Ridecell rebuilds its database to 100% usable records in under eight months using Validity DemandTools
The Highlights:
Increased the number of usable records from 8% to 22% in just three months.
Achieved 100% usable records in 7 months
Reduced time spent cleaning and managing data by 20%.
The challenge:
Re-establishing a clean, actionable database after a business focus shift.
Ridecell, Inc. is leading the way in the digital transformation of fleet businesses and operations. The company powers some of the most successful fleet businesses in cities across Europe and North America.
For a short time, Ridecell decided to use platforms other than Salesforce as key sales and marketing database drivers. This was due to the company changing its product focus, employees working remotely due to COVID-19, and Ridecell’s desire to give them flexibility when choosing tools to meet their individual needs.
At the end of 2021, the decision was made to bring back Salesforce as Ridecell’s main CRM and the hub for its sales and marketing tech stack.
This placed a new focus on ensuring leads and opportunities were tracked more effectively and updated as needed. However, bringing back a database that had outdated information and duplicates was an issue that needed to be addressed.
At this time, Salesforce restored Ridecell’s database to its 2019 state—meaning Ridecell employees were using records that hadn’t been touched for over a year and a half. Further complicating matters, shifts in Ridecell’s business model during the pandemic made most of this data unusable.
At this pivotal moment, Ridecell hired Angela Henkel. As Ridecell’s incoming Director of Marketing Operations, Henkel faced the herculean task of cleaning Ridecell’s database and equipping its employees with reliable data.
The solution:
A phased database rebuild, supported by Validity DemandTools.
During the Ridecell interview process, Henkel made one key request: “I told Ridecell I had to have DemandTools to do my job,” she recalls. “I needed DemandTools to re-establish Salesforce. Without it, I couldn’t keep records clean, standardize fields, or automate key processes.”
At her previous company, Henkel had used DemandTools successfully for over ten years. “There, the strength of our database is what kept us going during COVID-19. The world shut down, but we didn’t skip a beat because we had this powerful database—and I was using DemandTools to build it,” she recalled.
“I was running 40 different automations, either by the minute, hour, the day, or the month, and our de-duplication rate was only .002 percent.”
Once on board at Ridecell, Henkel began by establishing a baseline for the state of the company’s data.
Using the DemandTools Assess module, Henkel determined that less than eight percent of Ridecell’s records were usable.
Henkel wasn’t surprised. She had already encountered recurring issues with duplicate records, and the email addresses the company relied on to reach prospects were sometimes missing or invalid.
Next, she mapped out a phased database rebuild. Working with a team of admins, she split the project into four main categories: functionality, integrations, training, and user feedback. Along the way, she redid standard objects, re-established custom fields and objects, and redesigned Ridecell’s assignment rules to ensure that leads were routed to the right sales representatives.
The DemandTools platform included tools that empowered Henkel to re-establish and maintain all aspects of the database in bulk, with repeatable processes, instead of record by record or need by need. She used DemandTools features like Schedule, DupeBlocker, and multi-object Import to automatically dedupe, standardize, and route data.
Henkel put inactive leads into a holding queue until they could be reassigned appropriately. She also reassigned accounts to active reps by geographic location. “It ended up being about a five-minute cleanup,” she said. “But if I didn’t have DemandTools, I’d still be doing it.”
Throughout the process, soliciting end-user feedback was critical. “If you don’t take user feedback into consideration along the way, you’re not doing your job,” said Henkel.
“What DemandTools can do versus what other platforms on the market can do is night and day. The quality of the management is just different.”
Angela Henkel, Director of Marketing Operations, Ridecell
The results:
A clean, trustworthy database to support Ridecell’s growing business.
Following this strategy, Henkel and her team quickly transformed Ridecell’s database.
Along the way, she continued to use the DemandTools Assess module to monitor Ridecell’s data quality. As the software showed, Ridecell progressed from eight percent usable records to a healthier 22 percent in just three months, and to 100 percent usable records in seven months.
In 2022, when Henkel joined Ridecell’s marketing team, the company revamped its lead generation process, which brought in new leads globally from multiple channels.
“Luckily, we can block duplicates before they enter the system and keep our data clean. We can also be confident that these leads are assigned to the right people when they come in.”
In the year following, Ridecell bolstered its tech stack by adding tools for intelligence and modeling—and with Artificial Intelligence now built into Salesforce.com (SFDC), maintaining clean data is imperative.
Henkel estimates that DemandTools reduces the time she spends cleaning and maintaining data by at least 20 percent, as compared with her experiences using other data quality platforms on the market.
Henkel also established performance dashboards so that Ridecell employees— from sales and marketing employees through the executive level—can track leads through conversion and opportunity stages. These views give everyone at Ridecell easy access to vital information and help cross-functional teams collaborate.
Improved data quality has had ripple effects on other areas of Ridecell’s business. For example, by cleaning their data, Ridecell reduced the number of emails they sent to invalid contacts—improving their overall email deliverability and supporting direct sales and marketing initiatives. “You don’t think of the domino effect bad data will have on your business,” said Henkel. “But it’s a big deal.”
Henkel feels confident that Ridecell’s database is headed in the right direction. “The fields now are beautiful. Everything that enters the system is clean from the get-go. Custom fields are set up the way they should be, buttons look the way they should, and I’ve set up DemandTools to run automations regularly.”
“You don’t think of the domino effect bad data will have on your business—but it’s a big deal.”
Angela Henkel, Director of Marketing Operations, Ridecell
Ridecell Inc. is leading the way in the digital transformation of fleet businesses and operations. The Ridecell Fleet Transformation Cloud modernizes and monetizes fleets by turning existing fleet management insights into triggers for automated workflows. The result is unmatched levels of efficiency and control for shared services, and rental, leased, and logistics fleets. Ridecell powers some of the most successful fleet businesses in cities across Europe and North America, including Gig Car Share from AAA NCNU, KINTO Share by Toyota Sweden, and Arval Car Share. Ridecell is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Madrid, Paris, Berlin, and Pune, India.