Background

Plymouth Rock Energy (PRE) has over 60 years of experience providing energy services to homes and businesses throughout the Northeast U.S. The company started as a family owned business in 1948, delivering coal and fuel oil to customers in New York’s metro area; it has since grown into a leading independent energy provider, offering natural gas and electricity services for various sustainable solutions. PRE continues to expand and reach new markets throughout the country, helping manage the energy needs of an incredibly diverse customer base.

The Problem

Continued deregulation in the energy market means consumers now have more choices than ever before when it comes to choosing an energy provider. PRE had experienced continued growth in its customer base, but that growth has led different divisions within the organization — all of which were operating on multiple home-grown legacy systems that were unreliable, inefficient, and vulnerable to data glitches.  The business had to mold itself to the constraints of the software rather than grow in the flexible way that its customers demanded. The CIO envisioned a company that could grow exponentially, iterate in real-time, and provide customers with outstanding service. He wanted a single platform and a unified data set for managing the entire customer lifecycle, including demand generation, pipeline management, quote-to-order, case tracking, and general ledger.

The Solution

PRE selected Salesforce Service Cloud as the core CRM platform for the contact center, and engaged Bluewolf to strategize a roadmap that would make the company’s vision a reality. Bluewolf implemented Service Cloud as a new application and used computer telephony integration (CTI) to integrate the application with PRE’s existing telephony system. Bluewolf also deployed Salesforce Marketing Cloud, allowing call center agents to resolve issues while simultaneously upselling clients. 

With guidance from Bluewolf, PRE then mapped out a method and plan to build a custom enterprise resource planning (ERP) application on the Salesforce1 Platform. The custom ERP now provides all of PRE with “one version of the truth.” There is one central repository for all information, integrating sales, service, marketing, and customer information, as well as data from billing, invoicing, contract management, reporting, and more — all customizable and all in the cloud. 

In addition, the platform provides ancillary benefits by making mobile applications, customer portals, and vendor portals possible. facilitating integration with supplementary cloud-based apps including: Financial Force, for billing and invoicing; Drawloop, for document automation; Box.com, for document storage; and Dell Boomi and Informatica Cloud Extend for customization and process integration.

The Results

Plymouth Rock Energy was able to go live with Salesforce Service Cloud within just six weeks of starting the project. By moving to the cloud, PRE has established a first-mover advantage in a highly competitive market. Since the launch of the relationship with Bluewolf, PRE’s customer base has grown over 500%. Reps are now able to spend less time on tedious, manual processes and more time selling and talking to the customers.

Each customer care associate now has direct access to case, lead, and campaign management. By enabling its agents to easily identify and act quickly on emerging issues, PRE immediately saw a significant decrease in its average call time — service issues that formerly took an average of ten minutes to solve now only take two minutes.

The success of the call center and custom ERP convinced the CIO and other company leaders of just how efficient cloud-based systems could make their business; they are committed to running PRE’s entire business in the cloud. Now, the company understands their business, their employees, and — most importantly — their customers.