Everyone at Rootstock is responsible for customer success. We may not all work directly with customers, but each role empowers other members of our team to focus on making customers successful.

Of course, while Professional Services and other teams interface with the customer along their journey, customer success is the primary role of our customer enablement team. This team, led by Caroline Santander, Vice President of Enablement and Partnerships, helps Rootstock customers drive towards success from the moment they become customers. Sometimes even before then.

The customer enablement team at Rootstock takes a multi-pronged approach to customer success with tools and resources, in-person and virtual instructor-led trainings, online courses, interactive virtual meetings, and more. To help you better understand how we view customer enablement at Rootstock, here is an enlightening interview with Caroline.

 

Question: What exactly is “customer enablement”?

Caroline: At Rootstock, we define customer enablement as providing easy, proven, and innovative ways for customers to onboard quickly so they can realize a fast return on their investment. It covers product training, technical product administration, engaging with the Rootstock user community, and organizational change management. It even continues well after they’ve become a Rootstock customer so they can grow in how they use and benefit from Rootstock.

 

Why is customer enablement so important today for manufacturers moving to cloud ERP?

We’re seeing a huge wave of companies modernizing their ERP systems. Not just in manufacturing, but also adjacent industries like cannabusiness, aerospace, distribution, and others. It’s a natural progression as companies, customers, suppliers, and all parts of the ecosystem become more digitized, more competitive, and outgrow the capabilities of legacy ERP. Many of our customers were slowed by an on-premises system that was deployed 10 or 20 years ago. Or, we have younger yet fast-growing companies moving beyond entry-level tools and spreadsheets. They all want to take advantage of Rootstock and the Salesforce platform to help them scale and grow their end-to-end business on a single system.

The ERP market is mature, and many solutions have similar functionality, but being built on the Salesforce platform is one of Rootstock’s biggest differentiators. The Salesforce platform lets our customers run their entire business on one, best in class, scalable platform. They can also automate processes with clicks not code, take advantage of Salesforce analytics and AI tools, and use Salesforce Lightning to develop new and unique user experiences that are tailored to their needs.

Our customers see that potential and want to realize it quickly. Our team gets them started so they’re running on Rootstock in just a few months. They’re seeing real results, automating processes, eliminating manual work, getting insights they never could before. It’s exciting to see them go through the process.

 

How is Rootstock’s customer enablement experience structured?

We focus on getting the customer working on Rootstock as quickly as possible.

It starts with bootcamps. With a blended approach combining self-study, hands-on exercises, and live instruction, we are able to onboard key users quickly and efficiently. Users learn the basics of Rootstock and Salesforce, learn how to build reports and dashboards, and optimize experiences for their users. They learn how Rootstock works by using Rootstock in their own operations.

The next phase helps customers bring more users onto Rootstock, work through any change management challenges, and prepare for their go-live day. This can be more bootcamps but also expands with self-paced learning, on-demand courses, and other resources in the Rootstock Learning Center. It then gets into user acceptance testing and go-live, so users are productive from day one.

Finally, once the customer is live on Rootstock, we stay close to help them find the resources they need and continuously improve. We connect them with other Rootstock users to share tips and tricks and best practices in the Rootstock Community. We also have live, interactive virtual learning hours every other week to explore new features, find ways to apply Rootstock to specific customer challenges, and connect with Rootstock product experts.

 

What recommendations do you give to new Rootstock customers?

Take complete advantage of Rootstock’s customer enablement programs. It really makes a difference in the speed and success of a rollout. It’s our job to make customers successful and we’re pretty good at it.

We also recommend training or hiring someone to be the Salesforce administrator or engaging a Rootstock partner to take on that role. That’s critical for supporting an optimized system for users over time.

Getting engaged in the Rootstock Community is also important. We have dozens of Rootstock employees who are product and subject matter experts and who’ve worked in manufacturing. But we have thousands of Rootstock users at our customers and partners who come up with innovative ways to solve manufacturing challenges using Rootstock and Salesforce.

 

What else would you like new Rootstock customers to know?

It’s really rewarding to see how excited customers get when they finally go live and experience the benefits of their new Rootstock Cloud ERP solution. There’s a lot going on and a lot to be done, but when you’re prepared and users are trained, it makes a big difference in how fast you’ll see returns.

Everyone at Rootstock wants our customers to be successful. We’re guiding them along the way but, ultimately, it’s their project and they have a lot invested in it personally and professionally. It’s a big deal. But it’s such a great opportunity and they can see the huge potential for Rootstock to really make a difference in how they work and how their company operates.

 

Thanks, Caroline! To learn more about our customer enablement programs, visit the Rootstock Learning Center.