CRM-system Archives - Blog on automation and implementation of IT in business

Automation of household chemicals production “Batiskaf”

Problem

The Client needed a working CRM-system within a timeframe of no more than 2 weeks. At the same time, the program had to possess the following capabilities:

Integration with the website for automatic receipt of requests,
Working with leads: entering data, progressing through the funnel steps, maintaining communication history, setting tasks, and storing materials,
Different access roles for the administrator, director, and sales managers,
Distribution of requests among managers, with sales managers only tracking their own requests,
Maintaining a database of clients and companies,
Managing employees and their accounts,
Tracking work results and financial indicators.

The next stage required adding Laboratory functionality:

Creating the entities “cost estimate request” and “sample request”,
Organizing work with new entities for the manager and control by the director,
Work out the movement of requests through different statuses and users,
Developing a lab technician’s cabinet for tracking and processing such requests.

Solution

Implementation of BrickCRM

All the basic functionality of the CRM-system was already embedded in BrickCRM. Thanks to this, we were able to quickly obtain the necessary solution:

Replaced the logo and name of the program,
Implemented website integration for receiving requests and transferred existing data on leads and clients,
Adjusted some names per the Client’s request (for example, instead of “sprints,” they use the word “orders”),
Set mandatory and optional fields,
Configured funnel steps, lead sources, reasons for rejection, and other data through managed directories.

Laboratory functionality development

Here, we need to delve a bit more into the specifics of sales in the Client’s industry.

The company produces custom household chemicals. The potential cost is primarily influenced by the product’s composition, which is developed by the laboratory based on the client’s requirements.

Therefore, in the sales process, there is a stage where the sales team forwards the client’s request to the laboratory, where the product’s composition and cost are calculated. This data is then returned to the manager for further negotiations. Additionally, the client may request a sample based on the developed composition – the manager needs to send a request to the laboratory again, where a sample will be created and sent to the client.

Now, this business process needs to be transferred into the software. Based on the files provided by the Client with manager requests and laboratory responses, we prepare the User Flow and begin development.

Automation of household chemicals production: elaboration of the business process

Sales

The sales manager handles all work with potential clients in the Lead Card. Therefore, it makes sense to create and track laboratory requests right there.

Client Card without requests to the laboratory

For convenience, we immediately display the request status, marking urgent and overdue requests.

Client Card with requests to the laboratory

Cost estimate calculation

When creating a cost estimate request, the product details and client requirements need to be filled out.

Creating a new request for cost calculation

The client’s name is automatically populated from the Lead Card. The product name is selected from the company’s nomenclature directory. The execution deadline is considered when calculating the readiness date – the less time remaining, the higher the request is displayed in the Lab technician’s Cabinet.

Automation of household chemical production: requests from managers to the laboratory

After filling in all the data, the manager sends the request. The status, laboratory calculations, and comments on the request will be displayed in the right column.

Different statuses of requests to the laboratory — *The right column in different request statuses*

When rejecting or sending for revision, it is mandatory to provide a reason.

Window for specifying the reason for rework

Cost estimation requests progress through specific statuses in a defined order. Depending on the status, the manager and director may or may not have access to edit the form, while the administrator always has editing privileges.

Samples in development

A sample can be ordered based on either an already-completed calculation or as a new request.

Window for selecting an request to create a sample

If the first option is chosen, the data from the cost estimate request will be automatically filled into the sample order form.

Automation of household chemical production: request for sample creation

Sample order also has its own sequence of statuses and different access capabilities for various roles.

Production automation: sample order statuses

In addition, a sample request cannot be created unless the shipping details (address, contact person) are filled out in the Lead Card.

Requests

To track all requests sent to the laboratory, not just those associated with specific leads, we have implemented a “Requests” page. Here, you can monitor the scheduled completion dates for laboratory responses and filter by product and client. Administrators and Directors can view all requests, while managers can only see their own.

Laboratory technician Cabinet

All created requests sent to the laboratory are directed to the Laboratory technician Cabinet, where only one section is available – “Requests”. By default, requests are sorted in the order they need to be processed (based on urgency and creation date).

Automation of household chemistry production: Laboratory technician's Cabinet

Inside, the cost estimation and sample cards for the laboratory are identical to their counterparts for the manager. The difference lies in the laboratory technician having additional capabilities to add certain data.

Other system enhancements

Another major change was the integration of the Lead Card and the Company Card. This enhancement required a revision of all logical connections within the system. As a result, the Lead Card has been transformed into the Client Card.

A new “About company” tab has been introduced, featuring a section called “Sample recipient” with fields for entering relevant data. Additionally, information about the client’s balance (debt/overpayment), total amount of orders, and details about ongoing projects are displayed here.

In the Administrator and Director Cabinets, we implemented additional features to monitor sales operations.

Added filters to track created and completed tasks, processed leads, and highlighted clients needing attention.

CRM system for production: list of leads

Displayed these data on the dashboard.

Visually represented sales funnel data.

Resume

The Customer received a full-fledged CRM+ERP system in a short timeframe, allowing them to track requests from initial contact to deal closure, manage customer records, monitor employee performance, and oversee project execution.

Thanks to the enhancements, managers can now directly transmit requests to the laboratory without losing data or disrupting established company processes. The quick processing of requests saves time and positively impacts sales.

Mobile CRM system for cleaning

Problem

Prior to contacting us, new requests were recorded on paper and/or Excel tables, and the manager had to think over a schedule of the performers’ working day. They needed a tool for creating and tracking the requests schedule, which automatically calculates the best routes, shows customer data and manager comments.

An important point was mobility: we should have provided employees with constant access to the tool. This is how the mobile CRM for SimpleFSM cleaning company was developed.

Solution

Administrator or Manager enters new requests into the system, assigns them to employees and sets the working schedule. He/she also sees the workload of each employee on a certain day, his/her requests on the map and the planned route.

The CRM system itself generates the daily schedule of the employee based on the assigned requests, sets their sequence and builds the optimal route on the map.

Tasks are displayed on a 12-hour or 24-hour pie chart (depending on the selected settings); it is visually clear which hours the performer is busy and when he/she is free.

Each customer is marked on the chart with a specific color. The closed sector corresponds to the period that the performer will spend on the execution of the request. The colored line under the sector with the task shows the free time of the customer. A technician sees the same chart in his/her application, but with only his/her tasks displayed.

Administrators can also access the web part of the system designed to work with a computer. Web interface enables to work with SimpleFSM users, add new customers and manage their licenses – access to mobile application.

We have also developed a licensing system for more detailed acquaintance with the system.

Development of CRM-system for sales manager

Problem

The story of this development started on a day when the CRM-system, where we were keeping records of requests at that moment, was unavailable. The manager was left for the whole day without access to tasks and contacts, unable to contact those he promised to call.

And then we thought about the disadvantages of using a third-party program:

all of our client’s data, including confidential information, is not stored with us,
if the resource is unavailable, the manager’s work stops; there is a fear of losing all the data in case of a more serious failure,
we planned to digitize all business processes of the company to make them easy to control, but none of the systems we tested gave us all the features we needed,
you have to pay to use the program: the cost for 1-2 managers is not a large sum, but if you transfer the entire company, it’s already substantial.

Solution

It was decided to start developing our own program, which would become the foundation for our automation system – BrickCRM.

The following stages were realized:

Partner’s cabinet,
Project Manager’s cabinet,
Director’s and Administrator’s cabinets,
Functionality of a Marketer,
Employee cabinet for KPI tracking,
Mobile applications for all roles.

Functionality

To work in the system, you need to authorize.

Our team uses Slack messenger for communication, so we added the ability to log in with a Slack account at the click of a button. The system checks if the user’s email matches the user’s authorization in the messenger.

Development of CRM-system: employee authorization

Main features of CRM-system for manager

Dashboard

The home page for the salesman is the Dashboard. Here he sees the sales plan and the results achieved for the current day. And also the tasks created by leads: the overdue ones are highlighted in red, and the completed ones go to the bottom of the list.

From Dashboard, you can go to Sales Dynamics, where you can see the change in results over the period.

Leads

At first, the list of leads was made in the form of a table, and the step of the funnel – the stage at which the request is currently located, was indicated in one of the columns. But in the process of using the CRM-system, we realized that it would be more convenient to visually distribute the data by stage, in order to understand how many requests are at which step.

CRM-system for IT-company — *The first version of the application page*

Kanban-based lead cards for CRM-system — *Kanban-based lead cards*

This is the advantage we hoped for when we started developing our CRM-system: if something isn’t working the best way – we can fix it!

Filters

To quickly find a request by name or contact person, there is a search. And if you need to sort the list by city, request source, service rendered or other parameters, you can use the advanced filter.

The resulting list of leads can be uploaded in Excel format, which is convenient for collecting audiences for advertising. For example, save all those who are interested in mobile application development in Kazan.

If any filter is used frequently, save it: it will be displayed at the top of the page. Filters can be managed (created, edited, or deleted) here or on the Filters page.

Lead card

A new request can be received automatically from the site, in which case it is highlighted in red until the manager processes it. Or it can be entered manually.

When filling in the contact details, if such a customer is already in our database, the information will be inserted automatically.

Creating a new request in the CRM-system

Next, the Card of the created request displays all information on the request: contact persons, status, tasks, notes of the manager, and attached materials. We save the entire history of correspondence here, so that as time passes, it is easy to remember what we talked about with the client. And for the manager, this is an additional tool for checking the quality of a salesperson’s work.

Corporate CRM-system development: lead card

You can close a lead with the status “rejected” or “transaction”. When rejecting a lead, you must select the reason. All completed requests are moved to the Archive section, and the manager can return to them if necessary.

Client card

In the Contacts section, the list of contact persons from all requests is collected, it can be filtered and/or uploaded.

To view detailed information, you need to go to the Client Card. All requests, projects, current sprints are displayed here, with the ability to quickly get to the right page.

Company card

Company data is collected in the same way. From the Card, you can go to the leads or projects of the organization and see contact persons and details.

Additional features of the cabinet

In addition to the main functionality of the CRM-system, the employee also has access to the Calendar – here they can view their accumulated vacation days, planned events, sick days and time off.

Calendar of working days for an employee

Cities are managed in the Directories section, and saved filters are managed in the Filters section. Wiki – a link for quick access to the knowledge base of our company.

Summary

The sales manager’s cabinet was the first step in creating a corporate ERP-system. We digitized the work with requests, which allowed us to move on to the next big task – automating project accounting.

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ShustrikoffCRM, freight management software

Problem

The customer came to us with three acute business problems at once:

Heavy time spent working with requests. The customers were recorded in Excel, and the cost of the request was calculated manually.
Difficulties with personnel training. New employees had to be trained to calculate requests for a long time.
Ineffective distribution of personnel hours. There were difficulties in the proper appointment of performers due to a lack of understanding of their employment status.

The customer came to our office with a bunch of printed tables. All of them had different formats and a lot of data and were connected to each other by complicated links and formulas. Trying to figure out what it is for and why it works like this caused a frustration even for the customer.

We have done a lot of analytics, brought tables to the same type to simplify the work logic, provided exact formulas for each calculated value. During this process, the Customer admitted that some data are indeed calculated in a too complicated way and adjusted its business processes.

Adel Yamashev,
Director General

Solution

We have developed a software system consisting of a convenient web application for company personnel and a mobile application for performers. The functions of the web application are designed to solve all the key problems of the customer:

dispatcher account for receiving and processing orders;
accountant account for calculating wages and cash;
administrator account for monitoring all processes.

Dispatcher Account

The dispatcher account displays the requests of all customers, where you can change them and form new ones. They are easily recognisable by their status, and there are special filters for quick finding the right one.

Dispatcher receives a call from a customer and forms a request in the system, indicating all the parameters of the order.

You can specify several addresses, change their sequence, and the program will set the route and determine the exact distances.

Now it is necessary to fix the names of services, preferred time of execution and deadlines required by the customer. After the dispatcher selects a service type, the freight management system will display the required set of fields.

The software automatically calculates the cost, considering all the parameters of the request: the specified distances, type of service, availability of valid promotions, type of deposit, etc. The request is visible on one screen, so there is no need to scroll anything and open additional tabs. This significantly simplifies the work of the dispatcher.

To quickly change the information in the request, just click on the corresponding part in the right part of the request.

Each new request is marked as Accepted by default. Then you should find and select performers for it.

By clicking on the Assign an Employee button, you can load a list of all currently available performers who have the required qualification level and the appropriate rating.

The system takes into account the location of employees, the time it takes them to get there and the absence of an active request at the time the current one is formed.

If necessary, you can write to the selected employee in the same application, call the specified phone number, as well as delete and assign another employee. The dispatcher can also monitor, whether the performer has read the sent message.

As soon as the dispatcher selects all the employees, the request will be distributed. After that, you can specify the start time and completion date of the work.

These parameters are automatically loaded from the mobile application of performers but can also be marked manually if desired. As soon as all the employees have completed their work, the request will acquire the Completed status.

Accountant Account

The accountant account shows all the wages paid to the employees. Here you can also specify other facts of depositing or issuing. The wage of an employee is calculated for each completed request.

The HR specialist sees the Performers Database, a table indicating the number of hours they work. You can click on a separate day from the employee’s schedule to indicate a day off, sick leave or an unscheduled holiday.

Administrator Account

Administrator account has all the functions we have reviewed + making changes to the reference books. They denote the cost of an hour and a kilometer both for the customer and for the employee, as well as various surcharges, for example, for night time work. Here the minimum terms, scope or cost of services are also specified.

Here you can also mark the places and areas for which the surcharges apply.

CRM for a flower shop

Problem

We were approached by the head of the flower shop. He could not find a convenient CRM for a flower shop because of the business nature and established processes. The absence of the software made it difficult to keep records: employees mixed up and often lost the requests.

It was decided to develop their own CRM, which will adapt to the company activity and automate business processes.

Solution

Main page

The start page is the main screen of employees’ work. Here they see all requests for today distributed on the calendar by delivery time; the status is shown by an icon.

The company has shops in two cities, so the administrator can switch between them in the header. Ordinary employees see only their shop data.

You can see the list of requests for other dates, filter it by status, delivery method or the person who is currently working on the request.

There is an extended search.

Calendar has 2 display options. If you choose the List option, you can upload all or some requests to a PDF or Excel file. You can also print the stickers for the selected requests with a single click.

Sticker is a label with basic information about delivery, which is attached to the bouquet. It can be printed on standard (A4) paper or on till roll.

The key shop indicators are displayed above the list of requests: planned and actual daily income and losses.

The chat icon in the lower right corner of the screen is Multichat service, which collects customer requests from different sources: social media, website and Mango Office incoming calls. The functions of Multichat are described separately.

Request

The New Request button is attached to the header to quickly go to the creation of an order from any screen of the software.

The request contains the date and time of delivery, information about the bouquet and additional services. The software determines by phone number what the customer has ordered before and substitutes his/her data: name, delivery address, order history.

The employee enters the details of the amount, prepayment and/or discount.

The created request is transferred from the employee to the floral designer for making a bouquet, then for quality control and courier; the status indicates the current state of the order.

Order movements can also be tracked in the History of Changes: date, time, status and author of the change are indicated.

Customers

The software shows the total number of customers and how many have been added today. You can go from the Customers page to viewing and editing data of a certain customer.

All addresses to which the customer placed orders are saved in his/her card along with the contacts of the person who received the bouquet. When placing a new order, you can select the desired address from the list or add a new one. The card also contains the history of orders, information about personal discount and deposit of the customer, as well as the history of correspondence from all sources.

Shop employee can use an icon to indicate his/her impressions of the customer 🙂

Reports

The administrator has many additional features: reports and summaries.

For example, the Calendar page displays the revenue for each day of the month, broken down by delivery method.

You can set the work schedule of your employees in the Schedule section, so you can immediately see who is on shift today.

Data are collected and analyzed in the Reports section. For example, the number of days and hours worked by employees is displayed; the salary is calculated on this basis.

Data on orders received and executed per day and their sources are also available, as well as purchase statistics where you can filter customers by age or period of the order.

Management

The Management tab provides access to additional summaries for business managers.

Here you can enter information about the planned expenses of the company.

It shows the actual expenses by categories and method of payment.

Expenditure limits are set, and a reference book of categories is maintained.

The Revenue page is similar to the Calendar for the administrator, but the amount of revenue is divided by the method of payment.

The Reference Book section contains the list of employees, their logins and passwords, and the internal Mango numbers.

Result

We have studied and automated existing business processes and features of the company.

The result was CRM for a flower shop, which allows the company to perform all activities in one software, simplifies the tasks of employees, brings clarity, transparency and controllability in the shop.

The manager can effectively plan and see the results of work thanks to reports on employees, customers, sources of requests, data on expenses and revenue of the company.

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