December 05, 2012 | Andrew Lawlor

Aptaria helped a commercial real estate firm increase site acquisition efficiency for USPS by implementing Salesforce.com’s Customer Portal.

Challenge: Managing Property Acquisition for USPS

Grubb & Ellis (NYSE: GBE) is one of the world’s largest real estate services and investment companies, with over 5,000 employees and 100 offices. GBE has successfully managed the real estate needs of numerous Fortune 500 companies and government organizations.

Yet as part of a contract with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) focused on site acquisition, GBE’s existing toolkit was insufficient. USPS personnel needed an efficient way to acquire – and dispose of – buildings for post offices nationwide. And they needed to manage the entire process lifecycle, including site evaluation, resource and relationship tracking, and critical documents storage – all on a need-to- know basis.

Action: Implementing Salesforce.com's Customer Portal

Aptaria proposed and implemented Salesforce.com’s Customer Portal as the GBE answer to the Postal Service’s needs. GBE had already been using Salesforce for its own business, and was enthused about leveraging that investment further.

Aptaria customized the Portal for USPS so that it provides:

A dedicated cloud-based site where USPS personnel can manage the acquisition and disposal of post office properties
Need-to-know access for USPS personnel to relevant assignments and documents
Full access to assignments for GBE staff
Tracking of all team members per assignment by role (e.g. GBE Team Leader, USPS Project Manager)
Tracking of all activities by team member, to measure progress

Result: A More Efficient USPS

Aptaria’s implementation and customization of Salesforce’s Customer Portal has been a success for both GBE and USPS:

GBE was able to meet a critical contractual requirement and exceed client expectations – with no additional infrastructure costs
USPS and GBE team members can now collaborate on site acquisition projects through an intuitive, easy-to-scale web platform
GBE can track projects in real time to ensure USPS customer satisfaction

The best evidence of the Portal’s success: USPS has expanded its contract with GBE since its launch.