Transforming ISP Operations: How Salesforce Empowered a Tech Company to Streamline Services and Drive Growth

The Challenges

As the Tech Industry continues to evolve on a daily basis, we’re grateful to partner with innovative companies that are breaking down barriers in the industry. As a Salesforce Crest (Gold) Consulting Partner, we’re committed to helping our clients in the Tech Industry achieve success by leveraging our expertise to enhance their Salesforce org.

Our client, a leading cloud-based provider of billing and OSS solutions for Internet Service Providers, is one of those companies who is forging new paths in both the Tech and Communications industries. Our client provides software solutions that allow ISPs to grow and scale their business with services such as automated billing, field service and dispatch, customer service solutions, and more.

Our client needed a CRM that could provide a 360 degree view of their customers as well as allow team members to work from a single system. Before working with Kelley Austin, our client was relying on many manual processes, had data living in spreadsheets, and various siloed systems that prevented their team from having a holistic view of both customers and prospects. There was little visibility into what teams were working on, which often led to confusion among team members as to what work should be prioritized.

Our client also struggled with billing inconsistencies, which included having to generate customer credits on a monthly basis. In addition to an inadequate billing system, there was also inconsistent pricing and approvals with no safechecks. Contract and customer information was living in PDF files that weren’t easily accessible to our client’s team members. 

The Solution

Sales Cloud

We worked closely with our client to identify challenges and pain points their business faced before developing an implementation plan for Sales Cloud, Salesforce CPQ, and Pardot. Our team of Salesforce experts were able to provide strategic guidance and recommendations after evaluating their current systems and processes. 

With Sales Cloud, we were able to create an inbound lead process that automatically routes prospects to the correct sales team member, removing manual inefficiencies between the marketing and sales teams. Qualified prospects are automatically routed to the appropriate account executive, where they enter a sales process that includes validations to ensure the appropriate amount of information is captured at each stage.

Account management and the hand-off from when a prospect converts to a customer is all automated with custom geographic territories and roles established within them. With Sales Cloud, our client can track Opportunity and Project stages to not only get a better understanding of how long tasks and deals are actually taking, but to also identify when a deal is not being given the appropriate amount of attention.

To improve our client’s billing experience, we created a custom invoicing system to receive monthly consumption data for each customer, automatically generate an invoice for each customer, and send the invoice information to NetSuite. With automated document generation, our client can ensure everyone is using the most recent version of a contract, SOW, or proposal. This new invoicing system also ensures the data that’s populated in the document is accurate and has already been approved.

Salesforce CPQ

With Salesforce CPQ our client can streamline pricing, discounting, and approvals and spend less time in spreadsheets using outdated quoting processes. Team members no longer have to manually create documents outside of the system they're using for selling. Documents are generated within Salesforce and can be sent right away.

With Salesforce CPQ, we implemented a standardized quoting process with required approvals in place for discounts or terms outside of the approved threshold, which eliminates confusion and minimizes the number of clicks to create a quote, update a quote, and, ultimately, close the deal. This has helped streamline our client’s quoting process and improve overall efficiency. 

Pardot

Our client also faced many challenges with their marketing and communications strategy. They had no sense of nurture campaigns, including email nurture campaigns, and needed the right product to connect their sales data with their marketing strategy.

Our team implemented Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly known as Pardot), which allows our client to build dynamic and personalized emails and landing pages as well as seamlessly pass along leads to the sales team. To help prevent churn, we set up automated and dynamic lists so our client can market to different groups of people based on interest or where an individual is in the sales process.

Customer Impact

Before working with our team and implementing Salesforce, our client was working out of multiple systems, had limited visibility into what other teams were working on, and had data in various spreadsheets and systems. This was highly inefficient for our client’s team members who were operating out of silos and unable to prioritize their work. They needed a more comprehensive system that allowed their team members to have access to the same data and customer insights. 

With Salesforce, our client can effortlessly gather and consolidate customer data from various touch points, including sales interactions, marketing campaigns, customer service interactions, and more.

After implementing Sales Cloud, Salesforce CPQ, and Pardot, team members can all work from a single platform and make data-driven decisions to move their company forward. Each product works together to allow for more seamless collaboration among the sales and marketing teams.

With Salesforce, our client can effortlessly gather and consolidate customer data from various touch points, including sales interactions, marketing campaigns, customer service interactions, and more. By centralizing this information in a unified platform, Salesforce allows our client to gain deep insights into customer preferences, behavior patterns, and engagement history. This comprehensive view has helped our client personalize interactions, anticipate needs, and deliver exceptional customer experiences at every stage of the customer journey.