National Retirement Partners Builds Customized CRM Tool for Financial Advisors on Force.com

Challenge

• National Retirement Partners, a respected leader in the retirement industry, required a new CRM solution for its central office and financial advisor network. Through its subsidiary companies, NRP Financial and NRP Advisors, NRP member firms provide advisory services for over 6,000 retirement plans with assets in excess of $48 billion.
• NRP, which provides services that help member firms save time and reduce liability, wanted to offer a pre-configured CRM tool customized to help retirement advisors more efficiently service clients. 
• With more than 145 office locations and over 450 registered representatives, NRP needed a cloud-computing solution it could easily deploy, upgrade, and maintain. Other key requirements included customizability and the ability to integrate with other systems.

Solution

• Rather than purchase a solution from SugarCRM, Microsoft CRM, or ACT!, NRP chose to build a CRM tool specifically for its retirement plan advisors on salesforce.com’s Force.com platform. The company liked Force.com’s cloud-computing model, easy customization, and open API.
• With assistance from salesforce.com partner Echo Lane, NRP developed the tool in less than 3 months, customizing it to address the needs of its sales, marketing, and support users, as well as financial advisors.
• NRP installed Pervasive Data Integrator from the  AppExchange. The application supports investment due diligence by integrating CFA lead team analytics with Salesforce CRM via a SQL database.
• Pervasive also enables integration with broker dealer commission records for an industry-leading automated commissions system.
• Force.com for Outlook keeps client communications in sync. NRP also integrated a proprietary hosted document storage facility with Salesforce and Outlook to track and manage complex 401(k) plan documentation.
• NRP enhanced fiduciary oversight with a Custom Fiduciary Audit Checklist object that automatically generates a report in PDF format. The report includes complete information on files, locations, and updates as needed to help advisors and plan sponsors meet their fiduciary obligations.
• The company also customized projected revenue and profitability calculations by plan, considering assets, commissions, and withdrawals. Rollups at the account level provide the ability to see across segments of their book of business.
• The Salesforce CRM ideas community lets NRP solicit enhancement ideas from their advisors and provides a vehicle for their feedback.
• A customized user guide and 30 org-specific online training clips help drive adoption; NRP has also worked with Echo Lane to develop a paid training program for financial advisors.
• Salesforce CRM Service is available pre-customized from NRP for financial advisors who need a 360-degree customer view.
• Premier Support includes a dedicated salesforce.com rep to help NRP get the most out of its Salesforce investment.
• NRP has deployed over 10 major releases since initially launching the customized CRM application, and continues to enhance the tool using the feedback from their advisors as their roadmap.

Results

• Building on Force.com enabled NRP to quickly deliver and deploy a customized CRM system internally and to financial advisors. The cloud-computing model eliminates maintenance and infrastructure, freeing the company to focus on its core business.
• NRP eased fiduciary liabilities with Audit Checklists and by integrating Salesforce with Microsoft Outlook and its hosted document storage facility.
• Time-saving integration with NRP’s commissions system gives member firms real-time data on commission revenues.
• The Salesforce CRM ideas community lets NRP to better serve financial advisors and increases loyalty and retention.
• Recruiting is enhanced due to enthusiasm among financial advisors for NRP’s adaption of Salesforce CRM. Salesforce CRM helps drive new business to the organization.
• NRP has seen a tremendous adoption rate of their custom CRM tool with over 40% of their member firms subscribing to salesforce.com in the first year of the release.