Fireclay Tile Transforms for Growth and Delivers an Enterprise-Class Customer Experience With Salesforce

SAN FRANCISCO, April 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing (http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/) company, today announced the success of Fireclay Tile in using Salesforce to transform and run its entire business in the cloud. The leading ceramic tile company, which uses recycled materials and sustainable manufacturing practices, has increased sales, reduced costs and provided an enterprise-class experience for its customers with the Sales Cloud, Chatter and the Force.com platform, leading to improved performance visibility and higher profitability and customer satisfaction.

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Investing in the Cloud to Grow During the Economic Downturn

Anticipating a business slowdown due to the downturn that hit the housing and construction industry especially hard, Fireclay Tile seized the opportunity to free up resources by replacing its on-premise enterprise software deployment and move to the cloud with Salesforce. The company consolidated its operations to salesforce.com's Cloud 2 technologies to support multiple functions from sales to manufacturing, shipping, and customer service. Its goals were to gain end-to-end visibility across the business, improve customer service, increase productivity and reduce overall IT costs. The visibility into its pipeline Fireclay gained from Salesforce enabled it to hire three additional people during the recent recession while most other businesses were entrenching, either laying off workers or instituting hiring freezes.

Fireclay Tile migrated a database of more than 3,000 products to the Sales Cloud and integrated it with an order management system, making it easy for employees to choose the right product, color, and materials and maintain consistency across the entire organization.

Fireclay deployed four AppExchange apps including Vertical Response for AppExchange, ExactShip's ShipCRM for UPS, Employee Manager, and Datasynch for QuickBooks & Salesforce. Fireclay also deployed Google Apps integrated with Salesforce for e-mail and calendar functionality, built two custom apps on Force.com, and used Visualforce to develop a customized user interface as well as custom order templates and invoices. Fireclay used Force.com Siteforce technology to create real-time websites that let customers find current details on dealers in their area.  These apps, built on the Force.com platform's open architecture, enable Fireclay to present a customer experience of a company many times its actual size.  

Custom apps include:

• A production-management app that tracks orders in a centralized location gives everyone access to the most up-to-date information; and
• A sample-management app that tracks which leads have received samples and automatically reminds salespeople to follow up to ensure nothing is missed and also provide exceptional service levels.

Tangible Results: Reduced Costs, Increased Customer Satisfaction, and Rapid Growth

Fireclay Tile's salesforce.com deployment delivered immediate cost savings by providing an entirely new level of insight into the company's pipeline and overhead that enabled it to adjust its business along with external factors. Fireclay Tile reduced costs with Salesforce as sales decreased, and then positioned itself for the renewed growth it has experienced over the past year. In addition to the aforementioned business results, Fireclay Tile has:

• Achieved 400 percent new lead growth using custom web-to-lead and e-mail automation directly through Salesforce;
• Doubled the completion rate for on-time orders within several months using a custom order management app built on Force.com;
• Reduced accounting overhead by 85 percent by integrating its existing accounting system with Salesforce;
• Realized a dramatic increase in customer satisfaction, rising from measureable ratings of average to excellent on overall customer experience within eight months; and
• Automated manual fulfillment processes with custom sample app, cutting the administrative time spent on each order by 50 percent.

Comments on the News:

• "What I love about Salesforce is that as a small, 27-person company, I truly believe I can be, or appear to be, as phenomenal a company as the Amazons, the Zappos' of the world," said Eric Edelson, vice president/owner, Fireclay Tile. "We use Salesforce for pretty much every aspect of our business, and it  was an instantaneous cash flow improvement for us.  Salesforce will transform your business, it will transform your business opportunities, it will make business a lot more fun than it was before."

Additional Resources:

• For more information, including a video about Fireclay Tile's success with salesforce.com and a demo of Salesforce narrated by Fireclay VP/Owner Eric Edelson, visit: http://www.salesforce.com/fireclay
• For a detailed snapshot of Fireclay Tile's results with salesforce.com, visit: http://www.salesforce.com/customers/manufacturing/fireclaytile.jsp
• For more information about the Sales Cloud, visit: http://www.salesforce.com/crm/sales-force-automation/
• For more information about the Force.com platform, visit: http://www.salesforce.com/platform/
• Follow @salesforce on Twitter

About Fireclay Tile

Founded in 1986 by its Chief Ceramicist, Paul Burns, Fireclay Tile (www.fireclaytile.com) makes the highest quality, most durable and aesthetic hand-made ceramic and glass tile that is unique, affordable, and "green." The company is based in San Jose, CA where it manufactures and sells its products including Debris Series Recycled Tile, Crush Recycled Glass Tile, Vitrail Series Handmade Tile, Claymonde Ceramic Sheets, and its Express Series Quickship Tile. Since inception, the company has been at the forefront of innovation in the ceramic industry, and today the company is proud to be sold nationally in over 130 tile and eco-friendly showrooms and be used by some of the most well respected brands including Whole Foods Markets. In addition, all products are LEED compliant and contribute to LEED's construction credits. Fireclay Tile's manufacturing efforts are also being supported by a grant awarded by the California Department of Conservation. Fireclay Tile aims to be a triple-bottom line company and ensure we take the environment into account in every decision we make and offer all of our employees a fair wage and benefits. To learn more about Fireclay Tile, please visit the company at www.fireclaytile.com.

About Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company that has transformed the way companies collaborate and communicate. Salesforce.com is leading the effort to bring Cloud 2, the next paradigm for computing, to the enterprise by offering its customers the social collaboration, mobility and openness that are the hallmark of this new world. The company’s platform and application services include:

• Salesforce Chatter, a private social network for your enterprise
• The Sales Cloud, for sales force automation and contact management
• The Service Cloud, for customer service and support solutions
• The Jigsaw Data Cloud, for ensuring data integrity and quality
• The Force.com platform, for custom application development
• Heroku, for building social and mobile apps in Ruby
• The AppExchange, the world’s leading marketplace for enterprise cloud computing applications

Salesforce.com offers the fastest path to customer success with cloud computing. As of January 31, 2011, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 92,300 customers including Allianz Commercial, Dell, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, and SunTrust Banks.

Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM.” For more information please visit http://salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

Copyright (c) 2011 salesforce.com, inc. All rights reserved. Salesforce and the "no software" logo are registered trademarks of salesforce.com, inc., and salesforce.com owns other registered and unregistered trademarks. Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE salesforce.com