Canada Life transforms sales cycle with 360 degree view of customers and greater team collaboration

Rob the Sales Professional at Canada Life used to have to check notes from multiple sources when following up new sales opportunities and preparing for meetings. Now he just has to check a single dashboard, a single source of information and go out with confidence.

David Greenall, e-Business Manager for Canada Life UK reveals, “With Salesforce CRM we can answer the questions we need to validate decisions and grow our business.”

From lead tracking to preparing for meetings, Salesforce CRM has helped Canada Life bring greater visibility and efficiency to its sales operation. “With Salesforce Mobile App our account managers have a client’s whole history in their pocket,” added Ben Taylor, e-Business Development Consultant. “They can refresh their knowledge before a client meeting and update the rest of the team on the outcome on the train home. This input along with other MI we add enables a greater consistency in our sales process and effectiveness as we improve the tracking and follow-up of leads. We apply a greater intelligence of accounts and improve conversion rates.”

With more than 100 years’ experience in providing quality financial solutions in the UK, Canada Life’s vision is to be a world-class financial services provider, helping customers to achieve more through the excellence and integrity of its 45 Relationship Managers.

A policy for success

Canada Life UK’s Salesforce story began in 2014. “We reached a point where people would have paper and spreadsheets to manage their plans” recalls Taylor. “We wanted to remove that complexity and display all our client and product data in a single dashboard.”

In 2014, the company bought 70 Sales Cloud licences and it hasn’t looked back since.

“I first encountered Salesforce solutions at a sister company in Canada,” Greenall explains. “What they had was a blueprint for success. I could say with total confidence ‘I want that one!’”

The company was after a mobile-friendly solution that was easy to use, and with Salesforce it found just that. “What I like about Salesforce is that it puts us in control of CRM – and it really has that ‘wow’ factor,” explains Greenall.

This ‘wow’ factor has been crucial to the success of the implementation. “The success of any CRM system comes down to getting people to use it,” says Greenall. “We’ve had such a great adoption rate that we’ve had to buy additional licences as more and more people want access to Salesforce.”

The Sales Cloud dashboards have proved particularly popular at Canada Life UK. Sales reps can view the sales pipeline as easily from their smartphones as from their laptop, and managers’ dashboards enable them to identify challenges before they become issues.

“We have calls with our Sales Managers every week to discuss how we can improve our Salesforce implementation,” says Taylor. “Our users can see that this is a system built for them and that’s been key to its success.”

With Salesforce CRM growing in popularity, the company has recently deployed Pardot to enable more targeted email campaigns. Taylor observes, “Pardot’s integration with Salesforce allows deeper client insight to be built in one place. Web usage, e-mail and lead nurturing can be developed so our sales professionals can target their valuable time.”

Uniting the workforce

Using Salesforce Chatter, an enterprise networking solution, has also contributed to greater sharing across our sales teams and better customer relationships. “Using Chatter means reps on the road can connect quickly and easily with in-house experts to respond to customer queries, which in turn helps them close more deals,” says Taylor. “We can align the whole business behind the sales team.”

The solution is also used by employees to collaborate on projects, with user groups set up to offer support in different areas, such as proposition collaboration, feedback and market updates.

As the company plans for the future, Salesforce CRM is an essential part of its approach. “With the data captured in Sales Cloud we can see where we’ve been successful and where we need to address challenges,” confirms Greenall. “Senior managers can make smart decisions as they have access to reliable reports and data.”

With the sales team freed up from chasing paper and the business communicating and collaborating more effectively, Canada Life UK now has the backbone in place to grow its business and offer more customers smarter services.

“When you get your hands on Salesforce you feel like you can take on the world,” concludes Taylor. “The system is brilliantly simple and the potential is as big as your imagination. We’re very excited to see where we can take it in the future.”