For most people, their dog is more than a pet; they are full-fledged members of the family. Release the Hounds, a Vancouver-based dog walking and boarding company, understands this and strives to set industry standards to provide the best experience for their customers – the dogs.

James Woller, Co-founder and VP of Business Development at Release the Hounds, joined Tom Charron, Senior Director of Sales Cloud Product Marketing at Salesforce, and myself on a recent “Talking Out Cloud: Size Doesn’t Matter” webinar to share how he scaled his business while increasing customer trust through a personalized experience for each dog and owner.

To watch the on-demand webinar, click here.

“I remember when there were still paper files on each of the dogs. All of the information was scattered and, in a lot of cases, it was just oral, stored in people’s heads and then handed down,” recalls James. “A lot of mistakes were being made so we looked for a platform that we could develop to collect and house all that information and that’s what led us to Salesforce.”

James recruited Torq Systems to help him customize Salesforce Sales Cloud, which allowed Release the Hounds to accomplish its goal of systematizing their business to ensure they could gain customer trust by knowing the important details about their pets.

James outlined three keys to success for Release the Hounds’ Salesforce implementation:

1) Define a plan and roadmap for the different phases

Release the Hounds has engaged with Torq Systems on three different projects over the years. During the first phase, Salesforce Sales Cloud was implemented and customized for Release the Hounds. This included a custom “Dog” object for employees to track important details about the pets they were walking, and a customized Salesforce1 app for dog walkers to access on the go. Once the first phase was complete, and users were comfortable with the platform, the company automated their accounting process through Salesforce and then, in the most recent phase, they integrated with DocuSign to further automate their business processes.

2) Create an iterative and collaborative project

James’ input and expertise of his business were considered at every phase of the project to ensure that any modifications were adding to the company’s efficiency. Torq Systems’ iterative approach let James see the platform working for his company throughout development, which gave him a stronger understanding of how it could be tailored specifically to Release the Hounds. This approach was used throughout the project to the point where James was able to outline specific data points to collect in the custom dog object, such as allergies and food specifications.

3) Include customizations that improve day-to-day business operations

Salesforce Sales Cloud can be tailored to meet any organizational needs, so Torq Systems walked James through the customizations that would help Release the Hounds become even more efficient. As James mentioned during the webinar, the business recently integrated with DocuSign to reduce manual data entry errors. “In the last year of over 40,000 (dog walks), we’ve only had four mistakes. I mean it’s unheard of, but when we house all the information and data in Salesforce, it has allowed us to nearly eliminate operational errors.”

Release the Hounds is just one example of how small businesses can leverage Sales Cloud to enhance the way their company runs. Learn more about Release the Hounds’ journey with Sales Cloud in the “Talking Out Cloud: Size Doesn’t Matter” webinar, now available on-demand.