LPL Investment Affiliate Invests in Salesforce CRM
The Wealth Management Group of Bank Plus operates under the trust powers of the highly-regarded community bank, Bank Plus, which has 65 locations across 34 Mississippi communities. The Wealth Management Group works with individuals and businesses providing a wide array of services including investment management, trust services, and estate planning. Through the organization's broker/dealer, LPL Financial, the Wealth Management Group offers its clients unbiased investment advice.
The financial services business is highly dependent on developing and maintaining strong professional relationships. To assist it in that mission, the Wealth Management Group of Bank Plus places its trusts in Salesforce CRM and Strategic Sales Systems.
Islands of Information
The Wealth Management Group had been using Salesforce for several years, however it did not serve as the centralized tool to manage its client relationships. "We had client data in three locations, and had to work diligently to ensure that Salesforce stayed up-to-date," explains Tony Edwards, senior vice president and portfolio manager for The Wealth Management Group. "For client investment data we had to log into LPL Financial's system, and another system to get trust product data. It was too easy to miss an aspect of our client relationship when it was divided up like that."
A Capable Partner
When LPL Financial introduced an interface between its application and Salesforce CRM, the Wealth Management Group was quick to pursue the new solution.
"We spoke with LPL Financial and they gave us the names of three vendors who could help us implement the integration," says Edwards. "We interviewed all three, and selected Strategic Sales Systems."
The decision was due in part to the prompt, professional response received from Strategic Sales Systems. "We appreciated their knowledge and their straightforward information about how the integration would operate," says Edwards. "And we also wanted to integrate our trust management software application. Strategic Sales Systems had the expertise to help us accomplish that."
Strategic Sales Systems worked with Wealth Management Group personnel to transfer the data from their existing instance of Salesforce CRM into the newly integrated solution. The company also developed a tight interface between Salesforce CRM and Trust/Rite, the bank's trust accounting application. "It was a complex conversion and they did an excellent job," says Edwards.
Benefits of Integration
The single biggest benefit of the new implementation is increased visibility into its client relationships. The staff members no longer have to query three separate systems to ensure they have a complete picture of a client's interactions with the bank. All the information is contained in one central location.
"Many of our clients have investments, trusts, and retirement savings with us," says Edwards. "Now we have a single system, Salesforce, that contains information from all three systems. It has virtually all the data we need to manage and improve our client relationships."
Edwards also believes that the change is improving the bank's service levels by increasing the accountability of the team. "The president can see the calls that our team has made, as well as the subject, and results of the calls," he says. "Our policy is to visit our trust clients at least once per year, and Salesforce helps our staff schedule and track their visits. And it helps management monitor and ensure the visits are made."
Time Savings and Security
Time savings is another benefit of the change. "Before we ran a manual export and import process each day to collect the data from Trust/Rite into Salesforce," Edwards says. "New customers had to be added, and then deleted when an account was closed. That involved a significant amount of time. Strategic Sales Systems automated that entire process, saving us time and ensuring the accuracy of our customer information."
The security of clients' sensitive data is of the upmost imporance to the Bank Plus Wealth Management Group, and Strategic Sales Systems worked with the bank's IT department to establish a secure FTP site where the Trust/Rite data files are exchanged.
Making it Look Easy
"We are definitely seeing the value of this system," adds Edwards. "Not only have we automated manual tasks, we have more timely access to more data and we have integration with Microsoft Outlook for further productivity increases. Strategic Sales Systems definitely understands how to best put Salesforce to work."
He adds, "When you find a company that knows their business this well, they make it look easy."