Cakebread Cellars has been crafting exceptional-quality wines and hosting guests in the heart of Napa Valley for over fifty years. Quality and sustainability have been the cornerstones of the Cakebread family, and they want to protect the land for future generations.
Cakebread has thousands of wine club members and a sizable retail direct-to-consumer business. Despite its strong presence in wine manufacturing and accounting, its ERP system fell-short in two crucial areas: effectively storing customer information and enabling effective cross-marketing efforts.
Michael Thomas, the CFO of Cakebread Cellars
described the situation
"Our existing ERP had its limitations. It was great for managing our wine club and communications, but when it came to storing customer data and cross-marketing, it just wasn’t up to the task. We wanted to improve our capabilities and information around our customers, but the current ERP was falling short"
Cakebread decided to make a move to a specialized wine CRM platform. However, they hit a roadblock when another company mid-onboarding acquired the platform.
Cakebread decided to move to Salesforce B2C commerce because:
- Salesforce offered headless commerce capabilities.
- Provided very stable Salesforce Core to build the Customer-360.
- Has AI integrated into the platform to generate insights on customer behavior.
Laura Webb, Vice President of Marketing & Sales
said, "Today’s consumers demand that brands connect with them in increasingly personalized ways. This “Show Me That You Know Me” approach requires a CRM platform like Salesforce that offers almost infinite customer service and data capabilities that, when unlocked, enable a competitive advantage."
Michael further added, "The desire was to allow our e-commerce operations to be more flexible by having a stable core."
Cakebread started on the journey and implemented B2C Commerce and Salesforce Order Management (OMS). However, the implementation team underestimated the complexity and compliance needs of the wine industry, and it resulted in the following problems:
- It took them 6-8 weeks to process thousands of Club orders. A small services team had to do multiple swivel chair processes and were overwhelmed by customer calls.
- The customer experience was below average, and basic operations like updating credit cards, customizing the wine order, splitting the order, etc., were not possible.
- Cakebread could not process all the orders due to multiple issues: timing out of credit card authorization and incorrect customer data that caused compliance check failures.
Cakebread turned to Bolt Today after verifying the customer reference and endorsement from Salesforce. The goal was very clear:
- Cakebread processed four orders a year per club customer and wanted an automated way of creating the pre-curated orders, allowing customers to customize them, ensuring compliance checks, determining the optimal fulfillment location, and providing visibility and notifications to the customers from order placement to processing to shipping and delivery.
- Ability to process the club orders in batches to avoid overwhelming the customer service teams and
- Customize the Salesforce Subscription platform to create a solution tailored specifically for Cakebread Cellars.
Laura Webb,
"One of the things I really appreciated about Bolt Today’s approach was their technical expertise of how to build the back and end efficiently while ensuring the front end delivered a straightforward user-friendly experience for our consumer. The balance of technical expertise and business understanding have been a game-changer for us."
Bolt Today Solution Approach
Bolt Today conducted detailed discovery calls, documented the requirements, and created a reference architecture detailing the end-to-end order flow across multiple systems: B2C Commerce, Salesforce OMS, Ship Compliant, Wine Shipping (3PL), and AMS (accounting system).
A detailed integration architecture provided clear visibility to the Cakebread team on the automation and manual intervention the customer service teams need to do. Case Management using Salesforce Service Cloud was implemented to ensure that customer service teams can work in an organized way and resolve exceptions in a timely manner.
Bolt Today followed the principle: over 90% Configuration and less than 10% customization. The solution offered several benefits.
Measurable Results
- Subscription Flexibility: Customers can now modify their subscriptions based on value and quantity parameters. These customizations were recorded for future analysis and insights.
Michael Thomas highlighted, "The ability for customers to customize their subscriptions was a significant win for our company."
- Regulatory Compliance: We addressed the complexities of state-by-state regulations for shipping alcoholic products, ensuring legal adherence and operational efficiency.
- Advanced Data Utilization: Cakebread Cellars could forecast trends and behaviors by leveraging big data, enabling personalized marketing and sales strategies as they build on it.
Laura Webb stated, "We are now able to better leverage data across multiple systems for more actionable consumer insights, improved personalization and better identification of revenue opportunities."
- Streamlined Order Processing: What used to be a labor-intensive, 6-8 weeks process for batching wine club allocations was transformed into an efficient overnight automated operation.
Laura added, "Our throughput rate improved significantly from teens to upwards of 85%."
- Improved Employee Experience: The reliable system boosted employee morale and engagement, redirecting time saved from manual processing towards better customer service.
"The improvement in employee experience has been noticeable," Laura said.
The results were remarkable. Cakebread Cellars achieved enhanced order processing, with thousands of orders processed efficiently during peak times. Operational efficiency improved significantly, with manual processes transformed into automated, low-error operations. Employee and customer satisfaction increased, with employees focusing more on valuable customer interactions, leading to higher loyalty and satisfaction. Automation and efficiency improvements saved significant time, enabling more meaningful customer interactions and a higher level of personalized service.
Laura quoted: "We now have more time for face-to-face customer interactions,"
Lessons Learned and Cakebread Advice
Based on their experience, Cakebread Cellars advises other businesses considering Salesforce implementation to:
- Clearly define the objectives and desired functionalities within Salesforce.
- Be prepared for customization to fit your specific business needs.
- Partner with a knowledgeable implementation partner, like Bolt Today, to guide them through Salesforce's complexities and ensure focused and efficient implementation.
Cakebread Cellars Recommendation
Cakebread Cellars highly recommends Bolt Today for its transparency, honesty, and ability to guide businesses through the intricate landscape of Salesforce implementation, ensuring successful and impactful outcomes.
"Bolt Today has been a cautionary guide, and their transparency and honesty were crucial to our success," Laura Webb said.
