Fonterra | Connected Apps
Enabling a seamless customer experience through Salesforce integration
The challenge
Since releasing their suite of Farm Source Apps, Fonterra has become the benchmark for those looking to manage farmer-supplier relationships within the primary sector.
As part of their farmer-centric business model evolution, Fonterra needed to fully integrate their Farm Source tools across retail, mobile and online properties into a single, seamless experience for their 67,000 Farm Source users. This included managing identities from Fonterra’s new centralised Salesforce CRM database, which is now used for customer management.
Our solution
Solnet played a pivotal technical leadership role in the project, coordinating with other vendors to architect the overall technology solution and rollout.
The result is a single user account and password for each Farm Source user. This means that Fonterra farmers can manage their productivity data (Farm Source Business), retail (Farm Source Store), benefits (Farm Source Rewards) and recruitment (Farm Source Jobs) from a single account. Previously, users needed to maintain different account details for various services.
Salesforce CRM connected apps
With Salesforce chosen as the central database, Fonterra needed a way to manage user identities within the various applications. There were a number of complexities, for example, non-Fonterra farmers had accounts at Farm Source retail stores which they needed to access, but without being given the full functionality of Fonterra’s Farm Business tools.
Solnet developed a set of standards-based APIs which communicated with Salesforce to confirm the identity of the user and allow them the correct level of access. Previously, users needed to maintain different account details for various Fonterra services - under this system they are consolidated into a single point.
What we've achieved with Farm Source ONE is to simplify the user experience, as well as giving us a single view of farmer information to manage our communications from.
Managing rollout to users and simplifying support
Rollout of the new single sign on needed to be managed with the least possible disruption from both the user point of view (avoiding disruption to their operation), and from the perspective of the Farmer Services Support Team, helping them manage the transition workload.
Solnet developed a strategy, coordinated with Fonterra’s communications plan, to move users to the new Farm Source ONE system as easily as possible; for example, the new system included a function which allowed users to self-serve the setup of their accounts, as well as allowing ongoing access for those who did not change over immediately.
Unified design for a seamless user experience and centralised profile management
A significant part of the project focused on designing a high-quality user experience across all Farm Source online channels. Under the previous system, whilst there was common navigation, Farm Business, Store and Rewards existed as separate entities. Now, Farm Source ONE users remain within the same digital environment as they navigate between the various parts of the platform. This results in a significantly higher quality user experience, and allows the user to retain their session as they move between the different service areas.
What we really value in our relationship with Solnet is their ability to engage with us on the strategic side of a technology challenge, it's more than a simple technology vendor relationship.
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