Navigating rapid growth: how data integration and marketing automation enabled customer satisfaction and operational excellence

How does a company adapt when its customer base multiplies overnight, necessitating a complete overhaul of its customer processes to meet this new scale? This was the daunting challenge faced by an electric vehicle (EV) charging solutions provider after being acquired.

At the heart of their transition was not just an expansion in size, but also a major increase in operational complexity. Fortunately, the provider, referred to in this anonymized case study as “the company,” had already established a solid foundation with BRITE as their seasoned system integration partner.

This case study delves into the process of how the company and our team at BRITE collaboratively tackled each challenge, knitting together disparate data strands to unlock the company’s full potential, one strategic use case at a time.

Top Results at a Glance

  • Boosted customer retention: By automating reminders for expiring subscriptions and using hyper-personalized communication, the company saw a substantial uptake in contract renewals. This increase in customer loyalty was a direct result of the improvement in the customer experience.
  • Resolved backlog and improved operational efficiency: Improvements and automations in the customer onboarding process cleared existing bottlenecks that had a negative impact on both the customer and the employee experience.
  • Simplified maintenance of Marketing Assets: The company has created an easy to use set of templated marketing assets, ready to use by the different regions. This has simplified the process of creating and amending marketing assets for various regions and it created a more cohesive brand experience towards customers.

The Rapid Transformation of the EV Charging Industry

Europe’s electric vehicle (EV) market is booming, with sales surpassing 9 million vehicles and accounting for approximately 12% of the total market. This growth has impacted the EV charging solution sector as well, encompassing both hardware (like the number of charging stations) and energy roaming services (allowing customers to access and pay at any EV Charging provider).

Initially resembling a ‘wild west’ with numerous smaller and larger providers, this sector is gradually consolidating with fewer big players vying for dominance. The company is a key contender in this rapidly evolving market.

Harnessing Data for Market Dominance

Their goal was clear: to ascend as the premier EV charging provider. But winning that race demands more than mere electricity supply; it demands exceptional customer experience and effective communication with customers. The company was aiming to enhance its offerings, from in-app experiences to billing, customer retention and loyalty programs, to become an even stronger competitor in the market.

Despite having a wealth of data from various sources like apps, cars, charging stations, and cards, the company faced significant challenges in utilizing this data effectively. Cornelis Vriend, Customer Success Manager at BRITE, put it succinctly, “Data is said to be the new gold, and that’s true. But like gold, data must be extracted, cleansed, and refined to be truly valuable.”

The key challenges were:

  • Tech stack limiting scalability: as the business expanded, so did its tech stack, creating complex dependencies that hindered scalability. This complexity became a barrier when adapting to evolving business needs related to the hyper growth the company was experiencing.
  • Inefficiencies in Customer Segmentation: Limited capabilities in precise customer segmentation made personalized and timely communication with customers more difficult. This is crucial for nurturing relationships and delivering exceptional customer experiences.
  • Transitioning to advanced technology: Replacing legacy tools with new technology was a delicate process, allowing for minimal downtime to ensure business continuity.
  • Streamlining international assets: Managing numerous similar assets, differentiated only by language, posed significant operational challenges. It meant a lot of manual work and a lot of room for mistakes.

The journey to market leadership, therefore, involved not just collecting and accessing vast amounts of data, but effectively integrating and leveraging it to overcome these challenges, drive customer engagement, and stay ahead in the competitive EV charging industry.”

Addressing Data Complexity and Scalability

Prior to their acquisition, the EV charging provider relied on Salesforce Pardot for marketing and started working with BRITE back in 2018 for technical marketing support. But even before the acquisition, Pardot fell short of meeting the company’s evolving needs.

As the influx of customer data grew and new marketing automation requirements emerged, a shift to Salesforce Data Cloud and Salesforce Marketing Cloud became imperative. And since the company and BRITE had already built a strong relationship over the years, the company and BRITE set up a migration project to transition to the new tech stack.

„Before moving to Marketing Cloud, the answer to ‘can we do this and that‘ was often a simple ‘no‘. Now, we can tackle any use case. It’s no longer a question of capability but rather of priority”

Cornelis.

Transforming Operations through Salesforce Integration and System Unification

The journey to revamp the company’s marketing infrastructure began with a clear understanding of the desired business objectives and identification of all potential data sources. In collaboration with BRITE, the company embarked on setting up Salesforce Marketing Cloud, linking it with Data Cloud to integrate various data streams and create a single holistic view of the company’s customer data.

The transition involved systematically migrating landing pages and marketing automation flows, tackling one customer journey at a time. This strategic move enabled the company to replace seven disparate point solutions with a unified Salesforce system, leading to both process efficiency and financial benefits. And the successful consolidation even sparked curiosity and interest in other business units, considering similar system integrations.

Post-migration, the company focused first on implementing the following key use cases:

  1. Renewal reminders: Automating reminders for expiring home charging subscriptions.
  2. Affiliate programs: Partnering with nearby shops to offer incentives to customers using the charging stations.
  3. Petrol station collaborations: Providing perks like free coffee to encourage customers to visit petrol stations during charging sessions.
  4. Segmentation ease: Enabling marketers to quickly create and deploy new customer segments, such as targeting customers based on car models – a process that previously took days or weeks and was now done via a simple drag and drop within minutes.

A crucial aspect of this technological advancement was the role of AI within Salesforce Marketing Cloud. It’s this new technology that allows the management of large data volumes and deciphering user behavior, significantly enhancing the company’s ability to personalize customer interactions.

Overcoming Obstacles and Achieving Operational Excellence with BRITE

However, not everything was smooth sailing: The acquisition invalidated existing contracts with BRITE, leading to a sudden loss of system access in the midst of implementation. But despite these hurdles, the collaboration between BRITE and the company’s team was unwavering. They adapted through screen sharing meetings and a great deal of patience to continue their work, a true testament to the strength of the partnership.

The biggest win the company has seen through their migration project with BRITE is the creation of a unified data landscape. The new setup means data is easily navigable by the marketing team, reducing the dependency on IT support.

As the project progresses, with more use cases on the horizon, the company and BRITE have already celebrated some great milestones:

  • Improved customer retention: By monitoring and sending automated reminders for expiring home charging subscriptions, the company has seen a marked increase in customer loyalty.
  • Operational backlog clearance: The ability to improve and automate the customer onboarding process meant customer onboarding was streamlined. No more build up of a backlog, significantly improving the customer experience.
  • Enhanced hyper-personalized communication: By unifying data from diverse sources, the company has significantly boosted customer experience and loyalty through hyper-personalized interactions and timely communication.
  • Customized customer journey initiatives: Leveraging Sales Cloud data for current business processes, the company has successfully initiated personalized customer journeys, ensuring timely and relevant communication that enriches customer experience.
  • Streamlined marketing across regions: The creation of universal assets adaptable for various locales has enabled the marketing teams to efficiently amend and deploy new content, significantly enhancing customer experience in different regions.

In summarizing the journey and looking ahead, Cornelis reflects: 

“Consider your data as your biggest resource. Bringing it together can unlock business potentials that may currently seem out of reach. Data is the new gold only if you know how to utilize it.”