Boca Developers implemented Pivotal CRM for Home Building and Real Estate to put a refined sales process in place from lead generation through to sale closing, as well as to provide a centralized location and standardized method for capturing and managing crucial customer and sales data.

1. PIVOTAL CRM C ASE STUDY
Growing Multi-Family Building into
Multi-Million Profits
Customer Details
Boca Developers
Boca Developers increases its business intelligence and
www.bocadevelopers.com secures its #1 asset using Pivotal CRM
Country or Region
South Florida, U.S.A. Florida has long been a top retirement spot for many Americans,
Industry especially the north-eastern “snowbirds.” Add to that a recent flourish in
Home Building/Construction European and South American interest in the South Florida region, and
(Multi-Family)
the demand for its waterfront property has become unprecedented.
Customer Profile
One of South Florida’s largest and most
successful builders of luxury condominiums, For Boca Developers, a leading builder of luxury in their products from Europeans, many of
Boca Developers was ranked #1 in their multi-family dwellings in prime Southern whom vacation in Florida, as well as from
market in 2004. Boca offers its customers
the very best in waterfront living, including
Florida locations, this has meant a doubling in South Americans, for whom Miami’s bilingual
marina products to complement the lifestyles growth over the past two-and-a-half years. With culture and Boca Developers’ high-end
of those who choose to live and retire in this 12 offices and 140 employees, the company offerings hold a special investment allure. This
highly desirable coastal location.
boasts over 16,000 residences in its portfolio, foreign interest spurred an already hot market
Business Situation from Dade to Daytona, valued in excess of for the company’s luxury residences, leading
Boca Developers was experiencing rapid $9.5 billion. One of its unyielding standards is to rapid growth.
growth and facing increasing challenges
managing their customer and prospect to build only with the highest quality, and the
information. With remote sales offices success of this approach shows: with annual Unfortunately, as is often the case, growth
and a team of external sales brokers, the brought growing pains. As demand for
company’s methods of capturing critical sales sales of $400 million in 2004 jumping to $600
information were disparate and inconsistent, million in 2005, the firm has become the state’s and sales of its condominiums grew, Boca
creating a lack of confidence in available data Developers became increasingly aware of their
most prolific privately held condominium
and inefficiencies in the sales process, as well
as concern over missed opportunities. developer by far. And with nine waterfront proj- lack of understanding of important sales and
ects underway and several more in the plan- customer data—for example, they were unable
Solution
ning stage—including marina communities to easily identify their prospects’ status in the
Boca Developers implemented Pivotal CRM
for Home Building and Real Estate to put with the single largest collection of boat slips sales cycle, who their best customers were, and
a refined sales process in place from lead available in South Florida, under their Marina what their best-selling products were. They
generation through to sale closing, as well
as to provide a centralized location and Grand brand—Boca Developers appears well realized they needed a better way to manage
standardized method for capturing and positioned to extend its outstanding success their contacts and sales information, both to
managing crucial customer and sales data. increase management confidence and insight
and growth for years to come.
Benefits and to support better employee productivity.
• Streamlined and enhanced the sales But Boca Developers knows that ensuring What they ultimately lacked was a unified
process from end to end continued success requires the infrastructure picture of the entire sales process—from lead
• Reduced customer acquisition costs
to support its growth and expanding generation to closing—to support decisions
• Centralized customer and sales data for
greater accessibility and decision support
customer base. Above all, it must nurture its being made and to ensure sales opportunities
• Increased executive confidence in and #1 assets—its customers and prospects. To were being maximized.
insight from operational information make this possible, Boca Developers turned to
• Created a stable, efficient, and scalable Pivotal CRM. Like many builders, Boca Developers works
infrastructure to support rapid growth with numerous sales offices, and each office
• Saved significant staff and management had its own method of capturing and report-
time in retrieving and compiling
information
Success highlights growing ing data. This problem was exacerbated by the
corporate exposures fact that Boca Developers partners with sales
brokers who are not direct company employ-
Over the past several years, Boca Developers
ees—and who thus lack incentive to follow a
has experienced a marked rise in interest

2. specific Boca Developers sales methodology or data-collec- collateral management and the ability to budget and track
tion scheme. As a result, Boca Developers could never truly marketing campaigns as being important components for
get a single view of what was occurring. Furthermore, this them. Boca Developers also recognized that opportunities
was not the limit to the company’s exposure, as Systems existed to integrate sales information with their financial
Delivery Manager William Davis explains: “In this business, system and to collaborate more effectively with architects
it is not uncommon for brokers to move from company and other product development partners via a centralized
electronic interface. Pivotal CRM’s flexibility and ease of
“Within one product, you pretty much had three integration made it an appealing choice that would meet
immediate project goals while also accommodating future
stand-alone systems, all integrated by one vendor. projects. “Within one product, you pretty much had three
So it made an awful lot of sense to standardize on the stand-alone systems, all integrated by one vendor,” says
Pivotal product.” Davis. “So it made an awful lot of sense to standardize on
the Pivotal product.”
William Davis, Systems Delivery Manager
Boca Developers
Bringing a unified view into focus
to company—they go where the hot market is, or where Prior to using Pivotal CRM, Boca Developers’ sales force and
they’re going to get the best commission. And sometimes broker partners captured important lead and customer
they take their leads and contacts with them.” Given Boca information in disparate—and largely manual—fashions.
Developers’ significant expenditures on marketing and Sales information was then reported to the corporate head
customer acquisition to capture these leads, the risk of office, primarily using spreadsheets, which were themselves
losing their investment when brokers moved on was a inconsistent in terms of both information and timing.
substantial concern.
Implementing Pivotal CRM brought all of Boca Developers’
Boca Developers recognized that its manual and inconsis- customer, prospect, and lead information into a single,
tent methods of capturing and reporting important sales centralized system so that a common, consistent, and con-
data were not only a liability and a source of frustration, solidated view was possible. Furthermore, this information
but that they would also impede the company’s ability to was now accessible to all the different users who needed
expand and scale quickly and efficiently. It became clear that it—from the sales people to marketers, administrators,
it was time for the company to implement a marketing, sales, IT personnel, and the executive team—so that everyone
and data infrastructure that would support their growth. could benefit from increased insight and visibility into
operational data.
Identifying the right solution Sharing a common system also empowered Boca
Once they had pinpointed their core needs—a system Developers to institute consistent processes. “Implementing
that would support a centralized customer and prospect Pivotal has helped us standardize everything we’re doing,
data repository and a consistent, refined sales methodol- from capturing leads, managing the sales process and
ogy—Boca Developers determined that the solution reporting sales activity to looking at marketing campaigns
they were looking for was a customer relationship across the spectrum,” says Davis. “So it has become a central
management system, and they commenced their search repository as well as a facilitator of a standardized process,
and evaluation process. “Boca Developers looked at a few which has been very beneficial to the company at this point
products, and Pivotal seemed to offer the best product at in our growth.” Bringing clearer workflow and methodology
a good price,” says Davis. Pivotal’s industry-tailored solu- into operations has ensured greater process rigor and
tion fit well with Boca Developers’ needs and processes. control, but also more clarity and efficiency.
“We noticed it was well-thought-out in terms of the sales
process—in addition to it being a CRM solution, we also In addition, the company has been able to accelerate
view it as a point-of-sale system. We absolutely wanted to and simplify a variety of steps in the sales process, just
take advantage of that functionality.” by having a clearer process and critical information more
readily available. “Having all the information about custom-
Boca Developers also had the foresight to recognize that ers and what stage they’re at in the sales cycle—when you
while they didn’t have a full marketing department at the need another signature, another deposit, and so on—and
time they selected Pivotal, they would have substantial being able to control it from a central location has become
marketing needs in due course. They liked Pivotal’s invaluable,” remarks Davis.
marketing capabilities—citing functionality such as
Pivotal CRM Case Study | Boca Developers 2

3. Centralized data has made reporting infinitely easier tive, empirical data and to design sophisticated programs
for Boca Developers. In addition to basic—but essen- around their best-selling products and top customer set.
tial—reporting needs such as forecasting sales and
expected revenue, with their sales team and brokers on Getting a unified view isn’t just a win for the executive and
board with the new system and processes, the company management team at Boca Developers: the Pivotal solution
is also used to manage the great incentive programs in
place for the sales team and brokers, giving them the
“Having all the information about customers and what recognition they deserve for their contributions to the
stage they’re at in the sales cycle—when you need company’s success. By implementing programs to encour-
another signature, another deposit, and so on—and age the outside sales team to manage their information
through Pivotal, Boca Developers has overcome any initial
being able to control it from a central location has reluctance on the part of brokers to share their lead and
become invaluable.” sales information with the company. This not only elimi-
William Davis, Systems Delivery Manager nates the risk of losing prospect and customer data when
Boca Developers salespeople leave, it also gives Boca the ability to easily
assess individual broker performance and target programs,
has been able to create customized reports that capture rewards, and activities accordingly.
and push all daily sales, product, and traffic activity
information to business stakeholders. “Using Pivotal across Davis also cites the scalability and reliability of the Pivotal
the organization has not only saved time, it has also system as major benefits. “We knew ahead of time that
eliminated a lot of confusion and increased confidence in Pivotal would create the space and ability for us to scale,
terms of understanding what the sales activity is,” Davis and it has proven to be very, very stable and very, very thor-
notes. “When you have disparate sales offices each doing ough in its end-to-end processing.” Boca can now gather
their own thing and reporting sales information differently rich lead information and create targeted campaigns and
and with their own methods, there is a strong desire to get incentive programs to upgrade a lead's stage in the sales
a ‘single truth.’ Pivotal has become a central repository, as cycle with a confidence that wasn’t present before—giving
well as a facilitator of good business practices, which has them a better chance to turn those leads into sales.
been very beneficial to the company.”
Encouraging user adoption through
Pivotal CRM has consolidated, centralized, and significantly
enhanced Boca Developers’ sales process from end to end. customization
It has also given the company a platform for creating a Boca Developers wanted to generate some immediate
data warehouse they can use to mine customer and market return on investment (ROI) with Pivotal CRM, and they
intelligence for the insight they need to increase the knew this wouldn’t be possible without high user adop-
quantity and quality of leads and understand trends and tion. They also recognized that tailoring Pivotal closely
patterns regarding sales and loss of sales. to user needs would be essential to driving user buy-in.
Accordingly, they took advantage of Pivotal’s high product
The executive team was so pleased with the sales flexibility and ease of customization to ensure the solution
information now available, they wanted to drill down even fit their users’ unique needs and processes.
further. Pivotal CRM’s flexible technology made this an
easy option to pursue. “Pivotal was great in capturing all of With the help of Pivotal Professional Services, Boca
the operational information. We were also able to create Developers easily customized Pivotal to meet their
extracts using the SQL database underlying Pivotal and specific requirements as a multi-family builder, such as
create a mini data warehouse where we can now mine that enhanced reservation and contract processes. They also
data: identify trends and patterns, understand what our integrated features within Pivotal to capture visual views
best products are, who our best brokers are, the most effec- of Boca’s multi-dimensional stacks and units within the
tive marketing campaigns, and so forth,” Davis explains. system—Davis notes that this enhancement in particular
Boca Developers’ phenomenal success and growth prior to has given Boca a competitive edge. In essence, Pivotal’s
implementing Pivotal CRM had been largely attributable to highly flexible infrastructure has made it possible for Boca
the sound decision-making of the company’s experienced Developers to adapt the product to act like a custom-built
and talented executive team; with the information now system in a fraction of the time—and cost—it would
available to them through Pivotal CRM, this team is able to take to develop such a solution. Davis praised Pivotal’s
make faster, more informed decisions based on quantita- easy customizability: “The Pivotal product is absolutely
Pivotal CRM Case Study | Boca Developers 3

4. flexible enough for it to be tailored to meet both general time. Once they clearly understand the profile of buyers of
multi-family builder needs or specific, unique competitive both their tower condo units and marina products, Boca
features. Absolutely.” Developers plans to make use of Pivotal CRM features
that will make it easier for them to cross-sell and up-sell
In addition to implementing Pivotal CRM and Boca’s products and services to their buyers.
desired customizations, Pivotal Professional Services
also helped the company roll the system out to its users, In the months since Boca Developers implemented Pivotal
CRM, markets in many areas have softened. For Boca, this
“We could probably staff the planned projects we has only reinforced the importance of maximizing their
opportunities through better relationship management—
have on the table at half the rate that we would have
as well as understanding why opportunities are lost. “We’re
in the past... Pivotal has really helped in our ability to also analyzing the prospects who have decided that now is
scale and grow.” not the time for them to buy; we’re now able to understand
what products they’re walking away from, and the price
William Davis, Systems Delivery Manager point and brokers on those products—so it also helps us
Boca Developers
to tighten up our shop internally in terms of how we need
to operate,” says Davis. Learning what’s causing prospects
training the sales and marketing teams and creating quick to hesitate in making a purchase, as well as being able to
reference cards and other materials that made getting to aim highly targeted campaigns at their top customer and
know the system easier. Davis speaks favorably of both prospect set, will help Boca Developers ensure they remain
the process and Pivotal Professional Services as a whole: the number one luxury condo choice in their market.
“Our experience with the team has been awesome. They
have done a great job in terms of training, and in terms of
dealing with the pressure of getting the job done. They
Embracing a CRM culture
have managed the whole process well, and we’ve truly had Boca Developers’ Pivotal CRM implementation is a strategic
a great experience with Pivotal Professional Services.” piece of a bigger, ongoing corporate mandate. The
company aims to develop lifetime value for—and lifetime
relationships with—their customers, and they know that
Realizing rapid ROI creating and maintaining strong ongoing relationships
Boca Developers’ efforts to encourage user adoption right from the outset is the key to customer loyalty, repeat
paid off. The company quickly began to see widespread sales, and referrals.
utilization of the new system—and a clear return on their
investment, thanks to the streamlining of sales processes In a luxury market, customer expectations are high, and
and overall methods for information retrieval, as well as the Boca Developers has always performed well in the area
reduced risk of lost contacts and leads. The streamlining of of customer service. Now, with Pivotal CRM in place, they
processes alone has saved a tremendous amount of staff have access to hard information in a centralized location
time. “We could probably staff the planned projects we that reveals exactly where they stand in terms of meeting
have on the table at half the rate that we would have in the service-level agreements and goals for customers and
past, in terms of throwing bodies at it to get a project up prospects alike. This is just one of the many ways in which
and running,” says Davis. “Pivotal has really helped in our Boca Developers has been able to apply and benefit from
ability to scale and grow.” the new, detailed information at their fingertips.
While exact figures are not yet available, Boca Developers Boca Developers has, without a doubt, fully embraced a
is also confident that their customer acquisition costs will CRM culture: “People who had no interest in technology
be reduced significantly through the use of Pivotal, due or the computers on their desks at all suddenly not only
primarily to being able to better target marketing cam- want to get into the system, they want advanced training,
paigns with the hard data they can now collect about their and they’re constantly asking about capabilities and other
customers and products. The company plans to measure ways it can be used—they now keep Pivotal open and
ROI quantitatively over time, and from what they’ve experi- minimized on their desktop at all times. We’re loving that,”
enced already, they expect the results to be impressive. says Davis. The success of the implementation has been
such that more and more users have requested access, and
Boca Developers’ current plans suggest that the returns the company is working with Pivotal Professional Services
on their investment in Pivotal CRM will only increase over to explore various ways of expanding their Pivotal system.
Pivotal CRM Case Study | Boca Developers 4

5. Looking ahead, Boca Developers plans to expand their locations, materials, and designs—by investing in Pivotal
use of Pivotal to help manage their marketing processes. CRM, the company has demonstrated its commitment to
Through targeted marketing, Boca wants to ensure they are getting to know its customers better and building superior
long-term relationships with them. And one of the most
“People who had no interest in technology or important things the company has realized is that using
Pivotal CRM is just part of this equation; to truly be success-
the computers on their desks... now keep Pivotal open ful, the spirit of customer relationship management needs
and minimized on their desktop at all times. We're to be adopted throughout the entire company. “The first
loving that.” thing to understand is that CRM is a culture,” Davis notes.
“It is not simply a system, it is not simply an acronym—it
William Davis, Systems Delivery Manager is a culture, and you’ve got to get your people to embrace
Boca Developers
the culture of customer relationship management, from the
executive team down to every employee. Then you find a
“top-of-mind” for the prospects who have housing needs good core like Pivotal that supports it and makes it easy.”
and an interest in the luxury condo market and marina
products. They also plan to use Pivotal to further refine Could Boca Developers have managed its recent growth
processes, including ensuring they employ a very tight as successfully as it has without Pivotal CRM? “I’d like to
sale-closing routine. believe that we could,” laughs Davis. “But we may have had
to hire about a thousand people to do it.”
Boca Developers’ commitment to delivering only the
highest of quality to its customers doesn’t stop at fine
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