We implemented Salesforce to bring customer data together from across Prime Financial Group’s business units and systems, improving visibility of client information across the group. Using Financial Services Cloud, we’ve started mapping the complex client and household relationships behind it, laying the foundations for deeper insight, better service and more joined-up engagement across the business.
Client background
Prime Financial Group is an ASX-listed financial services business with more than $1.9 billion in funds under management. Under Prime and several sub-brands, the group’s end-to-end offering spans the breadth of financial services, including wealth management, corporate finance, accounting and business advisory, SMSF and Australian equities investment research.
Like many of Fluent Group’s financial services clients, Prime Financial has grown its offering through years of organic growth and strategic acquisitions. But in bringing a family of high-performing specialist firms under one roof, Prime also inherited their systems and processes, leading to an internal environment that had become increasingly complex.
The search for a partner came down to fit as much as capability. The introduction came, fittingly, through a Salesforce client event, where a Fluent Group client seated nearby offered an unprompted endorsement.
We were looking for the right balance between cost and experience, but also a partner we fit closely with in terms of profile and size of project. We don’t need to be the most important client, but we want to be somewhere in the mix. That’s better for both parties.
James LakeChief Product & Technology Officer, Prime Financial GroupGood third-party feedback, and the right price, did the rest.
The challenge
As the group evolved, customer information was held across multiple systems and business units, creating an opportunity to improve visibility, coordination and, critically, the client experience.
Behind the scenes, key customer information lived across several systems, including Xplan, Xero Practice Manager, Stock Doctor and Class Super, to manage client interactions and opportunities. The lack of visibility presented challenges for the group.
We serviced a whole raft of entities. Someone had a trust for their superannuation, and another family trust that was invested in funds. We needed something that let us map that out, so when you looked at that person you realised they were the key contact for three or four other entities, the owner of that family group.
James LakeChief Product & Technology Officer, Prime Financial GroupClient information spread across systems
Some of Prime’s clients worked with one business unit, while others worked with Prime across several services. Some were direct clients, others were clients of partner accounting firms. With no connection between systems, the same client could appear separately in each business unit they dealt with, which made it hard to see the whole relationship.
A different process in every business unit
Each business unit had its own way of managing referrals and opportunities, which made a consistent group-wide picture hard to build. Business unit managers were spending hours each fortnight collating reports from several systems and spreadsheets.
Relationships that were hard to see
Without a joined-up view, teams couldn’t easily see which other Prime services a client already used, and marketing relied on manually compiled lists. That made it harder to bring the right expertise into each client conversation.
Our solution
With so many function-specific platforms to integrate, we began by understanding Prime’s requirements and the outcomes they hoped to achieve through a new CRM platform. The goal was to use Salesforce as a single ‘source of truth’ for customer data and their relationships across the group, while minimising disruption to each team’s day-to-day workflows.
Modelling customer relationships with Salesforce Financial Services Cloud
We implemented Financial Services Cloud (FSC), an industry-specific edition that helps manage the complex financial and personal relationships required for Prime’s customers. We were able to model every variety of multi-directional relationship between customers, households, business entities, partners and supporting service providers. With customer relationships more accurately reflected in Salesforce, the system can display who each customer is, and how they interact with people, businesses and services in the Prime ecosystem. FSC also gives Prime the capacity to roll up and report on customer and pipeline activity at a group level, without relying on manual reporting from each business unit.
MuleSoft Anypoint integrations to connect every system
Using multiple MuleSoft integrations, we were able to connect Salesforce with Xplan, Xero Practice Manager, Stock Doctor, Class Super (and others) to centralise customer records in Financial Services Cloud. Within the new integrated ecosystem, team members could continue using their line-of-business applications, while Salesforce formed a connective layer between them. This structure gave the leadership, sales and marketing teams a centralised view of the data relevant to their decision-making, without forcing every team to abandon the specialist tools they rely on. A key focus was developing a robust data model within Salesforce that could handle the varied data formats of Prime’s existing systems, and provide a stable base for future integrations.
Standardised, business-wide pipeline process
To address the business’s need for greater visibility of customer relationships, interactions and opportunities across the group, we designated Salesforce as the system where customer data is entered. No matter who you are in Prime Financial Group, your customers and accounts should originate in Salesforce and populate automatically to your function-specific platforms via MuleSoft integrations. To do this, we worked with Prime to understand the variety of ways business units were managing their client opportunities, and standardised a new, business-wide workflow that reflected what was already working best.
The results
1. A single source of truth on every customer
Prime now has a real-time view of the customers, services and relationships across its business. Teams and leaders can understand which services a customer uses, which parts of the business they are connected to, and where opportunities may exist.
People have suddenly realised, ‘Hang on, we work with this person in more than one part of the business. We need to bring more context to this conversation.’
James LakeChief Product & Technology Officer, Prime Financial Group2. Leadership has clear visibility of opportunities, referrals and client activity
By standardising how opportunities and referrals are captured in Salesforce, Prime Financial now has a more consistent way to track them across business units. Instead of relying on manually compiled updates from different teams, consistent, real-time metrics and reporting are now available whenever they’re needed. From identifying the pipeline activities that generate the highest returns, to accurately forecasting future revenue and identifying growth opportunities, Prime Financial can now ground their planning and decisions on insights drawn from accurate, consistent data.
Reports that would have been taking, collectively across the business, hours to produce are now instantaneous. And those reports are actually connected to meaningful data; you can follow that trail.
James LakeChief Product & Technology Officer, Prime Financial Group3. The data foundation to grow as one integrated group
With customer data connected across the group, Prime is building the habits of an integrated business: shared context in every client conversation, and the data needed to plan growth on evidence rather than instinct.
There’s no point having lead-indicator conversations when you have no lead data. We’re now starting to have that conversation: how much activity do we need to see to get the outcomes we want?
James LakeChief Product & Technology Officer, Prime Financial GroupIn short
For Prime, the value of Salesforce was never about replacing every specialist system across the business. The opportunity lay in creating a connective layer between them, one that could make every customer, relationship and activity visible across the group. By keeping the focus narrow, we were able to design a solution that surfaced this information for people who needed a business-wide view, with minimal disruption to day-to-day workflows. With the right data model, integrations and workflows now in place, Prime Financial has a foundation that is driving growth today and better client experiences.
This was exactly the point: if we buy another business, how do you make one and one equal three? You need something like Salesforce to bring that client group in and start engaging with them as Prime.
James LakeChief Product & Technology Officer, Prime Financial Group
