24 Apps that Led to Pandemic Superpowers in 2020
In the last 365 days (and counting), companies leveraged technology to not just respond to the sudden challenges in 2020, but to fundamentally and permanently alter the way they do business. In a year no one could predict and one will forget, our community of customers came together to forge a path to a future that once seemed so distant. While picking up some new personal hobbies (did somebody say freshly baked Focaccia bread?), Trailblazers also developed better data management processes, discovered ways to support their newly remote workforces, and continue to meet customers’ needs.
Here are 24 apps that helped Trailblazers “suit up” in 2020 to drive transformation.
1. UiPath Connector for Salesforce
“A situation like COVID requires us to have all of the details we can gather in order to respond, react, and adapt. When our finance, sales, and marketing teams got together and really decided how to tackle the challenges presented by COVID, they had all of the data in one single place — and it was reliable data that was completely up to date.” — Leopoldo Toro, VP of IT — Tavistock Development Company
2. Movable Ink
“Nothing is more important than the health and wellbeing of our members. Without the [Movable Ink] Critical Messaging App, we would not have a way to provide up-to-the-second medical advice to our members during a critical time like this. As marketers, having that flexibility to make email updates in real time is a game-changer.” — Eduardo Gomez, LATAM CX and Content Strategy — Enfabebe
3. Classy for Salesforce
“Classy for Salesforce has not only made our online fundraising simple and effective but it also perfectly integrates with Salesforce. With this app, we have been able to execute more online campaigns, expand our donor base, and increase the amount of fundraising coming in.” — Katherine Lucey, Founder & CEO — Solar Sister
4. Accounting Seed
“Though we always aim to be proactive, I believe COVID-19 is creating an environment where brands have to be a little bit more reactive. You’re constantly reacting to changes in the environment and in the market. Our goal is to have complete visibility — understand what’s driving the sales.” — Jen Haberman, Vice President of Sales — Beyond Better Foods
5. Skedulo
“On March 13 [2020] we made the decision to switch to 100% telemedicine and 100% remote work. … The thing that’s been great about having Skedulo as part of our operations during this is that we still always have real, live schedules for our team. It sounds fundamental but it’s actually a game-changer. We have a lot of clinicians who are at home with their own kids’ online schooling. Their schedules have been tossed up in the air … and we can continue to get new patients on their schedule.” — Darcie Peacock, Chief Executive Officer — Solace Home Healthcare
6. Talkdesk
“The flexibility of Talkdesk cloud solutions allowed us to make a significant shift during implementation and enable dozens of our agents to work from home, to support social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.” — Jared Arnold, Chief Information Officer — Advisors Excel
7. RingCentral for Salesforce
“Because of the simple user interface and enhanced mobile capabilities of the RingCentral platform, we have been able to sustain premium growth through April even with the switch to a virtual environment. We’re still growing our team by 8% every month. We’re able to train new hires remotely on using RingCentral Contact Center, and we can get them up and running quickly to serve our clients.” — Michael Moxley, Vice President, Service Delivery — Goosehead Insurance
8. Mogli SMS
“With the automation from AppExchange apps, Pardot, and Sales Cloud, we’ve driven huge growth for the business without doubling the number of people. We have more patients, and yet we have provided better customer service than six months ago.” — Sameer Afsar, Chief Operating Officer — Graymont Medical
9. Magentrix
“We’ve distributed 10.1 million items of personal protective equipment. We’ve enabled the distribution of 3.1 million meals to people who are in food poverty, as well as providing 118,000 kilograms of food aid separately. We’ve supported 84 different hospitals across the country, from installing beds to increase capacity to mortuary support. We’ve conducted 4,400 safety and welfare checks on people who weren’t contactable. And we’ve done 3,800 COVID-19 tests in vulnerable communities such as care homes and localized COVID hotspots.” — Chris Lyon, Head of Technology and Innovation — RE:ACT
10. TaroWorks
“Without Salesforce I don’t know how we would be tracking our sales, or making informed decisions that empower our entrepreneurs. … Salesforce really helps us have one source of truth for all of our business, customer, and donor data.” — Alicia Oberholzer, Impact Associate — Solar Sister
11. Elements.cloud
“The Salesforce team at Second Harvest started using Elements.cloud to quickly and reliably implement configuration changes to match the evolving situation, such as setup for 14 new emergency food distribution drive-thru sites … and reduced registration time from eight minutes to two minutes per client.” — Kelly Smith, Senior Manager, Business Analysis and Process Improvement — Second Harvest of Silicon Valley
12. NICE inContact
“Every single 211 call in the state of Connecticut is being answered from someone’s house. We created a new call center and converted another one in the last week to keep up with increased demand. None of it would have been possible without NICE inContact.” — Leo Pellerin, CIO — United Way of Connecticut
13. Coveo
“The transition to working from home had the potential to be disruptive, but our management team put measures in place for success, such as creating pilot groups to prepare us. Once we were working from home, Coveo played a big role in our ability to continue communicating with our customers.” — Jim Mitchell, Senior Business System Solution Architect — VIZIO
14. DASH Patient Scheduling
“During COVID-19, our phones were blowing up. We couldn’t handle the call volume as much as we would have liked to because everyone was calling to schedule appointments for COVID-19 tests or questions. With Salesforce and DASH, we were able to deliver communications via SMS and email to patients to point them to the online scheduling tool. This really helped us and slowed the constant flood of calls that was hitting our call center.” — Tim Reichert, Director of Marketing and PR — Eagles Landing Health
15. Spekit
“Spekit is essential to reinforcing processes and helping to ensure data integrity. It’s also been a critical change management component to communicate important system updates and changes.” — Ann Renee Thrash, Training and Documentation Specialists — JLL Technologies
16. Trail Tracker
“We use myTrailhead for training our agents, and for training new hires. Once COVID hit, we were able to use it to train our people on how to respond to customers for self-service. Trail Tracker enabled us to measure their progress.” — Jim Mitchell, Senior Business System Solution Architect — VIZIO
17. Improved Noticeboard
“Not having to hunt around all the different locations where we used to keep important documents … saves KTSL huge amounts of time and encourages employees to always follow the most up-to-date best practices, just by using Salesforce.” — Dave Round, Operations Director — KTSL
18. Skuid
“I was able to rapidly set up an Emergency Response Center tab in Salesforce using Skuid. We already had clients, team members, houses, and foster families in Fusion. I created a new tracker that allows us to track those who are being tested for COVID, those quarantined, and those who had COVID but are now better. The system auto-tracks the time in quarantine, who the COVID client/team member came in contact with, and next steps. It has been very useful to keep track of 2,800 team members and 1,000+ clients and foster families.” — Rich Slack, President — Chrysalis
19. GoldFinch Cloud Solutions
“The amount of time freed up by this automation allows us to allocate even more time toward innovation. In a period when a lot of brands are focusing efforts on managing their supply chain and making sure that they can get through this period, we actually have the bandwidth to think about what comes after this period, which I think is unique.” — Jen Haberman, Vice President of Sales — Beyond Better Foods
20. DocuSign eSignature
“When COVID-19 hit, and the Paycheck Protection Program lending started, we got our approval and started doing SBA loans. We had to get up and running with that process within hours, not days or weeks. We processed close to 500 loans in six weeks. … When all was said and done, we were able to help small businesses save 8,800 jobs over a three-month period. In addition to a seamless experience for our clients, we remained dedicated to serving the community.” — Kim Wargo, Associate Vice President and Salesforce Admin — FineMark Bank and Trust
21. nCino
“The PPP, which provided $349 billion to small businesses affected by the pandemic, was scheduled to go live on Friday, April 3. The night before, the SBA changed some of the fundamentals of the program, sending financial institutions scrambling. Thanks to nCino’s flexible and configurable system, WaFd Bank was able to quickly accommodate the changes and begin helping small businesses the next morning, on time and on schedule.” — Brent Beardall, President and CEO, WaFd Bank
22. Vonage Contact Center
“Productivity is even higher with a remote workforce, without the distractions of the office. Without Vonage for our sales and customer service team, which is about 75% of our business, it would have been extremely difficult if not impossible to continue operating remotely. With our contact center running successfully, we can now focus on the handling of other onsite activities.” — Chris McClellan, CEO and Founder — RAM Tracking
23. ProntoForms
“We’re expecting very high levels of demand for our field service team. We’ve been working to make sure that our ProntoForms apps have consistent terminology and that we’re all using it the same way. This will help us with onboarding and just-in-time training of additional staff that will surely be needed as we have elevated demand.” — Lenny Cumberledge, Field Service Director — GOJO Industries
24. Fonteva
“There is a real benefit of being proactive and prepared. Having a partnership with Salesforce and leveraging the AppExchange ecosystem for solutions like Fonteva ensures that we are utilizing tools within the Salesforce ecosystem and reducing integration issues. Our Salesforce ecosystem has enabled us to continue on without any major delays as we’ve transitioned from an in-person to a virtual world.” — Edima Elinewinga, CTO — Zero to Three
Looking Forward
Equipped with new skills and AppExchange apps, Trailblazers lept into the unknown in 2020. Empowered by technology and with the support of the Salesforce ecosystem, customers met change and challenges head-on — and are continuing to thrive.
See all these apps in one place at bit.ly/yearinside.
