Case Study Cutting Costs & Boosting Flexibility with CRM Modernization
How we replaced a high-cost Salesforce dependency with a custom Next.js CRM, optimizing support workflows for over 300 retail agents.
300
Retail agents supported
The Client
Scaling retail operations through customized technology.
The client is a major US furniture and mattress retailer known for value, style, and leadership in home design. With a rapidly growing footprint across the United States, they have successfully expanded their home goods catalog to cover everything from living room sets to premium bedding solutions. Their focus on affordable, high-quality furniture has made them a household name for consumers looking to design comfortable and stylish homes.
To support their growing customer base, the retailer operates a large-scale customer service division. Over three hundred customer support agents manage inquiries, handle order tracking, process returns, and assist with product specifications. In a competitive retail-ecommerce landscape, the quality of customer support is a primary differentiator, directly impacting customer lifetime value and brand loyalty.
However, their back-office infrastructure was failing to keep pace with their scale. The support division relied on a legacy Salesforce deployment that was increasingly difficult to customize, expensive to license, and disconnected from other internal business applications.
The Challenge
Overcoming the financial and workflow constraints of legacy CRM platforms.
For years, Salesforce served as the primary repository for the client's customer support and order management. However, as the retailer scaled to over three hundred agents, the costs of maintaining individual licenses became unsustainably high. Because Salesforce pricing scales with license count, the company faced a growing financial burden simply to keep its customer support team online.
Furthermore, the legacy platform had customization restrictions that limited service delivery. Designing custom workflows for handling specialized customer requests required complex developer resources or expensive add-ons. Simple tasks, such as tracking order disputes or syncing customer profiles across stores, required multiple manual steps, resulting in agent fatigue and delayed resolution times.
High Salesforce licensing costs scaling with the number of support agents.
Underutilized Salesforce licenses due to platform complexity.
Customization restrictions preventing optimized customer service workflows.
What our audit found
Uncovering underutilized seats, workflow bottlenecks, and data gaps.
Our technical and operational audit revealed that the retailer was paying for a suite of enterprise CRM features that were rarely used by the support staff. The majority of agents only required access to a few core features: customer profiles, order history, and a ticketing system. Paying for full Salesforce licenses for these basic requirements was financially inefficient.
In addition, the lack of real-time data sync with the client's internal inventory and order management systems meant that agents had to toggle between Salesforce and back-end databases. This friction slowed response times and increased the risk of manual data entry errors. The root cause was clear: the client did not need a generic, monolithic CRM. They need a lightweight, bespoke system built specifically for their support workflow.
Support agents only utilized a small subset of Salesforce features.
Lack of real-time database sync forced agents to toggle between multiple applications.
Monolithic CRM architecture created unnecessary licensing overhead for basic support tasks.
The Solution
How we turned it around.
Building a Bespoke CRM Platform
To eliminate Salesforce dependency, we developed an in-house CRM platform tailored to the retailer's unique service workflows. Built on Next.js and TypeScript for a fast, responsive frontend and Node.js with Express for a secure backend, the new CRM was designed around the tasks agents perform daily.
The custom application replaced the complex, multi-click workflows of Salesforce with a streamlined, single-screen interface. This bespoke CRM was deployed to all three hundred agents, providing an optimized workspace that did not require per-seat licensing fees, instantly cutting operational expenses.
What we shipped
- Tailored CRM console designed around the actual daily workflows of retail support agents.
- Replaced multi-click processes with a single-screen customer dashboard.
- Deployed the new CRM to 300+ agents without per-seat licensing fees.
Cost & Data Optimization
We migrated the client's historical customer and ticket data from Salesforce to a secure PostgreSQL database. To ensure business continuity, we established a real-time data sync pipeline that seamlessly linked the new CRM with the client's order management and inventory systems.
This integration enabled agents to view real-time shipping updates, stock levels, and refund statuses directly within the CRM dashboard. By retaining only critical features and integrating them with the rest of the business, we eliminated manual data lookups and cut down on duplicate entry tasks.
What we shipped
- Successful migration of historical support records from Salesforce to PostgreSQL.
- Real-time data sync with backend order management and inventory databases.
- Streamlined feature set that avoided the complexity of generic CRM suites.
Custom Reporting and Advanced Analytics
We developed an advanced custom reporting module within the CRM to give leadership real-time visibility into support performance. The reporting engine tracks key operational metrics such as first-response time, ticket resolution rate, and agent utilization.
These dashboards give managers actionable KPIs to optimize shift scheduling and identify training opportunities. Unlike the rigid reporting structures in their previous CRM, this custom analytics layer allows the retailer to build new report templates in seconds.
What we shipped
- Custom reporting module tracking agent KPIs and support metrics.
- Real-time dashboards providing manager-level operational insights.
- Flexible reporting structures that can be customized without development resources.
The Numbers
Outcomes we can talk about.
The transition from Salesforce to the custom CRM delivered immediate operational and financial benefits. By deploying the bespoke solution to over 300 customer support agents, the retailer eliminated its dependency on Salesforce licenses, dramatically reducing ongoing licensing and operational expenses.
Furthermore, the optimized user experience and automated data integrations enhanced agent productivity. By connecting customer profiles directly to order history, the time spent per ticket fell, allowing the support team to handle more customer inquiries without expanding headcount. The new platform proved to be seamlessly scalable, designed to grow and adapt alongside the business as the retailer continues to expand its home product catalog.
300
Retail agents supported
What We Built
What's Next
Extending the custom CRM to vendor portal and self-service channels.
With the core CRM platform operating smoothly, we plan to extend its capabilities to external partners. The next phase of development includes building a custom vendor portal that allows suppliers to update product availability and shipping timelines directly within the system.
Additionally, the retailer will launch customer-facing self-service tools, such as an automated chat widget linked directly to the CRM API. This will allow customers to track orders and initiate returns without agent intervention, further reducing support volumes.
Frequently Asked Questions
About This Project
The questions teams usually ask when they want to run a similar engagement.
We designed a secure migration pipeline that encrypted data both in transit and at rest. Role-based access control was implemented within the custom CRM to ensure agents could only see data necessary for their specific tasks.
The Real Numbers
Need real numbers? Let's talk.
We kept the names off the page. The story is real, the outcomes are real, and we're always happy to walk a serious team through the rest of it.
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