Chrome River has partnered with Salesforce to create
Prosper, a tool that combines expense and customer relationship management data
to give clients new expense functionality and insight into the return on the
business travel investment. Chrome River is piloting the tool, which Chrome
River product manager Alex Kim claims is the first of its kind. The company plans
to make Prosper available to clients by the end of the year.
Supporting Corporate
Travel Decision-Making
Prosper will give finance or sales managers access to
map-based dashboards that identify customers locations. Clicking a single
customer reveals a combination of data points associated with that customer.
For example, combining sales opportunities, business travel expenses and closed
revenue tied to that customer offers a snapshot of how well corporate
hospitality has supported sales conversion efforts, but that is
just one possible formula. Prosper will allow users to pipe in data streams from
any relevant fields collected within Salesforce. Toggle options offer data
views in one-, three- and six-month time frames. A year-to-date view is in the
works.
The goal, according to Chrome River, is to be able to look
at unique data combinations to support pre-trip decision-making as well as post-trip
analysis. For example, companies might use the tool to weigh travel against
videoconferencing options. Or, the map-based interface might reveal opportunities
to visit other clients that could maximize the value of the trip, Kim noted.
Bi-Directional Data
Flow Improves Expense Reporting, Cuts CRM Steps
Chrome River's integration with Salesforce offers some
convenient new expense reporting features, particularly for sales executives.
For example, when users are asked during the expense process to identify meal
attendees, a Guest Picker feature automatically suggests clients from the
Salesforce database. A user can enter company, title or first or last name to
get suggestions and click to add as a guest for that meal. "In the past,
users were digging through business cards or searching through emails to get
the right information. Plus, [the company was] leaving it up to the user to
type everything correctly," Kim said.
Similarly, Chrome River now features the CRM Allocation
Picker, which allows users to select a general ledger allocation and select a
particular product, project or other sales opportunity associated with the trip,
eliminating the need to do it later in Salesforce. If a traveler visits
multiple clients on one trip, Chrome River splits the cost of expenses evenly
between clients, but the user can adjust the allocation manually.
What's Next
Chrome River is working on further functionality
as it pilots the tool, including the ability to view T&E spend by team and
account, as well as a predictive tool that shows spend estimates into the
future. Over time, Prosper could reveal patterns in types of clients or types
of opportunities that respond well to face-to-face meetings as opposed to those
that don't. It also may reveal teams that are skilled in leveraging travel as a
sales tool and those that are not and give insight into how corporate travel
budgets should be allocated overall. Chrome River also plans to partner with
other CRM tools beyond Salesforce.