PromoCollection and Zoho CRM join forces to streamline their business process, improve order management and increase ROI
Background
Background
PromoCollection is Australia’s fastest growing promotional products supplier, 3 years in a row! They work exclusively with distributors to offer over 1500 catalogue products, as well as having a 30 person China sourcing team, to source anything a business or customer may need. PromoCollection have 30+ employees based in China and Australia and 10+ production bases. Their aim to create a seamless connection between distributors and factories for 3 reasons:
Better communication, prices and service
Clear responsibility
Better quality assurance
PromoCollection’s products range from business merchandise, marketing solutions to print & packaging solutions. The loyalty programs helps bucket their members in the categories of: Regular, Silver, Gold and Platinum based on the duration of the partnership and provide a loyalty credit rate for each purchase order. Their services also include creation of a website and China based sourcing solutions for the businesses that have specific needs of production. PromoCollection prides on their 48-hour, 5-day, 2-3 weeks and 5-8 weeks express range of delivery for all their products.
Challenges
Challenges
PromoCollection have a wide Australian and China based team providing efficiency in all their products and services. With a large team in 2+ central locations, internal organisation of processes and productivity becomes a priority. The company deals with 3 main stakeholders: Wholesalers or Vendors, customers (other businesses) or the end users of their products and their warehouses in Australia and China. PromoCollection faced a number of challenges during their growth:
Before Zoho CRM:
Absence of a CRM created a havoc to manage customer and partner data
Manual entry of data into excel sheets consumed a lot of time and labour
Lack of interdepartmental communication increased duplicate actions being taken on same tasks which led to a waste of time and resources
Minimal to no supervision of key stakeholders involved
Sharing of live or updated data within teams and departments made it difficult to standardise the processes within the business
Order management was at an all time low due to the chaos of manual management and multiple steps in the process of a successful deal/order
Due to inadequate resources it wasn’t possible to provide custom quotes to customers that have specific needs.
Each of their quotes included only 2 line items, which resulted in multiple quotes for each order.
The product data – colors, sizes and customisation features were stored in vast excel sheets which made it difficult to do quick lookups of specific product information or price
Blind spot in the business due to lack of performance information within departments, processes or return on investments
After implementation of the standard Zoho CRM:
While the standard implementation of Zoho CRM ticked most of the boxes and fixed most of the challenges faced, it did not provide PromoCollection with the level of customisation that they preferred. They faced the following issues that needed to be fixed with further customisation:
Unable to add multiple line items in a quotation for unique orders
There was no process for an action item after a quotation is accepted or rejected
Unable to store data of several product versions – color, sizes, features in the catalogue
Lack of status updates and email notifications during the progress of each order
Solution
Solution
After the implementation of a detailed Zoho CRM, PromoCollection was able to:
Organise their data by recording Leads and creating Deals, Accounts or Contacts.
The use of a CRM enabled detailed and accurate reporting.
The information for thousands of products is stored and easily accessed within the CRM
Teams within multiple departments could access live and updated information based on each Lead or Deal
A list of all products was built to create a catalogue that can be accessed by all employees in real time. Each order would have a vendor associated to the record
However, they continued to face issues. The standard implementation of the CRM did not allow them to track the progress of production or provide detailed custom information in quotations and orders. Oscillosoft found that a customised version of the Zoho CRM and a personalised Creator App would work best together to meet the business needs at PromoCollection.
The skilled team of developers at Oscillosoft found that the platform of Zoho Creator can provide the extra features required within Zoho CRM to meet the business needs. Zoho SalesIQ will provide the platform to instantly communicate with leads visiting their website and tackle queries faster.
The Zoho Creator app was created to hold all the database of end users and wholesalers. It was embedded as a part of the overview in Zoho CRM, which allows the user to access the app within the CRM. The app was synced with Zoho CRM and Sales IQ for better data management and easy creation of custom quotes based on each customers’ specifications. As per the workflow at PromoCollection, the enquiry and quotations are carried out within the app and once it is converted to a Deal, it is entered in Zoho CRM.
Zoho CRM is used to create quotations for standard products that are already part of the catalogue at PromoCollection. If a customer’s requirements are custom and require extra attention, the CRM user utilises the Zoho Creator app within Zoho CRM to lodge in custom details as a manual line item of an order and easily creates a new quote. As each customisation of a product that is entered in Zoho Creator, automatically becomes an available feature for that products in the catalogue within Zoho CRM. The use of a ‘Product Code’ enables easy reference to each new customisation. Once a quote is created, the customer receives a copy and has the option to Accept and Reject. These details are recorded in Zohor creator app as well as Zoho CRM. if the quote is accepted, an Order is created.
In order to create a more dynamic solution, the extensions of Burst SMS and Xero were added to Zoho CRM. With Burst SMS, the team of PromoCollection was able to send live updates and communications with their client at every step of an order. The extension enables the team to send SMS messages from the Leads, Contacts, and Potentials modules. SMS are sent individually and in bulk as reminders for payments of orders or simply for promotional announcements. The extension of Xero was utilised for the smooth invoicing and payments of orders. By integrating it with Zoho CRM it was easier to save on labour and time. The extension eradicated the issues of double entry and optimised accurate reporting.
The Zoho Creator app and CRM tracks the several stages of all Orders placed.
The customer portal on the website helps the customer interact with the employees at PromoCollection. Collaboration on designs and various product specifications are discussed on this platform where the customer can accept or reject during the product customisation process. The Zoho Creator app tracks the process from order placement to design and production for the customer.
All customers and PromoCollection employees can view their orders placed, invoices generated and stages of each order with the help of the Zoho Creator app.
Zoho CRM and the Creator app enabled PromoCollection to trigger automatic creation of invoices for orders amounting to less than $5000. For all orders that are more than $5000, the Zoho Creator app will enable a ‘Special Approval’ process with 50% of the order as the first deposit and the remaining to be paid at the time of dispatch. The finance team at PromoCollection would omit the initial 50% deposit if you belonged to the category of VIP customers.
All purchase orders are also created in the Zoho Creator app for all Deals automatically
In order to streamline the process even more, Zoho Creator enables automatic creation of purchase orders against each Vendor
Zoho Creator records the top three Vendors based on the customisation or product type that is ordered. The primary vendor with the best price or quality for the order is picked and an automatic purchase order is triggered to the vendor.
Every new product customisation has one primary vendor based on best price of quality. With every new product customisation, a new addition is automatically made into the catalogue for future uses.
Once a purchase order is created, the order goes to the China or Australian warehouse, a quality check is made on the products which automatically triggers the second invoice for payment to be sent with the shipment.
The status of each shipment or order is updated in Zoho CRM for better tracking and management of the process
Zoho Creator within Zoho CRM also makes it easier to add a new product or vendor easily.
As each customisation of a product that is entered in Zoho Creator, automatically becomes an available feature for that products in the catalogue within Zoho CRM. The use of a ‘Product Code’ enables easy reference to each new customisation.
Once a quote is created, the customer receives a copy and has the option to Accept and Reject. These details are recorded in Zohor creator app as well as Zoho CRM. if the quote is accepted, an Order is created.
The Zoho Creator app and CRM tracks the several stages of all Orders placed.
Email prompts, reminders and task creations within Zoho Creator along the pipeline helps with smooth process management
Zoho Creator also provides reports and dashboards at each stage of the process.
Results
Results
PromoCollection is set apart from their competitors based on 4 unique factors: direct and fair pricing, product variety, best quality control and speedy delivery. Zoho and its applications provided them with the backbone to uphold these factors and perform their best for all customers. Customers face the benefits in the front end while PromoCollection streamlined their processes and administration in the backend.
The Zoho CRM user could access data in Creator and the changes made would reflect in Zoho CRM as well, hence ensuring uniformity of data across the organisation in different locations
The dynamic vendor to order matching process increased overall time of each order, ensuring best quality within the customers’ budget whilst building loyalty with PromoCollection
Product Codes made increased ease of re-ordering or repeat orders for customers that require similar customisations during every order.
Upward trend in the number of customers-to-loyal members conversion in the PromoCollection community.
Increase in efficiency and team collaborations due to the approval process for high valued orders
Employees save time on manual invoice and purchase order creations with the help of Zoho Creator’s automatic features
Sales IQ bridged the gap of Instant communication with leads and potential customer on the website. This increased their Lead to Deal conversion time
Collaboration among team members of all departments is increased due to standardised information available on Zoho Creator and CRM.
Custom quotation creation now consumes half the time compared to the pre-customisation of the Zoho CRM
The customer portal increased the quality of orders being shipped out due to the collaborative designs and step-by-step customer involvement of each order
Reduction in errors on invoices and increase in timely payments of orders
Measuring the progress and deals made becomes easier with the reports and dashboards.