How Hal Leonard Europe Streamlined Customer Outreach with Proactive Campaigns by GrowthDot

Ross Bayfield from Hal Leonard Europe shared how switching to the Proactive Campaigns app transformed their customer outreach. Previously relying on Outlook mail merges, Ross needed a better way to manage bulk emails with full visibility in Zendesk. Proactive Campaigns by GrowthDot offered the perfect solution. It is easy to implement, affordable for smaller teams, and backed by helpful support to resolve early technical issues, such as placeholder formatting.

How Hal Leonard Europe Reduced Bulk Email Workflows from Days to 30 Minutes with Proactive Campaigns by GrowthDot

Hal Leonard Europe implemented GrowthDot’s Proactive Campaigns to streamline bulk customer communication directly within Zendesk.

Previously relying on Outlook mail merges, the support team needed a scalable way to notify customers about unavailable products, order changes, and logistics updates while keeping all communication tracked in Zendesk.

With Proactive Campaigns, the team was able to:

• Reduce bulk email workflows from days to 30 minutes
• Send personalized customer notifications at scale
• Keep all customer communication inside Zendesk
• Improve support team collaboration
• Automate placeholder-based order messaging
• Eliminate manual Outlook workflows

Could you quickly introduce yourself and your company?

My name’s Ross, and I work for Hal Leonard Europe, specifically working in customer service for the Music Room team. The Music Room website sells lots of different sheet music to musicians.

I work as part of the customer service department for that website, mostly, as well as doing a few other things like working with Zendesk.

Why Hal Leonard Europe needed bulk email communication in Zendesk?

So the main thing that we needed it for is that we have occasionally some reasons to bulk email our customers, such as if there’s a major issue that needs a long list of customers to be notified together.

Why was Outlook Mail Merge no longer scalable?

Previously, we would have to do that through Outlook and a Mail merge or a similar system. But management wanted all of the contacts to be recorded in Zendesk so it could be reported on. Ideally, but Zendesk doesn’t have a means of bulk emailing very easily, or at the very least, not to the kind of lists we were used to working with.

Why did Hal Leonard Europe choose Proactive Campaigns by GrowthDot?

Thankfully, the Proactive Campaigns seemed to be exactly what we were looking for, in that they give us the capability in Zendesk to bulk email these customers, share details about their orders, and that sort of thing.

How did you first come across Proactive Campaigns by GrowthDot?

We found it through the Zendesk application store and then looked at more details on the GrowthDot website about it.

When you were comparing options, what stood out about Proactive Campaigns?

I suppose the key thing for us is that there was an unlimited number of campaigns. We don’t have to worry about the number of campaigns, we make only the number of emails that get sent out per campaign wich is fime as our mailing lists include only a few hundred customers a time.

Why Hal Leonard Europe Preferred Proactive Campaigns Over Outlook Mail Merge

Compared to traditional Outlook mail merge workflows, Hal Leonard Europe found that Proactive Campaigns by GrowthDot offered:

• Full Zendesk integration
• Centralized communication tracking
• Faster campaign execution
• Personalized placeholders
• Better team collaboration
• Easier reporting
• More scalable customer outreach

Let’s talk a bit about getting started. How was your onboarding or initial setup experience?

We did have an instructional meeting that went over the basic functionality of every system in there, which was very helpful and made the general onboarding much easier.

I had a problem with placing customers’ order numbers from an Excel document into an email, since each customer’s order number is different. However, I’ve emailed GrowthDot’s support team, and they were very happy to just guide me on how to do that in Proactive Campaigns by GrowthDot. And it turns out that through Zendesk there’s similar code (placeholder) you can use to import that information into the customer information in Zendesk.

How Hal Leonard Europe uses Proactive Campaigns for customer notifications?

The main email we send, usually once a week, comes from logistics about items like sheet music or books that are no longer available. If customers ordered these, we inform them their order can’t be fulfilled and a refund will be issued, unless an alternative is possible.

We also use it in cases of unexpected changes. If a book has been updated in some regard, like if something’s been changed about a book, if a new version of a book has come out, and there are customer orders that are going to be affected because of that, occasionally, we might be sent a similar list.

Do you feel like the application improved your support team, for example, efficiency or proficiency, something like that?

Yes. I’m the main person handling this, and I’ve been doing it solo for a while. The weekly item lists come to me, and having everything in Zendesk really helps. When customers reply, it stays in Zendesk, not Outlook, so my teammates can step in if I’m unavailable.

How Proactive Campaigns reduced bulk email work from days to minutes?

Using Zendesk to send bulk messages with placeholders saves us a huge amount of time. What used to take a day now takes about 30 minutes. It’s been a big help.

Overall, how would you describe your experience with Proactive Campaigns by GrowthDot?

The Proactive Campaigns app was exactly what we needed. We are satisfied with the application’s performance and support.

Was there anything that pleasantly surprised you about the product or our team?

It’s been very good so far. The support team has been responsive, though we haven’t needed much help, which speaks well of the software.

Proactive Campaigns by GrowthDot work as expected. One nice discovery was the list of tickets generated by campaigns, which has been very helpful and easy to use. Also, we found a potential for our marketing team to use the application in the future.

Would you recommend Proactive Campaigns to others? If yes, why?

I recommend the app, there really haven’t been many negatives.

The Results

Using Proactive Campaigns, Hal Leonard Europe achieved:

• Bulk workflows reduced from days to approximately 30 minutes
• Full communication visibility inside Zendesk
• Faster customer outreach
• Better team collaboration
• Easier handling of unavailable product notifications
• Simplified personalized messaging at scale