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Delays in contract execution, frustrating hoops to jump through, and disconnected communication hurts organization and client relationships, something that can lead to rocky partnership starts or, at its worst, to lost deals.

Integrating your CRM and CLM can save the day, or, in this case, the deal.

What is a CRM? What is a CLM?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools, such as Salesforce, help companies manage customer relationships and function as a Single Source of Truth (SSOT) for everyone who interacts with them from the Sales team to Marketing.

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) tools, like DocuSign, handle contracts from beginning to end, including the workflow, amendments, and track changes. They can even have sophisticated clause repositories to pull from for easy company-compliant population.

For many organizations right now, client communications and relationship management are handled in the CRM. Once a deal has been struck, signing the actual paperwork requires the introduction of a new program – the CLM. Once execution is completed, the relationship is then returned to the CRM.

Using a CLM tool separately from the CRM limits your SSOT – the CRM isn’t the Single Source of Truth, anymore, it’s only part of the truth. The negotiations and stipulations of the contract are now housed in another system. Worse still, sales and the contract team often have access to only “their” part of the business process.

Marrying these two platforms makes enormous sense – and is a big step in the direction of fully managing customer lifecycle. It increases visibility and fast-tracks deals.

Recently, Spaulding Ridge customer Unifi, North America’s largest provider of aviation services, implemented DocuSign (their new CLM) and integrated it with Salesforce (their CRM) to streamline and automate agreement creation, approvals, and signatures. The results speak for themselves.

 

Cutting down on creation to execution of deals is only one of the numerous perks that come pre-packaged in this integration. You’ll find:

  • Enhanced security
  • Better User Experience
  • Reduced costs & minimized paperwork
  • Improved document management
  • Increased accuracy and shorter run times

What Does an Integrated CRM/CLM Actually Do?

Let’s talk in concrete examples. DocuSign (CLM) and Salesforce (CRM) have been collaborating since 2012 to provide efficient, optimized solutions to businesses. In some ways, they take up where the other leaves off.

Since sales deal information starts off in Salesforce, it often already has the basic information, like Opportunity, Contact, Lead, Account, etc., which is automatically pulled in by DocuSign to populate contracts.

Contracts can be signed, sent, and monitored directly from Salesforce on any device – that includes viewing side-by-side versions, updating deals in real-time using Chatter, and deploying complex integrations without code.

For the teams that work out of DocuSign, such as Finance, they see everything out of their native program, as well. It’s an ideal situation – both parties operate out of familiar and very useful programs with access to identical information.

Ultimately, what an integrated CRM/CLM does is provide visibility for everyone who needs it with the security required to handle sensitive information safely.

Two Layers of Enhanced Security

Both DocuSign and Salesforce adhere to stringent certifications and security standards. DocuSign has three types of rigorous security: physical security, platform security, and infrastructure security. Salesforce has security “built into its DNA” and has a meticulous security strategy as well as provides users with good security practice guides.

Everyone Who Needs Visibility Gets Visibility

The other key component here is visibility. It seems like a buzzword at this point, but it’s honestly the loftiest of corporate goals that’s worth attaining.

 

This transparency is ideal not only for your teams, but also for clients. No matter who they talk to for what reason, the information is visible in a single place – the CRM. It Unifi’s case, Salesforce. This means everyone can operate out of a single system and has visibility into contracts and where they are in the funnel.

Spaulding Ridge: We Manage, Empower, & Change

At Spaulding Ridge, we partner with best-in-cloud technology and craft solutions unique to our clients’ pain points. We are the largest DocuSign Partner in the world and were one of the first Salesforce Partners to be certified for CPQ implementation.

We’re not just implementors, thought – a successful client story for us is when we see total user adoption through effective change management. We’re here for the entire process, from advising on which technology to use, to implementation, to change management and managed services. We provide the same end-to-end service we expect of our technologies.

Reach out to Logan Malone today to speak more about standing up your own CLM & CRM and utilizing DocuSign CLM for Salesforce to close deals faster.

Headshot of Logan Malone
Logan Malone
Senior Associate, DocuSign, Spaulding Ridge
About the Author

Logan Malone is an experienced Senior Associate within the DocuSign practice at Spaulding Ridge. He has a number of licenses and certifications for DocuSign, including as a DocuSign Sales Executive Specialist. He is well versed in Agreement Cloud, CLM, and Electronic Signature.