Dear Nicole and Interview Panel

 

The purpose of this letter is to share our recommendation for Dennis Alexander and the role of Digital Merchandiser.  Dennis has supported the Salesforce ecosystem for 3 years as a volunteer Lead Salesforce Champion in his District Manager role.  He actually was the Lead for the entire Vet business supporting the 130 plus DMs, the lead Champions, RMs, SSVs and National and Key accounts.  This included gathering requirements, documenting them, researching a recommendation and then working with the Customer 360 Team to solution the request.  The Customer 360 team would then configure the change request and Dennis would do our UAT/QT testing prior to deploying.  With his strong communication and facilitation skills, he would then deploy and train to the Vet organization.  He was excellent in this role in that he had the technical savvy to understand the platform, the communication and facilitation skills to deliver the training to the Vet organization via their Town Hall virtual calls and the patience and customer focus to answer the pleather of questions that always arose.  He was also asked on many occasions to lead Regional training sessions by the RMs for their specific region.  Keep in mind, each Region had their own Salesforce Champion and because of Dennis’s incredible talent and ability he was frequently asked to do them anyway.

 

He also went above and beyond so many times.  A couple of examples of that were: he would always show RMs, DMs, SSVs, how to use the platform, create reports and he went as far as to create an amazing training guide for the Vet organization (ask him to share it with you!).  Candidly, I wish we would have created a permanent role for him because he did such a great job and didn’t have that luxury.  He was frequently recognized by the Vet organization for his exemplary work and going above and beyond to support his team.

 

While preparing to write this letter, I went to the two BA’s on my team and asked them to tell me what it was like working with Dennis and here is what they shared:

 

Areas he did well in:

• Great initiative and passionate about the work he does – he took the Champion program very seriously and wanted the other Champions to be involved, participate, and share their feedback

• Always made time to pick up the phone if I had a question or needed something

• Assisted with QA/UAT testing – I knew if I was busy and couldn’t get to test something in a timely manner, Dennis was always willing to help

• Delivered clear and concise business requirements – I knew if Dennis was sending us something that it had already been vetted and it was something that would be adding business value

• Great communication skills – Dennis always was able to work with other business users/Champions and communicate to C360 what the ask/request was

• Training expertise – was always well prepared and excelled at training the field on new functionality

• Knew the Salesforce platform very well

• Very knowledgeable of the Vet business unit – I learned a lot about the Vet side, how things work in the field, & how the DMs use Salesforce from Dennis

• Receptive to feedback on any documents he would send for viewing before sending to the Champions/Sales Team

• Understanding time period on completing larger projects

• Even though he has transitioned off the SF Lead role, he is still being supportive to Dr. Laura and myself to ensure DMs follow ways of communicating as we switch (Team Player)

• Great at managing a group of champions and teaching them to “herd” the cats vs all DMs communicating to Dennis and Customer 360. He did really well ensuring “Ways to communicate” are XYZ

 

Nicole and Interview Panel, all to say, Dennis would be an incredible addition to your team.  He has many of the skills that are needed to execute the Digital Merchandiser role and absolutely can learn the others quickly.  We highly recommend him for the position.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions.  Thank you - Susan