Ombudsman Cloud Care with Mary Crozier

For this episode of the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’re joined by Mary Crozier, Salesforce Consultant and the Ombudsman Cloud Care Founder. She tells us how she created the incredible app she’s created to champion volunteerism and service.

Join us as we talk about what an Ombudsman is and what they do on a ship, how she saw an opportunity to overhaul the Ombudsmen team’s workflow with Salesforce, and the power of the Salesforce community.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Mary Crozier.

What is an Ombudsman?

Mary came across Salesforce when she was working as a consultant in Japan. As a military spouse, building a career with remote opportunities was essential because frequent moves come with the territory. “Two years ago, I started on my Salesforce journey,” she says, “three months later, I was certified.” At the same time, she was moving to San Diego where her husband took command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier with a crew of 5,000. While she was to build up her Salesforce experience, she also got to know the ship’s Ombudsman.

“An Ombudsman is a liaison between the command and the families,” Mary says, “not just the immediate families of the sailors on board, but also the extended families—they all rely on getting information from command, and that happens through the Ombudsman.” This is a volunteer role on a ship and with 5,000 sailors, it can be a lot of work. Mary got thinking, wouldn’t this all be a lot easier with some sort of case management tool? She started working on the project in January, without knowing how the pandemic would make the need for a tool like this that much more acute.

How Ombudsman Cloud Care creates digital transformation

When Mary first started working with them, the Ombudsmen had nothing automated, not even an autoresponder on their inbox, so it was an absolutely enormous amount of work for a volunteer position. They were relying on sticky notes and notepads and in the face of COVID-19 that had to change.

Mary created Ombusdman Cloud Care, which is not just an app but a broader initiative to retool the way Ombudsmen work. Previously, they alternated weeks, but crises don’t happen that way, and they had no process for how to work together if a deluge of communications suddenly came in.

The app is primarily focused on case management, making it much easier to track everything, automate key processes, and report on communications to command. This cut down on a lot of phone calls, time spent tracking down information to put into spreadsheets, and a whole lot more. Long story short, Mary and her team brought digital transformation to the Ombudsmen team.

The keys to creating an app quickly

To help this project off the ground, Mary created a tiger team to get things done fast. She had Michael Kolodner, who could really help with the implementation and getting everything working; and Shelley Bolt, who was able to work with the Ombudsmen to understand what they needed and how to help them even more. 

The Salesforce community also was a big help, especially for giving the app a security review. “If you’re not reaching out to them for help, then you’re definitely missing out because they’re such a resource—it’s a whole community of go-givers,” Mary says. 

Links:

• Ombudsman Cloud Care on the AppExchange

Social:

• Mary: @Hi_MaryCrozier
• Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns 
• Gillian: @GillianKBruce

Mike: @MikeGerholdt