As Eastern Funding grew to fund businesses in all 50 states, they knew they needed to continue to adapt to their customer needs. With multiple departments all competing for space within multiple legacy systems, Nancy Robles, Chief Operating Officer, knew it was time for something new.

“We were asking for things we knew the system couldn’t provide, and we didn’t want to introduce other systems that would create silos,” she said. “We wanted to have one place where we have all of our information, with full access for improved reporting of that data.”

That’s why they chose Silverline. With over 10 years of experience in the financial services space, our experts helped Eastern Funding build a customer-centric platform that allowed their team to continue to grow with Financial Services Cloud and nCino. Said Robles, “Silverline had experience working with similar companies, and so it just made it all much more attractive to work with a consultant that had the expertise with nCino and understood what a company like ours needs to be successful.”

A complicated system pushed to its limits

The team used their existing system for everything from underwriting to analyzing their credit pool, creating documents, tracking loans from application to funding and managing customer accounts. But Eastern Funding’s needs were changing quickly and the system was not built to address the new needs. It was at full capacity, Eastern Funding outgrew the system to keep up with the emerging demands.  

Creating a customer portal with FSC + nCino

So they did what every great bank does: listen to their customers. 

Overwhelmingly, customers demanded an easier, more streamlined way to interact with them. It was time to create a customer-facing portal that met their needs. 

Doing that required investing in new technology — but Robles wanted it to talk to their other systems. Salesforce was the natural choice.

“Salesforce is known for being the best CRM system, and there were all these different components that made it a better experience for us, especially so we could continue to focus on the customer experience,” said Robles. “We have a 60% customer repeat rate. It’s so important to be customer-centric and provide what our customers need, and having the right information at your fingertips is absolutely vital for that.”

By reducing friction and improving efficiency, Financial Services Cloud deepens and optimizes the everyday and urgent communications and workflows between teams and customers. nCino brought these legacy processes and procedures together and made internal processes simpler, faster, and more transparent, while also providing associates with the tools necessary to do their job. This allowed them to take critical business functions that can be complicated and high touch and transform them into flexible and scalable solutions. 

Together, these two pieces of technology enable faster, more efficient processes. Silverline helped the team build a customer portal that will give the team members a complete, holistic profile of each account at-a-glance. 

A system that makes being customer-centric easier

Implementing Salesforce and nCino made it much easier for Eastern Funding LLC to achieve customer-centricity. While the new system took some time for team members to learn, they’re already reporting user adaptability. 

“We’re already getting positive feedback that anxiety levels are balancing out after 18 really intense months,” said Robles. “The initial 90 days were definitely a learning curve, but the new system really has been a game-changer for everyone.”

After so many months working remotely, features like Chatter make it easier for the team to work together. “Chatter has been a total highlight,” said Robles. “Now that we’re working remotely, we can communicate much more easily. We have a team structure where multiple people are assigned to a given account, and being able to communicate quickly and easily is key.”

Another key aspect of nCino is that the team can track exposure more easily, cutting out an entire step for credit and underwriting team members and automatically documenting everything in their core system. Said Robles, “We’re saving time because we have all this information at our fingertips. And with customer experience, speed is so vital. Every minute counts, and we’re able to incorporate everything we need right into the system. It’s a definite improvement.”

A collaboration focused on customer success

COVID-19 threw their team into chaos when it hit in March 2020. The influx of businesses that needed their help skyrocketed and it was challenging to keep up. Silverline stepped in to finish the project by January 2021, in less than a year. 

“Considering how aggressive the conversion was, as we attempted to replicate a system that took seven years to build, I was so impressed that Silverline helped us get this done in just one year,” said Robles.

In a typical project, Silverline does an initial discovery to truly understand the full scope of needs — speaking with the team members who use the system day in and day out, in addition to managers and executives to get the big-picture goals. 

“Silverline’s team was outstanding,” said Robles. “They helped us design a platform that answered our questions, and they were extremely knowledgeable. It was a great atmosphere to work in every time we got together. They did the bulk of the initial design, programming, and development, and then once we were ready to go on our own, switched to managed services to help us with ongoing work.”

At Silverline, we know that the initial project is just the beginning. With COVID-19 putting extra pressure on Eastern Funding, the team helped wherever they could. “We did over 5,000 loan modifications in a short period of time as part of responding to COVID-19,” said Robles. “We were really overwhelmed. Silverline did the heavy lifting allow us to keep serving our customers when we were at capacity.”

The speed of Salesforce made possible by Silverline

With plenty of experience in the financial services sector, Silverline is your go-to partner in implementing new technology, whether that’s building a brand-new customer portal, upgrading from legacy systems, or looking for opportunities to make your team member’s lives easier. 

“It was incredible having an architect that could really understand our capacity. I could come to Silverline and say, ‘I want to do this.’ And they’d be able to bounce ideas off of each other, and bring potential solutions to the table. That makes such a big difference, particularly in such a challenging year. I would highly recommend their expertise,” said Robles. 

As a certified Salesforce and nCino partner, Silverline has proven expertise delivering implementations and customized solutions in the banking industry and beyond. Over the years, Silverline has built and distributed industry accelerators within the Financial Services ecosystem to solve industry challenges with best practice solutions delivered and customized for banks and other financial services companies like Eastern Funding.  Said Robles, “When you’re making such a big investment, you want to make sure you’re partnered with people who understand your business, who can come up with solutions that work for you. And for us, that was Silverline.”