Cases

Ex-Guard

Written by Forte Group | Mar 1, 2024

A self-service Salesforce-powered B2B marketplace

Industry:
E-commerce and retail

Website:
ex-guard.com

Type of work:
Managed Software as a Service

Technology and Platforms:
Salesforce B2B Commerce

Ex-Guard is an independent U.S.-based manufacturer and distributor of high-quality patented aftermarket automotive grille guards and bumper protection systems that offer durability, strength, and ease of use. Ex-Guard sells its products through an extensive and ever-expanding dealer network spanning the U.S. and Canada.


Having established a stable share in a niche market, Ex-Guard aimed to solidify its position and streamline ordering, processing, and fulfillment. By switching to a self-service B2B marketplace, the brand planned to accomplish two major goals: Eliminate mundane tasks for its sales team, and create custom-tailored and smooth experiences for its buyers.

Background

  • Ex-Guard needed its existing enterprise resource planning system, integrations, and other business-critical features to stay intact while reinforcing the storefront.
  • With Salesforce CRM serving as the core of their business operations, adopting a Salesforce B2B e-commerce portal allowed data flow integrity within the same product ecosystem.
  • The novelty was a challenge since Salesforce had just released its B2B commerce solution, and its performance and capabilities were yet to be explored by businesses and developers.
  • Ex-Guard used a wholesale-specific and complex pricing structure with multi-level discount tiers assigned based on the order size.
  • Ex-Guard needed automatic shipping fee calculation for different delivery methods and product combinations to remain flexible.

Results achieved

  • By digitizing its B2B buying experience, Ex-Guard now provides its products in a way that enhances customer relationships
  • Ex-Guard’s sales cycle has already shrunk dramatically, requiring 50 percent less effort to process an order.
  • Thanks to automated operations like price generation and tax and shipping fee calculation, Ex-Guard has increased its sales at a lower management cost.

Business Challenges

  • Introduce a variety of features that make the marketplace available to the international customers
  • Sort out and digitalize the complicated sales and order fulfillment
process
  • Reduce time and effort spent on manually processing orders
 
Featured-based  Challenges
  • Enable multi-tier pricing complexity for different order sizes
  • Develop a system to apply variable postal fees for domestic and international delivery
  • Offer customers a highly-personalized and smooth buying experience

    “By adopting Salesforce B2B Commerce as our primary sales engine, we’re headed forward as a business at a faster pace. The marketplace’s feature flexibility has already proven to be effective and allowed us to optimize multiple internal processes and cater more precisely to our buyers’ needs. With a newer version of the MVP rolling out, we’re determined to expand our dealership network further with a better service offering.”

    Ryan Holt, General Manager at Ex-Guard Industries



 Solution features  

  • Utilizing their hands-on Salesforce B2B expertise and value-driven Agile approach, Forte Group’s cross-functional team focused their initial efforts on covering as many Ex-Guard requirements as possible with out-of-the-box features.
  • To build a secure and reliable gateway connecting the Ex-Guard internal CRM and ERP to the storefront, Forte Group engineers implemented critical integrations related to pricing and fulfillment. The first viable MVP was delivered in under 60 days.
  • By using integration with SYSPRO ERP, a managed package application for syncing invoice coding and invoice payment data, real-time order status updates and shipping details can now be displayed in customer accounts.
  • Among the standard e-commerce features powered by Salesforce, Forte built a custom faceted search by year and model to match Ex-Guard’s industry standards.
  • By using integration with SYSPRO ERP, a managed package application for syncing invoice coding and invoice payment data, real-time order status updates and shipping details can now be displayed in customer accounts.
  • Pricing now supports instant tax calculation for dealerships based in Canada.

Outcomes

Increased customer satisfaction fueled by a seamless user journey

 

The first viable MVP launched in 60 days

 

Sales staff time and resources spent on order placement were cut by 50 percent

 

 

 
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