CASE STUDY
Integrating Customer Order Database
with CRM & Marketing Automation Systems
CMO-ToGo has transformed our sales and marketing automation into a modern machine. They tied together our back-end systems and developed a full set of email nurtures that span our customer’s lifecycle. Beyond their command of marketing, their Marketo and Salesforce.com expertise is deep and they demonstrated an unwavering drive toward execution. Last, but not least, they completed our project on time and on budget.
Scott Lewis, VP WW Operations
The Challenge
It is hard to sell more items to a customer, if you don’t know what they’ve already bought. And if you’re trying to get a customer to renew, it is hard to know when to contact them if you don’t know their contract expiration date. These are common challenges that companies face when a customer’s order data is housed in a system separate from the company’s CRM and marketing automation systems. For this client, only Finance knew definitively what each customer bought. Any time Sales & Marketing needed this data, they had to do manual reconnaissance. Automated up-sells and cross-sells were impossible since the marketing automation system did not know what each customer had purchased. Further frustrating this process, each rep had to turn to the financial system to determine when customer’s contracts were due to expire. Without contract expiration dates, Marketing couldn’t automate the renewal process.
The Solution
CMO-ToGo integrated the back-end customer order database with the front-end CRM and marketing automation systems. After implementation, the company was able to retrieve customer purchase data directly from their CRM and marketing automation systems. Using this information, CMO-ToGo created email programs that would automatically upsell customers on modules and services not yet purchased. This enabled the company to expand their share of customer wallet, and overall revenues.
Armed with contract expiration dates, CMO-ToGo built a series of renewal nurtures that encouraged customers to renew in time. Automated alerts were created to inform reps when contracts were up for renewal. By unlocking information on which customers failed to renew, the company was able to create a marketing program with incentives to encourage customers to repurchase. In addition to driving revenue, all of these efforts helped reduce customer churn.
The Implementation Process
1) Strategy & Requirements: Working with the client, CMO-ToGo defined project objectives and authored detailed requirements, highlighting key fields for integration and required data transformations. Upon client approval,development commenced.
Data Mapping Between Source & Target Systems
Flowchart showing business logic and transformation rules
2) Development: CMO-ToGo authored functional specifications based on the agreed upon requirements. After determining required tools and system environment, a quick proof of concept was conducted to surface any end-to-end issues. At this point CMO-ToGo wrote the required integration code, including audit trail, versioning, backup, alert system & exception error logging. Once all developer tests were successfully completed,QA testing commenced.
Integration Code
3) Testing & QA: Following code review and developer unit testing, the original requirements were converted into a test plan. A test environment was created to replicate the target system environment and bulk data testing commenced. With successful completion of bulk testing, CMO-ToGo commenced manual data testing, simulating client UAT (User Acceptance Testing). Once completed, we were ready for deployment.
Detailed Test Plan
4) Production & Client Hand-off: CMO-ToGo provided the client with step-by-step testing instructions along with a testing template. Upon client approval, the system was ready to move into production. The client was provided with final documentation (requirements, flow charts, code, deployment instructions, etc.). Upon approval, the new system was deployed into production.
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