There’s no shortage of technological options out there for CIOs to consider. But for CH Briggs CIO Scott Withers, “It's not just about the technology. It's about the needs of the business and how I can use and select these technologies to make the business successful.”

It was the needs of CH Briggs in 2007 that prompted Withers to seek out a new CRM (customer relationships management) system. 

They decided to use salesforce.com’s CRM as an interim solution, while, as Withers puts it, “We searched for the greatest CRM platform available.” Salesforce’s “temporary” status quickly changed when CH Briggs realized, “Salesforce was much more than a CRM. We felt it was a platform that we could use to integrate and to build into our strategy to enable success at our company.”

Discovering New Business

When the housing market collapsed and residential construction all but disappeared, the company needed a way to rebound in very bad economic times. CH Briggs took their subscription to an external database of commercial projects and integrated it with Salesforce. They then applied filters and rules to highlight which projects were most relevant to them and could be developed into opportunities. According to Withers, “The results of that integration were very successful. We have regained our market share and the sales group has exceeded budget for every year since the integration has been in place.”

Making Data Mobile

CH Briggs also decreased resources needed to maintain customer databases, thanks to syncing their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system with Salesforce. In addition, CH Briggs noticed that 15% to 20% of calls being made to their call center were by outside sales reps needing “this” or “that” piece of information, typically from the ERP. The Salesforce1 Platform allowed them to make this data available in real-time via mobile devices, all but eliminating the need for rep calls to the call center.

Single Customer View

CH Briggs as an organization is divided into two parts: a traditional sales force and the architectural products group, which serves as the demand creation side of the business. “The Salesforce1 Platform really enables us to collect all information from many systems that have installed over the years and have it be available at one place, not only to our outside folks, but also to people within the organization,” says Withers. The result has been a 360-degree view of their customer and an understanding of their likes, dislikes, how and when they want to do business, and what prompts them to buy. Withers says the ultimate payoff has been customer retention for the long term.

This 'Share Your Success' project is a blog series that spotlights a customer story. Feel free to Share Your Success story with us and be in the next blog post.

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