In a nutshell…
- System Integration
Squirrel Business Solutions was engaged to implement a solution to reduce the amount of time lost in shipping administration surrounding product delivery. Through the implementation of a new Courier shipping tool – Aftership, the team was able to integrate Shopify and Zoho CRM using Zoho Flow. The connection allows for the seamless transfer of customer information from Shopify to Aftership, where booking data is automatically generated. All the consignment details and delivery information are then instantly transferred to the CRM record.
Stripdoors
Stripdoors are a manufacturer and distributor of stripdoors for industries around Australia. Their primary sales channel is via their online shops.
They offer standard stripdoor solutions and will also create custom sizes and designs. You can also purchase replacement strips or rolls of strips so you can cut to size.
The brief
The Stripdoors team were spending at least an hour everyday booking, following up and managing courier shipments for customer orders. With countrywide delivery a number of different courier services were used, meaning the staff were constantly logging in to each courier portal to book and check orders. With no central source of information, it was hard to keep track of where deliveries were at, and no easy way of referencing which courier service was used for each booking.
The team were losing precious time on administrative tasks and customers were often left in the dark about delays or details of their shipment.
The solution
- Zoho CRM
- Zoho Flow
- Zoho One
Squirrel investigated shipping services that would simplify the booking process, seeking a centralised portal to make bookings, track status and add notes.
We landed on Aftership, for an affordable price it provided a platform that would bring all of the courier information together in one place, and through a bit of Zoho Flow magic could link and update the order in the CRM.
Flow allows you to quickly drag and drop tasks into an automation workflow that connects over 500 different applications. With this, you can collect, create and update records between two systems without needing any coding background.
We used a simple CRM trigger at the stage update in the Deal as the starting point, Flow would grab the customer address from the online order (in Shopify). With this information it would then create the Aftership record, triggering the collection request to the Courier company.
Once delivered the status update from Aftership is automatically pushed to any related Deals in the CRM, so the team can track the delivery date in real-time.
The results
This meant that the team could easily track multiple orders per consignment number as
well as multiple consignment numbers against a single order, without having to go through multiple emails, accounts or platforms.
Not only did the new system have improved tracking capabilities, but it also improved communication with clients. The Stripdoor team could now easily update clients on the status of their orders, including any changes in the ETA, which helped to build trust and maintain positive relationships.
After the implementation of the new system, Stripdoor’s team was able to enhance its customer service levels. Maurice, Stripdoors’ Director, noted that they’d “…saved at least 7 hours a week.” with this becoming their “staff member who can manage this 24 hours a day, and is nationwide.”
The benefits
- Reduction in time spent on administrative tasks
- Better visibility across all bookings via a centralised platform
- Accurate CRM records – kept up to date with automated updates
- Improved customer communication through automated emails
- Less time spent dealing with tracking issues
- Collated reporting on delivery performance and timings
“We’re able to see when something isn’t meeting our averages and can follow up with our couriers as needed…I want to be selling and making good products for customers, this cuts out having to fill in this sort of data.”
Maurice Beach
Company Director
Stripdoors
Ask Squirrel
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Squirrel Business Solutions implements and integrates CRM and other cloud-based systems, and provides training and support, for small and medium-sized businesses all over Australia, including Melbourne, Bendigo, regional Victoria, Tasmania, Sydney and Brisbane. This empowers them to automate their processes and improve their efficiency.