Crown Commercial Service Builds Digital Foundation to Support Procurement Growth Strategy

In support of the synchronization of both the customer experience and technology, Salesforce was initially implemented to enhance CCS standard operations by leveraging the standard database functionality. Although 90% of the business was using Salesforce, they were predominantly on Classic (Salesforce’s former user-interface) which had been heavily customized. In addition, Google sheets and Excel spreadsheets were being utilized to document customer interactions from one business area to the next.

“We were kind of tripping over ourselves and speaking to the same customers about the same things, due to not knowing how the other areas of the business were operating. We lacked a central location to store customer engagement and pipeline information which contributed to our lack of visibility”, explained Shanie Dean, Customer Experience Performance Lead at CCS.

The CCS team began to brainstorm ways to facilitate internal alignment. A user-forum was launched that consisted of representatives from various parts of the business. The collaborative network produced a design for what each business processes should be, and how technology would support operational efficiency. “It became an iterative process. We developed a proof of concept and launched a pilot program,” said Heidi Stone, Head of Operations (CXD) at CCS. “We worked in sprints, strategised a rollout plan, and initiated a pilot with our primary function of ‘leads and opportunities’”.

During this strategic planning phase, the CCS team also decided to upgrade from Salesforce Classic to Salesforce Lightning, taking advantage of the opportunity to provide a clean slate for the new vision. “We were very clear about the design principles. We learned from our experience with Salesforce Classic that we had customized it so much that we didn't receive any of the benefits that came with system updates. We made a deliberate decision to proceed with the out-of-the-box functionality so that we could benefit from the future updates that Salesforce would provide,” explained Nichol.

The iterative design process led to the team’s re-platformed their CRM on the Salesforce Customer 360 for Government, and expanded the scope to operationalise more than just the procurement process. It bridges the gaps between people and process, giving the CCS team the ability to tailor their CRM strategy to cater to the unique workflows for each business area:

• Accounts Management Team: Sales Cloud enables this team to work proactively on leads and opportunities for new business while maintaining relationships with existing customers. The core business functionality is tracking customer engagement and pipeline management.
• Procurement Operations: With the help of Service Cloud, Procurement Operations manages customer enquiries and fulfillment request(s). It also serves as the key record for customer account management activities within the purchasing and supplying aspects of the business.
• Marketing Team: Pardot supports the Marketing Team's customer strategy. It's predominantly used for automated marketing of newsletters.
• Customer Service: This team also leverages Service Cloud to manage cases and enquiries from customers whether they be through e-mail or by phone. Knowledge empowers customer service with the best resolutions to provide optimum support. Once the opportunity gets to a certain point, it would be sent to a Commercial Specialist or an Individual Account owner to manage the customer relationship all within Service Cloud.
• Real time data visibility: “The integrated dashboards have provided visibility into the overall business operations and prompted discussion around roles, responsibilities and process improvements,” explained Stone. “This helps people see who's working with different customers and who's engaged with them. Approximately, 89% of our team logged into Salesforce last month across our organization in support of customer engagement, account management and procurement operations.”

“We were always very conscious to keep our business processes first and the system second. Salesforce is our hub and our nucleus in which our business processes are aligned,” said Nichol. By bridging the gap between people and process, the CCS team has been able to garner the kind of data-driven insights that come from unlocking real-time visibility of the business.