Salesforce Service Cloud Enriches Experiences
When Hi-Rez Studios, one of the fastest-growing video game developers in the country, came to Ad Victoriam Solutions, it had two main goals: to improve its customer service experience for current players and to boost its marketing efforts to increase long-term player engagement. Both objectives were ambitious, as Hi-Rez boasts more than 40 million players between its two flagship online games. The company not only needed to have fast access to an array of player-based information, but it also needed data analytics and wanted to use that data effectively.
“The challenge was finding a solution that would scale to their level and allow Hi-Rez to have diverse contact management and marketing capabilities,” says James Rogers, Principal at Ad Victoriam. “The team quickly identified Salesforce Service Cloud and the Salesforce Marketing Cloud as the ideal solutions for Hi-Rez. The key was to approach Hi-Rez Studios’ requirements in two stages, first customer service, then marketing.”
Salesforce Service Cloud
For customer service, Hi-Rez needed to provide customers with a way to submit tickets regarding billing, technical and game play issues; it also had to have a single system for processing that information so cases could be resolved quickly. Hi-Rez already had a portal in place through which customers could fill out an online form to start cases, but it lacked a streamlined way to work with that information efficiently. The Ad Victoriam Salesforce consulting team decided that Salesforce’s Email-to-Case solution was the perfect option because it could integrate easily with Hi-Rez Studio’s existing user portal. Ad Victoriam partnered with Hi-Rez to build out the integration of the portal with the Salesforce Service Cloud, and now the two systems work together. “When a customer submits a case, it is captured and pushed into Salesforce,” the Ad Victoriam Salesforce Consultant explains. From there, customer service reps can communicate with players to get issues resolved in a timely manner. What’s more, Salesforce can help Hi-Rez make sure that the system is not creating duplicate users from one person who plays both of the company’s main games; each player remains as a single contact regardless of which games in which they participate. Salesforce Marketing Cloud
The same customer-centric thinking was applied when Ad Victoriam built out the Salesforce Marketing Cloud to enhance Hi-Rez Studio’s marketing efforts. In the past, Hi-Rez used Oracle’s RightNow service for its marketing initiatives. However, it was expensive and difficult to use, and Hi-Rez needed another option that would fit its specific needs. “The nature of gaming is that people will play for a bit and then never play again. They need an incentive to play more often and play up to higher levels of a game,” James notes. He added, “Hi-Rez wanted to be more interactive and engaged throughout the marketing process. So, within the Salesforce Marketing Cloud platform, we wanted to do a couple of things. The client wanted to teach their players on an ongoing basis by providing sessions about how to do everything from store the images they create to how to create journeys within the games. They also wanted to be able to send follow up emails to contacts about new features, discount codes and more.”
One of the biggest challenges was ensuring that players who enjoy both Smite and Paladin are not inundated with e-mails from the company, making the ability to look at each player as a single contact that much more important. On the flip side, if players only play one of Hi-Rez’s games, they need to be segmented out and receive communication about their preferred game alone. The customizable nature of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud lent itself to this requirement beautifully. And now that Hi-Rez has seen Salesforce’s—and Ad Victoriam’s—capabilities, the work to improve its processes continues.
Game On
“Hi-Rez now has game play information at their fingertips that is critical for their customer service and marketing strategies. And once we got going, the client realized all of the different things they could do, so we are working with them to prioritize their new needs and functional requirements,” James says. “We are now in phase two and helping them to continue refining their abilities.”
“One of the best parts of this project has been the ability to work with multiple platforms and integrate everything into a single solution,” James concludes. “For both customer service and marketing, data is now flowing through a single platform. We’ve implemented a system that works seamlessly for the client.”
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