How Solid Print3D Saw 2X Increase in Productivity and Revenue Using Zoho CRM.

Key results:

• Implementation time3 months
• Payback period6 Months
• Adoption rate100%
• Lead conversion rate47.5%

The Company

Solid Print3D is the sister business of Solid Solutions, which is the largest SOLIDWORKS reseller in the UK. SOLIDWORKS is a solid modeling computer-aided design (CAD) and computer program. It is the leader in the 3D CAD industry. There are over 6 million active users today and that number continues to grow.

Solid Print3D supports over 19,000 design and engineering companies. They offer a range of 3D printing products and services including 3D printers, consumables, and 3D scanning. In just a few years, they have become the UK's fastest-growing 3D printing and scanning solutions specialist.

They partner exclusively with premium and leading brands to offer their customers the best 3D printers on the market. From prototyping to production, customers can rest assured that they are getting products that suit their needs. Some of their A-list customers include Microsoft, Jaguar, Pfizer, P&G, and Aston Martin Racing.

The Challenge

Solid Print3D's mission is to offer impartial advice and best-in-class solutions. Their sister business, Solid Solutions, uses a lot of in-house solutions to meet their needs and Solid Print3D initially borrowed this system of management. But they realized this wasn't setting them up for success, as the solutions they borrowed were not tailored to suit the specific needs they had for giving enhanced customer support. Solid Print3D discovered that since their requirements, expectations, and targets were different from Solid Solutions, they needed their own bespoke solutions.

The Solution

Juan Arias joined Solid Print3D as an intern and soon secured the position of business analyst. He was armed with over three years of experience in business analysis and marketing intelligence with a passion for business strategy and data-driven marketing analytics. It was a fairly new company then and he was tasked with unifying the scattered processes. He works with Neil Sewell- Managing Director at Solid Print3D. Together they turned to Zoho CRM to meet their business needs.

The search for the right tool

To get any job done efficiently, the right tool is indispensable. Juan knew he wanted to find a software service provider that offered multiple applications to fulfil a wide range of business needs, both the business's current needs and ones likely to come up in the future.

Solid Print3D is a growing company with evolving needs. Because they work in the tech manufacturing industry, up-to-date processes and automation are necessary to stay afloat in the market. Juan says that “The CRM was the basic need, let's say, because our sales team was not keeping track of customer information, like the lead source, the deals, or any information they had. So, the sales information was not being tracked efficiently”

So they looked at CRM software that met this need. Salesforce, Hubspot, and Zoho CRM were just three of the many suite options Juan looked at.

What initially pulled him towards Zoho CRM was the pricing. He felt that it offered the same features at a much lower cost than the competition. With further research, he discovered that Zoho fit the needs of the business perfectly, so the team decided to go ahead and start making it their own.

Amping up lead management using automation

The process starts with the prospect showing interest across different platforms. It may be through a web form, social media, or an email campaign. They find Solid Print3D and they request a consultation call or a demo. At this point a lead is created in Zoho CRM and the sales team heads there to collect the information on all new leads.

As the next step, the team initiates a Zoho CRM Blueprint- a drag-and-drop process builder, to book a call, start a chat, send a free sample, or any other available option. Now the actual sales process begins with identifying what interests the lead, what is their budget, their company, and all relevant information.

Once the lead expresses interest in opening a deal, the lead is qualified and the sales team sends them an estimate. They go on to discuss specific packages and products. After the quotation process where they negotiate the pricing, it leads to either deal closed- Won, or Deal closed- lost. Solid Print3D also has a blueprint in place to determine whether it is, closed-lost to competition or Closed-Lost due to not available budget.

After the deal is closed in Zoho CRM it is also automatically recorded in Zoho Books and Inventory. So the inventory team proceeds to accept, pack, and ship the order to the customer. And simultaneously the Finance team prepares the invoice for the order placed. Juan says that "The entire process needed automation, because no one had full visibility over inventory, finance, and how many products were selling.That's why when we read that Zoho could connect everything in one single platform, we agreed that was what we needed."

Using blueprint to streamline sales effort

As with all big changes, it was challenging at first to adopt a whole new system of recording information. The team had to first start at defining their own sales process, just as they were discovering how to make it more efficient.

Finding out about Blueprint, the sales process management system from Zoho CRM, helped the team overhaul inefficient systems. The Solid Print3D team have become power users of Blueprint, using them to automate all their processes.

Zoho CRM’s Blueprint efficiently replicates the business process online. It is capable of capturing all details of an offline process inside the software. By doing so, it makes validation, automation, and collaboration of people more efficient. It minimizes the risk of human error and loopholes. From the moment a lead is captured to closing a deal with them, the Blueprint ensures that due procedure is followed.

Solid Print3D started by tracking the leads and were able to follow up with them systematically using the leads module in Zoho CRM. They were able to create a definite roadmap for their approach to sales. By setting up clear workflows and rules they were optimizing their time. "It is one step after another. The Blueprint and automation take care of everything from start to finish." says Juan

Identifying sales pipeline bottlenecks to tap incremental revenue

The next task after adopting the system was to customize the CRM to make it suit their specific needs. Juan says that the team handled this exceedingly well. They started seeing the results of maintaining a proper record in one portal, instead of in Excel spreadsheets and notebooks, scattered all over the organization.

As soon as the benefits became noticeable, the team got on board to be actively involved in adapting the CRM to their needs. They suggested improvements in usage and enquired about new features that they need. They loved having software that was almost like their personal assistant: reminding them about activities, customer calls, closing deals, etc. The number of customers managed by Solid Print3D inside CRM is currently 500 and they have created over 4000 Sales Orders.

Optimizing by cutting confusion and adding agility

Optimizing requires identifying time sinks and cutting down on features that do not add value to the process. For instance, the default fields in the Leads module. Although they are useful for a lot of businesses, some of the fields were not necessary for Solid Print3D. Zoho CRM allowed them to remove these unnecessary fields using wizards.

Canvas Making customization easy

Canvas, the newest addition to Zoho CRM's features, made customizing a piece of cake. They were able to personalize their home page and dashboard in under 24 hours. They gave a full makeover to the CRM layout, to make it more practical and visually appealing.

Being able to customize everything and tailor the solutions to their needs, motivates employees to be actively engaged in the process.

Earlier, the information was not ordered in the fashion they desired. Using Canvas, they achieved ease-of-use, by having vital features like leads and Blueprint, displayed in prominent positions. They rearranged other modules according to the order of preference. It was possible to customize it even to the extent of having specific brand colors. Juan says that "Earlier there was a lot of information all over the place inside the CRM. And now, with Canvas, we have managed to create a specific model that works perfectly for our company."

Finding specific solutions using Zoho apps

Once the team had a clear idea of how to go about recording the details, there was renewed optimism. They had a clear roadmap on what to do and how to proceed to the next step. They created a chatbot using Zoho SalesIQ on their website which has been the most helpful lead-capturing tool. The information is fed into Zoho CRM and specific team members follow up with them. "We needed a platform where we could see everything that was going on in terms of sales like, how many prospects we have, how many sales, and which products were selling." says Juan

The Zoho Bookings software helped them to create a website and an email landing page, which helped prospects to book a demo or a consultation call with the sales team.

Zoho Projects helped manage their tasks and their entire content calendar was running on it. The technical support team makes use of Zoho Desk to optimize their work and assess customer feedback.

They created custom flows and actions using Zoho Flow to connect other apps to the CRM. They connected their website and e-commerce shop, which runs on Woocommerce, to Zoho Inventory. Now every time there is a new order, it goes straight to Zoho Books and Inventory. It saves them a lot of time and effort. The business has witnessed a 50% increase in productive information sharing and capacity.

‌Zoho One Integrations Adding Momentum

After a few months of using Zoho CRM, they felt that using Zoho One would enrich their overall experience. Since then, they have had access to all apps on the platform, which they integrated with their CRM. Juan says that ‌"When we found Zoho, we found it had other apps as well as CRM. It had Inventory, Finance, Meetings, and a lot of other apps we could benefit from. That's why we decided to go with Zoho."

The integrations form the foundation on which Solid Print3D runs all its operations today. Apart from the most commonly used APIs they also required a few additional ones, like Zoho meetings and Bookings. They are still exploring ways they could migrate other existing processes to Zoho to derive maximum benefits.

The power of data-driven processes

Juan says that data is a potent tool if you know how to use it. This is why Analytics in Zoho CRM takes the top spot on his list of favorite features. They have also linked the CRM with the Zoho's Mobile app which keeps them updated about the progress anywhere.

The Analytics and Dashboards have helped them get data and determine the health of their business as quickly as possible. By being able to assess Key Performance Indicators-KPIs, they could now take steps to optimize them. The power of making business decisions out of reliable data is incomparable.