Propel Software

About

Savant Systems, a recognized leader in smart home and smart power solutions, is a pioneer in home innovation. This fast-growing company continues to outpace competitors with ground-breaking innovation, highlighted by its recently-launched Savant Power business unit which provides insights to optimize energy consumption, production, and power outage resilience – both on and off the grid. Savant app’s award-winning user experience delivers personalized control over every system in the home. The company, which includes Savant, Savant Power, and GE Lighting, a Savant company, allows customers to automate lighting, entertainment, and climate conditions in every room of the house.

35%

Revenue increase over 2 years

74%

Reduction in e-commerce time to market

50%

Reduction in order-entry labor

Delivering customer excellence across business

Exceptional user experience is core to Savant, and a challenge for a company that develops, sells, and services a wide range of innovative products across multiple distribution channels. To achieve customer and financial goals, Savant must excel across multiple areas:

Fast-paced innovation: continuous product improvement
Diverse product portfolio: supports video, music, lighting & power
Full connectivity: combines hardware and software for a seamless user experience
Cohesive ecosystem: interconnected products in a smart app
End-user support: user guides, feature videos, etc. delivered to customers

When Savant, a company founded in the 21st century, acquired GE Lighting, the number one recognized lighting brand that traces its origins to Thomas Edison, it needed existing and new teams to work together efficiently and collaboratively.

"We have to meet a whole variety of business segments and different customer types. We need to make things less rigid, so they can be scalable. That's a big reason why we knew Propel would work for us and has allowed us to really move quick and efficiently."

^{Beth LeClerc, VP of Technology}

IT and business teams collaborate to implement change

To achieve this vision, the company needed to ensure that the products and teams delivering those products could work together seamlessly.

Senior Vice President of Customer Operations, Angie Larson, and Vice President of Technology, Beth LeClerc, ensure Savant's technology stack is delivering the speed and efficiency needed to be successful. During this process, IT is in constant communication with the business about current and future needs to ensure they will be met for years to come. Open communication between IT and business is key to getting the right solution and processes in place.

‍Propel, Salesforce deliver customer & product insights on a single thread

At IT’s direction, Savant created a master customer record using Salesforce Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Commerce Cloud, in conjunction with a master product record on Propel. Working on the same platform, the IT team could extend data, processes, and collaboration company wide — delivering insights and speed to Customer Operations, enabling the personal touch demanded by Savant customers.

Leveraging the power of Salesforce with Propel eliminates the need for integrations, maintains forward and backward compatibility, and provides thousands of upgrades annually, freeing up valuable resources to respond to business requirements more effectively.

Having a comprehensive data set that expands across the business helps Savant leverage AI to move faster and more efficiently. Unifying data on a single thread is a core tenant of its AI strategy, helping the company further increase leadership in home automation.

Long-term business impact through connected systems

Combining Propel’s product record with the Salesforce customer record allows Savant to deliver the best possible customer experience with speed and efficiency.

The results are easy to see:

35% Increase in Revenue Over Two Years. Using detailed sales and product data, Savant optimized customized sales programs for top tier customers. The program grew 72% delivering visibility to sellers and distributors, recommending complementary products based on past purchases and offering incentives for selling specific products.
50% Reduction in Order-entry Labor. Ecommerce channels have processed more than 88% of its orders over the past 18 months. Customers prefer the ecommerce experience with comprehensive product data visibility and full configurability on product orders. Plus, 24/7 availability is a significant benefit for smaller buyers who are purchasing products after hours.
Decreasing Customer Service calls over 1,000 hours each year. 90% of customer support is handled via self-service tools. Agent technical support is also innovative with access gated behind a training requirement, ensuring all inbound support requests have completed correct product training prior to receiving agent support.
Reducing time-to-market on the ecommerce store by 74% over the past two years. Averaging 26 days from SKU creation to order availability on the Savant Store, the business has significantly reduced time to market across software, services, Savant branded hardware, and 3rd party reseller hardware.

Business transformation is a continuous process. As product lines and customer needs continue to evolve, business processes need to evolve in lockstep. It’s a delicate needle to thread, maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction while delivering continuous, profitable growth.

Savant has the secret: moving as many processes as possible to a shared platform in order to increase automation, make data easier to find, and simplify collaboration across the company. This, combined with continued alignment between business and IT leaders, ensures Savant will remain an innovation leader for years to come.

Want to learn more about Savant's story with Propel? Download the extended story here.