Cisco Cisco Unified CallConnector Advanced Client White Paper

It’s a classic SMB dilemma: How do you scale the business and

raise profits without jeopardizing the close customer rela-

tionships at the very heart of your success? 

A few years back, East Lansing, Michigan–based

GreenStone Farm Credit Services (GreenStone FCS) faced this

very challenge. GreenStone FCS is the result of mergers of

several Michigan and Wisconsin-based

Farm Credit Associations. The company

grew to include 400 employees at 36

branch offices dedicated to providing

over 17,000 customers with agricultural

loans, insurance and financial services.

GreenStone FCS executives quickly 

recognized the task before them: to

operate as an efficient, profitable business while preserving

the small-town intimacy of its customer relationships.

At the time, the GreenStone FCS systems weren’t up to the

task. Customer information was scattered across a number of

branch offices and various, disconnected databases.“Many of

our business applications and financial systems were com-

pletely separate,” says Dominic Roberts, Director of

Information Services, GreenStone FCS. “Service representa-

tives had to open multiple applications to get a complete

picture of a customer. That was how the process worked

when our financial services officers had fewer customers, but

it doesn’t cut it with the number and complexity of relation-

ships that they now manage.”

The phone system was in similar shape.“Effectively, we had

37 disparate, disconnected telecom systems,” says Travis

Vivian, GreenStone FCS Infrastructure Manager. “We had 

different technologies, different capabilities, different design

methodologies, and different maintenance contracts for 

each system.” Maintenance costs from the disparate systems 

ran high, and TCO was pushed up even further because 

site-to-site calls were long distance.

To support its growing business and preserve the small-town

relationships customers expect, GreenStone FCS decided to 

connect all branch offices via a single, converged voice and data

network. GreenStone FCS rolled out Microsoft CRM to provide

360-degree views of individual customers that include the finan-

cial products they use and their specific 

business needs.The company also uses the

customer views to target marketing 

campaigns and to run reports that tie 

customer activities back to the campaigns.

Voice is the second half of the equation.

GreenStone FCS turned to Cisco to 

connect its CRM solution and capabilities

with an IP-phone system. Every service-

related call, inbound or outbound, is matched with an up-to-date

customer profile.“By the time representatives say,‘Thank you for

calling GreenStone,’ they have a complete, 360-degree view of

that customer,” says Roberts.

It adds up to a more consistent and satisfying customer expe-

rience. “We offer many specialists to better serve our cus-

tomers,” says Vivian,“but we don’t staff them at every branch.

With this solution, we can virtualize those delivery teams and

transparently connect customers to the specialist they need,

no matter where they’re located.”

Roberts anticipates GreenStone FCS will collect a 100% ROI

within 8 months on its IP communications investment alone.

It is also benefiting from its investment in CRM. The SMB has

reduced loan application processing times by 50%, increased

the speed of common queries by over 70% and cut IT man-

agement costs. As results turn into growth, GreenStone FCS

isn’t losing sight of its customers. “Our entire business is

based on relationships,” says Roberts. By using converged

data and voice to deliver a superior customer experience,

GreenStone FCS is making sure that doesn’t change.

©2006 Peppers & Rogers Group. All rights reserved. Peppers & Rogers Group is a division of Carlson Marketing.

The Customer-Centric SMB: Increasing Profitability by Focusing on Customers

WHITE PAPER   2006

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GreenStone FCS Turns Customer Experiences into ROI