Challenge:
To create a content managed website offering seamless integration with our customer relationship management system, Salesforce.com
Solution:
EPiServer CMS gives content managers the ability to create, update and integrate web pages, displaying up-to-the-minute personalised content, providing a flexible platform on which to develop additional functionality.
Benefits:
A truly personalised web solution that engages the visitor. Seamless integration and fully customisable content management solution.
The Challenge: Membership Needs
The Financial Services Forum has had a website presence since its formation in 2000. The website offered general information and an area for members to access the latest thinking in financial services marketing. The organisation had the ability to make simple changes to content in-house, but this was not adaptable to their needs.
They wanted to offer their members much more. The Financial Services Forum wanted to fully utilise data from Salesforce, their customer relationship management system (CRM), to provide a flexible and intuitive website that allowed members to share data and focus on particular areas of interest.
The Financial Services Forum found the answer in EPiServer, a content management system that offers the full range of content management tools to enable a website to be published quickly and simply. It has the added advantage of allowing for full integration with a CRM system to provide a dynamic and personalised website to members.
The Solution: EPiServer and Integration
“EPiServer provided the best fit. It offered a perfect solution, as EPiServer is not only a CMS product but a platform built on .NET, which provides a solid base upon which to build and integrate with third party systems,” says Justin Masters, Technical Director at Netcel.
Indeed for The Financial Services Forum the result is an easy-to-use content management system that allows seamless integration with their Salesforce CRM.
The relaunched website, www.thefsforum.co.uk, allows The Financial Services Forum to update members’ data directly into the Salesforce CRM. Members benefit through the enhanced services, such as the ability to update and manage their profile and membership details online. This profile control allows personalised content to be delivered to members. So using EPiServer content categorisation allows personalised content to be delivered to members both from within EPiServer content and through Salesforce. The ease with which EPiServer integrates with Salesforce allows search results to be presented as categorised content presenting structured search results from multiple data sources. EPiServer is able to handle multiple tiers of membership by restricting access to certain pages depending upon membership level. The website currently has three levels, but EPiServer allows further membership levels to be introduced when required.
“Tailoring content to our members is proving extremely effective. We have seen our visitor numbers increase substantially and there is greater interest in our events and membership services”, says Richard Nolan, Operations Director at the Financial Services Forum.
EPiServer CMS is simple and easy to use. Content managers can edit and publish pages quickly. But they can also add, delete and move menus so that the entire site can be restructured in future without the need for additional development costs. The EPiServer solution provides considerable flexibility and scalability for future expansion.
The Benefits: Cost-effective and Future-proof
The user-friendly EPiServer solution gives The Financial Services Forum a range of benefits both to its members using the website and to its staff updating the website day-to-day.
In addition to the introduction of personalised content and integration with Salesforce, cost savings were gained through centralising databases and so reducing the time required to populate the CRM, website and email marketing system. Duplicating data entry and associated synchronisation issues are now avoided. So time and money is being saved as the website content is updated behind the scenes via Salesforce and by editors at the Forum using EPiServer.
EPiServer also allows for rapid application development. As Justin Masters says, “We were able to deliver the solution quickly and efficiently, but also offer excellent scalability and flexibility for the future. For example, EPiServer has out-of-the-box functionality, such as the option for multi-lingual sites that can be utilised in due course.”
The Financial Services Forum wanted their new site to assist in retaining existing members and gaining new members by providing a highly usable site that provides the features and functionality required by members to source information while also interacting with fellow members.
“Using EPiServer, Netcel has helped to deliver all of our requirements and more, providing a cost-effective, value for money solution in the process,” adds Richard Nolan.
To view the website, visit www.thefsforum.co.uk
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