“Salesforce can be addictive, we’ve always got ideas for new apps and have to be really strict to stay focused on what we need to deliver.” - László Stekl, Head of Information Technology, MOL Group
MOL Group is revolutionising the customer experience, one pit stop at a time. The energy and gas company is steering a new driver experience, giving customers more incentives to make smarter plans about where they take a break. We spoke to László Stekl, Head of Information Technology, about what’s under the bonnet of MOL Group’s Salesforce engine.
Tell us about the customer experience you’re trying to build, and how Salesforce supports it
At MOL Group, we have a huge opportunity to grow our Consumer Services business by giving drivers an amazing, personalised experience at our service stations. That means connecting with them across multiple touchpoints, creating apps to streamline the buying experience, and driving loyalty with personalised rewards at their most-used stations.
To deliver a consistent and connected customer experience we’re using Salesforce to align sales, services, and marketing processes, and we’ve built custom apps using a micro-services approach. To do that, we are using Salesforce Customer 360 products, as well as Platform capabilities.
But our ecosystem also relies on all of MOL Group technology working together, with a single source of truth when it comes to data, so we used MuleSoft to integrate more than 10 platforms using 29 APIs and making 2.5 million API calls per day.
How has MuleSoft helped to accelerate innovation?
We use MuleSoft for every type of integration and it saves us a huge amount of time. It supports experience, process, and system APIs. The first step when we need to integrate something is to check if there’s an existing connector between Salesforce and the third-party system, and so far we’ve never needed to use an external connector.
Before MuleSoft it could take up to two months to build an interface, but today we can build APIs in two to three weeks and need just one developer to set up an API. Taking a micro-services and API-based approach is the only viable way of supporting an enterprise-wide digital transformation at the scale and velocity we require.
How are you automating internal processes using Salesforce’s Platform capabilities?
We use flows, lightning web components, and custom objects to quickly build apps or extend functionality to adapt our IT systems to meet the needs of our business. For example, we used to track contract and license management in Excel, which was time-consuming and awkward for the users. Using Platform, we built an app to manage all our licenses and contracts in just six weeks, including testing.
How easy is it to customise and build new functionalities for employees and customers?
As well as being fast, it’s really easy to execute new ideas on Salesforce – in fact, Salesforce can be addictive, we’ve always got ideas for new apps and have to be really strict to stay focused on what we need to deliver before we look at what would be nice to have.
For example, a top priority was building our loyalty rewards programme on Service Cloud, which is not a traditional use of that solution. We used custom objects, standard objects, and lightning flows to adapt the solution to meet our unique requirements.
How do you manage knowledge transfer and upskill your wider team?
Our service station staff have a great training programme to transfer knowledge across all our stations, so we started looking for a similar system we could use internally. My team uses Trailhead to learn new skills and really loves its unique way of explaining things and the short quizzes at the end, so we were thrilled to discover MyTrailhead.
We’ve created trail mixes and bespoke modules that users can pick and choose from depending on their role, which has been great to help people learn complex systems and make them part of their daily routines.
What’s next on your agenda?
When the business has finished defining new processes, roles, and responsibilities, we’ll be revamping MyTrailhead so team leaders can select and run campaigns to train their staff. That’s what we really like about Salesforce, it’s easy to adapt and evolve to meet the changing needs of the business.
Investing in good technology is one thing, but you need to invest in your team to get the most impact from your digital transformation and give them goals and KPIs to keep them motivated.
Do you have any tips for new Trailblazers?
It’s important to know what you want to achieve when you start out. Your vision should be concrete, but the journey to get there needs to be very dynamic, so don’t over plan or over design or you might miss an opportunity.
When you have a solid foundation in place, you can build on it and grow the platform to make sure your processes are relevant to end users. If you keep an open mind, you’ll reach your goals faster and you might just learn some new tricks along the way.
Discover how MOL Group is transforming the customer experience with innovative customer apps and automation!
