Ronald Gaines, The Engager, shares the formula for crafting award-winning experiences at Sunbelt Rentals

With a rapid sales cycle and over 2,400 products offered digitally and 550,000 pieces of equipment available across more than 1,200 physical properties, Sunbelt Rentals wants to offer customers exactly what they need, when they need it.

The company is growing rapidly their leadership position in the equipment rental industry, fueled by Adobe Experience Cloud technology. Recently, the team worked to recover millions in cart abandonment revenue, improve sales and marketing alignment, and enhance their customers’ omnichannel experiences.

Their efforts earned a win at the 2023 Adobe Experience Maker Awards in The Engager category. Leading this charge is Ronald Gaines, manager of Sunbelt’s martech and data team.

https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/3425602

Adobe Insider Katie Martell caught up with him the morning after his big win, where she asked the question on everyone’s mind:

Martell: Congratulations on your win! Now, what’s the secret formula?

Gaines: It’s the tools, the team, and the hard work, and aligning these to the use cases, the business goals, and the end user problems that you’re solving.

When I look at what I do and how our brand services our end users, we need to find ways to add value for them. We knew there were some gaps, such as a customer not completing a transaction after putting a product in a cart. That customer has intent — the equipment we rent is both big and expensive — so something was wrong.

It was just one opportunity for our business to figure out what happened and provide them opportunities and communication to get them back. We put our resources together to find a way to retarget those people, making sure we did everything in our capacity to create that value.

As we grow, we are investing in tools to bring strategic campaigns to market quickly and surface the right messages at the right time.

Martell: What kind of experience are you looking to create for customers?

Gaines: Our customers are demanding more from us. They want more ways to interact with the brand and get services and value from the products that we provide. We want to re-create the same warm award-winning experience as when they walk into a brick-and-mortar location — and provide that same value and access online.

For me, experience is everything at Sunbelt Rentals.

Of course, we need to drive brand performance — that’s inherent. I was hired to do that. But really, I was hired to do that within the scope of creating a better customer experience.

We’re primarily B2B and heavily focused on helping each customer realize value from our product sets as soon as possible. For the overall customer experience, it’s important for them to be able to transact online through a personal, authenticated ecommerce experience on our website so that they can manage the fleet they have on rent with us.

Martell: Tell me about the technology underpinning your efforts here.

Gaines: Adobe as a vendor and partner has the tools to help make our experiences easy and seamless. It’s not easy, but the technology is purpose-built for this. If possible, we avoid cobbling together technology and tools used for other things to support our strategic needs.

On top of that, the support provided against the Adobe toolset makes Adobe a powerhouse in the industry. It’s why we have a wide range of Adobe products and are looking to continue to expand our product set with Adobe while figuring out new use cases for ones we currently have. Just for our automated abandon cart nurture, we are using Adobe Magento Commerce, Adobe Experience Manager, and Adobe Marketo Engage.

You want a product set that can scale with the business — and that’s what Sunbelt Rentals is really banking on with Adobe. And we’re only scratching the surface.

Martell: Where does technology like generative AI fit into your vision?

Gaines: Generative AI, to me, is the future. AI is not going anywhere.

With AI and large language models (LLMs), you have copilots, assistants, and so forth. With generative AI, you can create and develop, which is amazing. But when you can interface these capabilities with your brand, that’s where I feel it’s going to mature.

As a marketer, one of the hardest things to pin down and target is that intent of the end user. What do they really want? We need something sophisticated enough to really understand that intent.

There’s so much context. What did the customer rent before? How long ago? How long was their project? How often do they rent? All of this is important to our end users and how they run their business.

When AI has enough integrity and safety, I’m excited about how it will interface with Sunbelt Rentals’ customers. It’s going to be a mainstay and a staple in our new ways of interacting and transacting with our end users and the brand.

Martell: Why do you do what you do?

Gaines: When I look at myself and the communities where I come from, people don’t say, “I want to be a digital marketer” or “I want to be an Experience Maker.”

But I have a unique opportunity to be able to create experiences for everyone, and to put the best foot forward for our brand. I’ve been doing this for over a decade from both the sales and marketing sides of it. And I have found that every brand has a customer experience, whether you like it or not.

It’s a pretty awesome thing to see customers experiencing that journey that you curated and crafted for them. I want to make people feel that they’re valued.

My experience has taught me that the best experience is an experience that is equitable for everybody. And I believe everyone is entitled to have the best brand experience.

Martell: What’s something we wouldn’t know about you by looking at your LinkedIn profile?

Gaines: I’m a tech and data geek, but I’m also so passionate about how we show up for people. Giving back is important for me, as well as developing young people. It’s important because someone took the time to do that for me.

I’m also competitive — I want to challenge and see the best out of myself. But it’s a healthy competition. I’m challenging myself to be better and better.

Martell: What advice would you give other Experience Makers?

Gaines: Understand the winning formula. Ask what goals does your company have that align with your end users’ goals. What customer actions, experiences, and business tools can enable the business to reach those goals? What people and support do you need to support that experience?

Get your butt in gear. Get into your data. Get into knowing your customers. Start creating. It’s the same formula every time. And if you get really rooted in understanding your end users and internal stakeholders, it’s easier to craft and curate those experiences.

Katie Martell is an Adobe Insider, creator, and marketing strategist based in Boston, Massachusetts. As we navigate the digital age, she amplifies stories of transformation and trends in business, CX, and marketing. Martell has been named “one of the most interesting people in B2B marketing,” a top voice to follow on LinkedIn, and an Adweek Pride Star.