Fortune 500 manufacturing company experiences 32% higher conversion rates and improved sales personalization after Slalom implements Groove
This Fortune 500 manufacturing company knew it needed to revamp its inside sales process. The outsourced team it was using to generate opportunities was sending over bogus inbound leads to hit promised numbers. Even worse, they responded to prospects with the same message instead of personalizing messages based on the industry or lead source.
The company decided to overcome these issues by bringing the inside sales function in-house. Building out a team was just part of it. They also needed to find a sales engagement platform that mapped tightly to its business structure and needs. For that, the company turned over the evaluation process to Slalom, a global consulting firm focused on strategy, technology, and business transformation.
A Fortune 500 manufacturing company that sells some of the world’s most popular technology products was at a crossroads. Its B2B division had been relying on an outsourced vendor for inside sales, and the arrangement was generating serious quality control issues. Unqualified leads were being created to meet quota and no effort was being made to personalize messages. The company decided to bring inside sales in-house, which also required finding the right sales engagement platform for its new inside sales team. The company turned to Slalom Consulting to provide them with an expert evaluation of the leading sales engagement providers, with the most important criteria being Salesforce integration and ease of use for their sellers.
After an extensive evaluation, Slalom selected Groove, which Slalom was able to implement in a matter of weeks instead of months. This enabled Slalom to focus on client strategy, Flow design, and template creation instead of the heavy and time-consuming operational lift required with other platforms. Within a month of implementation, the Fortune 500 manufacturer saw a 32% increase in the conversion rate for leads that came in through the new process that Slalom created with Groove versus their previous outsourced provider.
The company gave strict parameters to Slalom for its new sales engagement platform. On the technical side, it needed to integrate tightly and easily with Salesforce, as well as being quick to implement and not difficult to manage.
On the user side, the most important criteria was an intuitive UI that would maximize adoption by reps not familiar with sales engagement platforms.
“The company initially asked us to look at Salesforce Engage as well as two of the biggest providers,” said Zenobia Noor, Sr. Consultant, GGP Salesforce. “Salesforce’s solution was too lightweight for what they needed, and the other two required too much IT time to implement. Plus, their UIs were so complicated that the company didn’t think that their reps could figure out how to use them.”
Slalom’s search for an enterprise sales engagement platform that was easy to use and easy to implement led her to Groove. Zenobia was initially drawn to Groove by how quickly it could be implemented due to its Salesforce-native architecture. Groove’s easy-to-use interface and the support she received from Groove’s Account Manager sealed the deal.
“For each solution, the company wanted to know how much time their IT team would need to spend on the implementation, mapping, and everything else,” said Zenobia. “On top of that, they wanted to know about ongoing maintenance and whether they’d have to bring every update into a sandbox for testing.”
As a managed package, Groove maintains Salesforce as the database of record. This approach eliminates the need to map fields or sync between two systems. As a result, Groove reduces the time required to implement and manage the system by as much as 90%.
As a Salesforce Marketing Champion, I’ve implemented the other two big players in sales engagement many times, and I was blown away by how much easier it was to implement Groove.
Zenobia Noor
Sr. Consultant, GGP Salesforce
“We were done with the technical implementation of Groove in a couple of hours versus the weeks or months I’ve spent implementing other platforms.”
The time Slalom saved on implementation enabled it to focus on client strategy, template creation, and automated message Flow design. As a result, the company’s inside sales team was able to get up and running on Groove right away.
When you have a platform like Groove that’s so easy to use and automates so much, the digital transformation happens naturally.
Zenobia Noor
Sr. Consultant, GGP Salesforce
“Even if you have a culture where reps are not willing to adopt new technology, once they see how useful it is, the word gets out and adoption quickly follows. That’s exactly what happened with Groove.”
Another big benefit was tighter alignment between sales and marketing. Groove’s templates and Flows enabled the company’s marketing team to have greater control over the messages being used to engage prospects.
“Groove makes it really easy to onramp reps who are often early in their career,” said Zenobia. “Groove Flows guides reps through the steps they need to follow. They can still personalize their messages, but you don’t have to worry about them going rogue.”
Since rolling out Groove to the company’s new inside sales team, they’ve experienced impressive results.
“Right away, we saw that leads brought in through the new Groove-powered process had a 32% higher conversion rate.
Zenobia Noor, Sr. Consultant, GGP Salesforce
As partners, Groove and Slalom provide organizations with the technology and strategy needed to increase the productivity, effectiveness, and accountability of their revenue teams.
“We wouldn’t have been able to complete this project without the people and platform that Groove brought to the table,” said Zenobia. “In fact, Groove’s culture was a big selling point for this company.”
From people to process to technology, Groove and Slalom make it easy for revenue teams to reap the rewards of digital transformation.
“Usually, you have to make a compromise with technology solutions,” said Zenobia. “The powerful ones are typically very complicated, and the user-friendly ones are often too lightweight. With Groove, you get the best of both worlds.”
Slalom is a global consulting firm focused on strategy, technology, and business transformation. In 41 markets around the world, Slalom’s teams have autonomy to move fast and do what’s right. They are backed by regional innovation hubs, a global culture of collaboration, and partnerships with the world’s top technology providers. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Seattle, Slalom has organically grown to over 11,000 employees. Learn more at www.slalom.com.
Groove is a sales productivity platform that enables revenue leaders to boost revenue-per-rep across every division of the enterprise. Groove automates administrative tasks and makes Salesforce easy to access and update from everywhere a seller works – in the office, at home, or on the road. Whether it’s creating repeatable playbooks or using AI to synthesize complex data into actionable insights, Groove empowers sellers to operate at peak performance. More than 70,000 users at customers including Google, Uber, and Capital One leverage Groove to be more efficient and effective.