Wintrust Increases Productivity and Activities Tracked with Groove’s Secure Platform

A publicly traded financial holding services company increases productivity by streamlining workflows and activities tracked with Groove

The Highlights

Wintrust is a publicly traded financial holding company operating over 170 bank locations throughout the greater Chicago and southern Wisconsin market areas. A core part of Wintrust’s business is providing capital to companies looking to fund revenue-generating equipment and services. Wintrust had been relying on a rudimentary email tracking and analytics tool to coordinate and optimize its prospecting efforts into these businesses, but several IT security and compliance challenges prompted them to find a more secure and robust provider. After evaluating the top sales engagement platforms, Wintrust chose Groove for its industry-leading security, Salesforce-native architecture, automated message flows, cross-team collaboration capabilities, and superior ease of use. Since switching to Groove, Wintrust has exponentially increased productivity gains by streamlining workflows and increasing activity capture.

Big Wins

• Increased activity capture
• Increased productivity gains across teams
• Improved data hygiene with more precise sales forecasting

The Full Story

Founded in 1991, Wintrust is a financial holding company that provides community-oriented, personal, and commercial banking services via a network of over 170 bank locations across the greater Chicago and southern Wisconsin market areas. A core part of its business is prospecting into businesses that need capital to purchase business-critical equipment and services. Wintrust had been relying on an aging email analytics platform for email tracking and notifications, but a variety of IT security and compliance issues put them on the search for a more secure and robust provider.

Finding the Perfect Fit

Industry-leading security was a top priority for Wintrust, but they also wanted a platform that would enable dozens of sales reps to easily scale their prospecting while boosting collaboration and productivity. Wintrust also required a platform that would be easy to onboard and adopt for its experienced team. After a rigorous evaluation process of multiple providers, Wintrust chose Groove for the superior security and ease of use made possible by its Salesforce-native architecture, as well as its robust set of productivity, collaboration, and messaging automation features.

By maintaining Salesforce as the system of record, Groove eliminates the security risks and administration overhead that comes with maintaining data in a secondary database. Groove’s unique architecture and commitment to data security, including end-to-end encryption and compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and global privacy laws, assured Wintrust of their choice.

Wintrust was also drawn to Groove’s expansive productivity and automated messaging capabilities that could be easily configured to support different teams.

Big Results

Since implementing Groove, Wintrust has generated remarkable productivity gains across teams. By eliminating tedious administrative tasks, automating key activities, and streamlining rep’s daily workflows, Groove has enabled Wintrust to focus on high-value activities.

The single best thing about Groove is the efficiency enhancements. Being able to focus our time and effort where we’re going to get the best return really does give us our Fridays back.– Robert Harris, Vice President, Wintrust Commercial Finance

Before Groove, it would take Wintrust’s sales reps up to two weeks to work through 250 contacts. Today, one rep can get through that same amount in just three days. Robert Harris, a Vice President at Wintrust Commercial Finance, puts it this way: “Before Groove, logging emails and calls would be all manual. With Groove Flows, it’s automated with premade templates. Now, activity logging happens with one click versus multiple tedious steps.”

The activity capture and automation Groove provides has led to faster lead qualification and expanded outreach into new industries. Additionally, reps now have insight into what opportunities they should be spending more time on by using Groove Spaces to collaborate with other reps and sales leaders.

Groove Spaces allows us to determine which accounts have better engagement than others,and get insights into where we might be dropping the ball.– Robert Harris, Vice President, Wintrust Commercial Finance

Wintrust had concerns about rolling out new technology to its experienced team, but the feedback about Groove has been very positive. In addition to qualifying accounts at a much faster pace, they are taking advantage of having Groove’s Omnibar in the inbox to easily drill down into accounts to better prepare for meetings and outreach.

The productivity gains we get from Groove are unbeatable.– Tom Forbes, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer, Wintrust Commercial Finance

Groove has also eliminated the compliance and security issues that Wintrust faced with its previous provider. Wintrust appreciates that all of its customer data is subject to all of the security protocols Groove has in place through its Salesforce-native platform.

Growing With Groove

Based on Wintrust’s initial success with Groove, it is now exploring ways to use the platform more extensively, including accessing more granular reporting to better manage its sales teams, as well as ensuring consistent sales follow-up and execution through new capabilities such as Groove Plays. Wintrust is also looking at integrating Groove’s online scheduler into multiple-step, multiple-touch Flows that are tailored to each individual rep.

Award-Winning Customer Support

On top of the extensive benefits, Groove has provided Wintrust with top-tier security and improved productivity: Wintrust values its strong relationship with Groove’s Customer Support Team, praising their proactive approach and seamless collaboration.

Our experience with Groove has been more proactive than other vendors we have worked with. Our CSMs have been instrumental in driving the team to success. From making presentations to doing demos, they are always willing to help.– Kim Lewsader, Sr. Reporting Analyst, Wintrust Commercial Finance

The Results?

• Increased activity capture
• Increased productivity gains across teams
• Improved data hygiene with more accurate forecasting

Wintrust Commercial Finance is a division of Wintrust Asset Finance Inc. Banking products provided by Wintrust Financial Corp. banks.