HOW ROLAND DG INFLUENCED $1.8 MILLION IN PIPELINE WITH DRIFT
About Roland DG
Headquartered in Hamamatsu, Japan, Roland DG is a global manufacturing leader in the sign, graphic arts, commercial print, packaging, labeling, promotional gift, textile, engraving, milling, and 3D modeling industries. With over 1000 employees worldwide, Roland DG is a publicly traded company.
The Challenge
In 2021, Roland DG made two key observations that led them to consider an automated conversational solution in EMEA.
First, customers wanted to speak with them on their own terms — not just when their team was online. And second, though manufacturing companies hadn’t quite caught up to the trend yet, companies across multiple industries were using chatbots to directly engage their website visitors.
For Roland DG, the following steps were obvious. They began looking into a handful of chat providers and ultimately chose Drift to guide their digital engagement strategy.
The Solution
a PAINLESS ONBOARDING PROCESS
Katie Doble-Birch, Marketing Automation and Planning Manager at Roland DG, had some initial concerns about going live with Drift. After all, Roland DG is a massive global organization with various products and buyers.
But the implementation turned out to be a painless process.
“Our onboarding manager was brilliant,” Katie explained. “I had quite a lot of concerns about how the implementation process would go, and he was really good at laying out the initial assessment and the onboarding process. We took some small steps but moved really quickly, and we implemented it in five weeks. It was quite a fast implementation for a large company.”
Katie Doble-Birch
NURTURING LEADS THROUGH KEY INTEGRATIONS
Today, Roland DG has over 20 playbooks live, ranging from generic greetings to live conversations with specialists on high-value product pages. A number of different teams have their hands in Drift, with chats being redirected to sales team members based on territory or sent over to their service department for support. Once a chat is redirected to a salesperson, that team member will qualify the lead and ultimately pass them through to a proper dealer to move the sales process forward.
But not all leads are ready to chat with sales immediately, and they may need some additional nurturing before they’re ready to move forward.
Through Drift, Roland DG collects prospect information and then uses the Drift x Pardot integration to nurture that individual until they’re ready to talk with the sales teams. Once a lead is of sufficient quality, it’s automatically passed through Salesforce to Roland DG’s sales departments to engage further.
A TRANSPARENT BUYER EXPERIENCE
For Katie and the EMEA team, having Drift on their site has boosted their response speed and availability. “Drift has moved us more towards instant response for our customers. It brings us in to have that interaction with customers immediately in addition to more traditional channels,” Katie said.
And that instantaneous response brings new levels of transparency for Roland DG’s buyers. “Drift makes us very available,” Katie shared. “It shows we’re open to all requests and not hiding behind anything. We’re open and transparent when providing the right solution to visitors’ needs.”
Katie Doble-Birch
The Results
In the past 10 months of using Drift, Roland DG EMEA saw:
Katie Doble-Birch
