tickets raised through the customer and partner app are routed to Service Cloud for faster resolution. The solution offers email-to-case routing and is integrated with the voice channel as well. This omni-channel ticket management solution has helped vastly improve case resolution times.  

With all of Porter’s customer data from across its different systems and applications flowing into Salesforce, the team also has access to a single source of customer data, enabling a 360 degree view of the customer.

“Data from our order management system, customer management service, driver management service, website and app – everything is now available in one place. A 360 degree view of the customer is allowing us to adapt and target our communication appropriately,” says Mahidhar Reddy, Product Manager. “When an agent knows the complete customer context, they can address needs accordingly, and this builds customer confidence,”  he explains.  

Porter is nothing if not innovative, and the leadership team is experimenting with different marketing tactics.

Driver-partners are eligible for incentives and preferential bookings if they sport the Porter branding on their mini trucks. Porter carries out periodic verification by asking the driver to upload a photograph of this branding as proof.

“We used to verify these photos manually, and Salesforce’s highly customisable offering has been an asset here. With Salesforce, we can now easily document as many as 15,000 photos a month, and review them for authenticity. And this system was made live within two weeks!” says Reddy.

Salesforce is also helping the Porter team make strategic decisions based on actual data. “Salesforce allows us to attribute each and every customer registration and interaction to a channel. If an agent has worked hard on a lead, we are able to attribute it to them and incentivise them,” says Gupta.

“For a tech heavy and data-dependent organisation like ours, accurate reporting gives us the confidence to fine tune our interactions with the customer and maximise efforts on the best performing channels,” adds Rathi. 

For Porter, the next step is integration. The team plans to deploy Lightning Data Connect for better data management and also AI-based Einstein bots for in-app customer queries and resolution.

“We have just begun migrating to platform services, and are excited to continue working with Salesforce to open up opportunities to delight our customers,” says Gupta.

“Salesforce is very reliable and offers a great user experience. In fact, we use Salesforce as inspiration and I ask all our UI developers to look at what Salesforce has done when we are designing an interface.”