What do you do when you have run a very successful company for 20 years through the same system? How can you ensure the business runs smoothly while transitioning your entire IT infrastructure to the cloud? How do you build my team, who do you partner with, and what software is right?
These are questions that have exercised the brains of the finest CIOs for the last decade, even at family owned businesses in an industry as old as life itself.
Precoa faced a challenge of modernizing in an age-old industry
Since its founding in the 1990’s, Precoa has pioneered marketing services in the funeral industry, where responsible customer service driven by organized data is a must.
Beginning in the pandemic, Precoa faced significant challenges with their outdated CRM system—a 20-year-old on-premises solution that hindered scalability, lacked mobile and web capabilities, and led to inconsistent processes due to messy data and limited institutional knowledge. Business growth was hampered by these inefficiencies, prompting the need for a comprehensive solution.
Building the roadmap and getting started
Artichoke and Precoa partnered to begin working through the beginning of Precoa’s digital transformation roadmap in 2022. With a challenge as large as moving a multi-faceted CRM system into the cloud, the team started working through projects to move functionality to Salesforce without disrupting the business, allowing the team to grow and learn before tackling the full cutover.
Artichoke stepped in with a goal to bring coherence to Precoa’s operations and modernize their CRM approach. Collaborating closely with their team, Artichoke helped guide Precoa to build out their internal Salesforce (SF) team, and provided guidance on proper implementation practices and change management.
The backbone of this solution was Artichoke’s Enablement approach. All impacted business processes were well documented and used to trace functionality from the legacy system (and workarounds) onto the Salesforce platform. Working closely together, developers and functional team members both understood the functionality they were building, making an easy transition to train end users.
Moving to the Cloud as the foundation for the next generation
As a marketing company, the first lift into Salesforce included a move to Sales Cloud to leverage Campaigns. Thousands of Leads, data that had previously been stored on company-owned servers, would now be available to cutting edge BI tools such as Tableau.
The project also catalyzed discussions for next step functionality in Service Cloud, Experience Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Data Cloud. Most exciting, this established company now has its eyes on AI.
The impact of Artichoke’s solutions was transformative for Precoa. By earning their trust through detailed planning and execution, Artichoke streamlined processes, improved efficiency, and successfully transitioned the largest set of functionality off the legacy CRM into Salesforce to-date. The change was seamless, with Precoa remarking on how smooth the transition was and how their foundation is now scalable, ensuring consistency and alignment across teams.
WIth the confidence and momentum from the 2024 go-live, Precoa is ready to tackle the rest of its digital transformation roadmap and work towards the security of a 100% cloud-based IT infrastructure.
Maintaining high customer satisfaction after go-live
Throughout the implementation, the focus on customer satisfaction remained forefront. For a company to become as established in its industry as Precoa, customer service is a must. Executives and business leaders made clear that no functionality could change if it had a negative impact on the customer.
With the diligence of the Artichoke Enablement process and business stakeholders, the team deployed a solution that did not miss a beat.
Moving to Salesforce opens the door for future opportunities for Precoa to interact with customers. Stay tuned to see what happens next.
Key Outcomes:
- Improved Efficiency: Streamlined processes and eliminated inconsistencies.
- Scalable Foundation: Implemented a scalable process with Salesforce, enabling future growth.
- Unified Operations: Achieved consistency and alignment across teams, fostering collaboration and productivity.
Artichoke Consulting’s partnership with Precoa exemplifies how strategic implementation and change management can lead to impactful transformations, driving success and growth for businesses in the digital era.
