Welcome to our new website! Learn more about how we help Associations succeed with Salesforce solutions. Learn More >
December 05, 2020 | Andrew Lawlor
KZO Innovations‘ core product is software that allows enterprise customers to securely create, manage, and deliver video content. Corporations such as Intel, Comcast, Time Warner, and Volkswagen trust KZO’s secure platform to host their internal video libraries.
Last year KZO decided to take its technology in a new direction. The company realized that its own video-driven sales strategy could serve as the basis for an app.
As KZO co-founder Jeff Fissel explains, “Our sales reps have successfully used video as part of the prospecting process for a number of years. We wanted to create a product that would let clients make the most of video for their outreach and sales communications.”
The KZO team opted to build their application on the Salesforce platform for 3 reasons:
However, KZO Innovations staff lacked the specific know-how to merge their technology with Salesforce.
“We’re experts in the video side, but far from it on the Salesforce side,” Fissel says. “We knew that we needed to use our technology to power the product, but we needed to deeply integrate it into the Salesforce workflow and experience.”
After reaching out to several Salesforce developers, KZO chose Aptaria. “They came with a prototype in hand and had a good grasp of what we wanted to do,” Fissel recalls.
At Aptaria, we built an app that enables users to access KZO’s video platform from within Salesforce. Our team linked KZO’s sophisticated suite with Salesforce features, so that the app could provide value at each phase of the sales cycle.
The app allows users to:
For instance, if a sales rep receives a notification about a prospect, he can do all of the following from Salesforce:
In the past, KZO’s clients had to take additional steps—and use separate applications—to look up contact information, embed a video, and create an email. Now KZO’s Salesforce app, KZO Drive, makes it possible to complete all these steps within the CRM system.
“It was Aptaria’s knowledge of Salesforce, the sales process, and the Salesforce development architecture that was the most useful to us”.
The AppExchange launched KZO Drive in September 2016. As Fissel says, “Aptaria set up everything that we needed to get the app approved. They understood the AppExchange process and how to build the integration package to pass all the security vetting and testing.”
Data from early adopters of KZO Drive reveals the app’s positive results for sales reps:
As a lead-cultivating tool, KZO Drive significantly improves sales reps’ ability to engage prospects through email. Recording a video message for a Salesforce contact adds a personalized touch to digital communications. The integration also gives sales reps the tools they need to measure and analyze the impact of those communications.
After the launch of KZO Drive, Jeff Fissel has seen a new market open up for KZO’s technology: “The app has allowed us access to the Salesforce ecosystem.” KZO Drive even presented at Dreamforce, Salesforce’s annual conference in San Francisco, in October 2016. “We got some good leads and excitement around the product,” Fissel reports.
KZO Drive shows the benefits of collaboration between an App Innovation Partner and a Salesforce Product Development Partner. “It was Aptaria’s knowledge of Salesforce, the sales process, and the Salesforce development architecture that was the most useful to us,” Fissel says.
The combination of KZO’s video expertise with Aptaria’s mastery of Salesforce produced an app that’s already improving sales communications for a growing base of clients.
