Established in 1972, the Arizona Department of Economic Security works with families, community organizations, advocates, and state and federal partners to ensure a collective vision that every child, adult, and family in Arizona will be safe and economically secure. Headquartered in Phoenix, the agency, which helps approximately 3 million people annually, is dedicated to caring for the vulnerable and helping Arizonans reach their potential through temporary assistance for those in need.
More than 8,000 team members at the Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES) work each day to provide support to those who seek human services. With seven main business divisions ranging from Child Support Services to Aging and Adult Services, the agency offers more than 40 different programs and services to address the social and economic needs of its citizens.
Several years ago, a federal government shutdown impacted government agencies across the country including the DES Division of Benefit and Medicare Eligibility (DBME) and the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD). DBME provides social services to low income families, including medical benefits, cash assistance, and food stamps, and DDD provides services that help those with developmental disabilities live more independently in their community.
Due to the shutdown, it was critical for both divisions to inform their approximately 1.2 million clients their benefits would be impacted. A third-party email-marketing automation provider was brought on board as a messaging tool that would allow DES to regularly communicate updates and changes as required throughout the year. However, the agency ran into an obstacle, as the platform would only allow a maximum of 500 contacts at a time to be uploaded, which was extremely impractical and evident that a more robust solution was required.
In the summer of 2019, DBME, the larger of the seven divisions, approached Kuldeep Singh, Solution Architecture Manager, in the DES Division of Technology Services, for assistance. “We met with both DBME and DDD to understand their pain points, communication frequency, volume needs, and to gather business intelligence,” said Singh. “We then began the process of evaluating different products that would fit those requirements, ultimately choosing the Salesforce Marketing Cloud.”
The next step was to find a vendor that could assist with the implementation of Marketing Cloud. After reviewing several companies, the agency chose MST Solutions (MST), an award-winning provider of Salesforce and marketing automation consulting located in Phoenix. “We were really impressed with MST’s knowledge and flexibility. We wanted to work with them because they are a preferred Salesforce partner, specialized in marketing automation, and had experience working with state agencies. The fact that they were a local company was a key advantage.”
Value Created
DES needed an enterprise-level solution that was robust, scalable, and could trigger timely notifications via email, SMS, and voice, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud offered that capability and much more. “We wanted to schedule campaigns with limited human intervention,” explained Singh. “It was important that each division have insights into the success rates of their messaging and email and phone number validation, as well as advanced reporting capabilities.”
The DES Division of Technology Services is always looking for scalability and repeatable processes. “This is one of the building blocks in terms of solutioning a business problem,” noted Singh. “By having an enterprise solution, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel when we face a similar business problem. The advantages are numerous: we can reduce the time needed to support our divisions, accomplish more in terms of innovation, find new solutions, and solve other business problems.”
Prior to Marketing Cloud, the content approval process was onerous. Messages were manually sent for review and would touch many hands before they were approved, a process that consumed a lot of time and resources. Once approved, they would be scheduled on the limited features of the third-party platform.
With Marketing Cloud, the process is automated with predefined workflows that simplify the entire process. Data is exported from the DES mainframe and uploaded into Salesforce. Content approvals are seamless and can be reviewed by management and executed by system administrators. Messages and notifications are scheduled and/or sent on demand without running into time-consuming roadblocks.
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