For most of its 20+ year history, the company focused on financing the purchase of business equipment through loans and leases. This single product was offered through equipment dealers to their small business customers. 

Over the last two years, the company has scaled and transformed from a micro-ticket equipment leasing company to a multi-product small business lender by: 

• Focusing on dealer partnerships where the company retains customer ownership
• Creating a direct channel with marketing and sales that is focused on cross-selling additional loans directly to existing and past small business customers.
• Launching a second product (working capital loans) in addition to the equipment finance product, both marketed directly to small business customers

Aligning systems for improved efficiency and effectiveness

For many years, the capital solutions provider used an antiquated green-screen system to record all of its customer interactions and support processes. Communication with clients was conducted primarily through email and sometimes on the phone. 

The provider was growing rapidly, but its legacy system was not scaling with it. The green-screen system was challenging for the provider’s customer service, collections, and insurance teams because it:

•  Lacked a holistic picture, and agents had to jump from screen to screen to access information
• Agents would have to consult up to four different systems and had no effective way to unify the data in one system
• Fields were repurposed for unintended uses, or a field would have multiple uses depending on the department using it

The capital solutions provider’s sales division has been using Salesforce Sales Cloud since 2017. The provider recognized the value of Salesforce and realized there was a more efficient process to keep track of all the information and create better workflows.

Transforming legacy processes with a collaborative team

The client’s vision for transformation was to redesign processes, leverage technology to support automation and smart workflows that add efficiency, ensure process compliance, and help both its staff and customers succeed. The client was seeking a partner not just to implement Salesforce capabilities, but also to help design the workflows, automation, and data capture. 

The client found Silverline through a web search and collaborated with them to launch Salesforce Service Cloud for its customer service, collections, and insurance teams. Silverline integrated Salesforce Service Cloud with the client’s existing systems, including a servicing platform for its equipment financing group and a document management tool for leases and loans. 

“I really appreciated the way that Silverline’s process is designed to work, especially since our company didn’t have a relationship with them prior to the start of our project. The Silverline team was incredibly collaborative with our project team throughout the entire project, and I personally learned so much just by working with them on a daily basis,” said the client’s Project Manager. 

“My favorite part of the process was the backlog grooming, where we were able to communicate the business requirements so that the Silverline team could propose a design for the solution that met our needs. Working directly with the Silverline solution architect and developers was also very productive, as it helped us to become better at identifying opportunities for improvement and testing.” 

A critical component of the partnership’s success was the client’s dedicated Program Manager and Product Owner, which helped move the project along and stay on track. A new C-suite executive joined the capital solutions provider midway through the project. The executive was amazed at the collaboration and found it hard to distinguish between the client’s team and Silverline. “I have been on calls and can’t tell which team members are from which organization. Everyone just works so well together!”

Continuing the Salesforce journey to success

The project involved migrating approximately 80 staff members from the old system to the new Salesforce system. Change management and training were conducted to help with the transition. The collections team provided feedback that it was now able to work more efficiently, make more calls, and complete more actions than it previously could with the green-screen system. 

“Overall, I was extremely pleased with the amount of things we were able to accomplish in such a relatively short amount of time, and now that I have been working with the system users, it’s really exciting to see them using everything the way it was designed and reaping all of the benefits we had intended,” said the Project Manager. 

Silverline continues to work with the client by providing ongoing managed services supporting enhancements to Salesforce Service Cloud. Silverline was also selected to support the sales division’s Salesforce Sales Cloud after another partner needed to exit.