Writing down a quote, calling back your customer, telling your staff about this quote, printing, signing, scanning and sending the quote back, going onsite to get the survey done, booking staff, invoicing your customer, making sure it was paid….in a nutshell, that’s pretty much how removals businesses operate and get it all done in a very manual way.
Nowadays there are many apps and programs that can help you shifting away from this paper based way of doing business. Below we have come up with a few of our favourites to help you improving your routine and working smarter.
First things first: organising your leads and customers
How many times you have received a call or a email from a customer asking for a quote? He might even have requested it through a quote form on your website. That is always a good thing, but tell me: what have you done with his info? How have you recorded names, dates, requests to follow up on that customer even if your quote wasn’t approved?
Did you know that according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australians will move at least three times during their lifetime? It means that if done correctly, you will have the opportunity to be in touch with this lead three times and convert at least one contact into a sale.
But conversion can only be done if you know who this person is and if you use wisely all info you’ve gathered each time you were in touch. There is a great way to keep record of all of it using Hubspot CRM.
Hubspot is an american company founded in 2004 that believes companies can perform better when they make the most out of their data and they offer solutions to help you apply that to your business. Their CRM tool is free and when integrated with your email will easily help you archiving all your leads and customers details as well as tracking message history and behaviour.
Step two: get a quote approved and have your customer signing it without printing it
You have done a quote and sent it to be approved and signed by your customer. Most of times, once they receive the file you have emailed them, they need to double check, print, sign, scan and send it back to you.
DocHub is one of those programs that will make your life much easier as it allows electronic signatures and document review. It is paid but price is extremely friendly for all businesses.
Send invoices after job is done
After the job is done – or before getting it started as sometimes customers need to pay 50% of job value in advance – create invoices and send them through. The best way to get it done is using an accounting system.
Xero and MYOB are the most common choices and friendly softwares to use. Reckon/Quickbooks is also a good option – although it is more used in North America. All of them are paid but they offer friendly prices to all companies in all its different sizes.
Organise your to do list and assign tasks to your team
Instead of keeping notes in a notebook, you can create a to do list and projects, assigning tasks to all your team through Trello. It is a free tool extremely helpful when it comes to organising and prioritising tasks.
Zapala Go, as a solution focused on removals companies, offers a solution that englobes all points mentioned above. Through our platform you can organise all your leads and customers, assigning them to a staff member from your Sales department if necessary. We also integrate with all accounting systems mentioned so you can invoice and send them through the system.
Quotes and bookings can be approved automatically through the system – your customer will click on a button that automatically approved it and converts it into a booking or request a review. After quote is approved, a booking will be automatically created and you will be able to assign tasks to your team with two clicks.
To know more about it you can click on the button below and request a demo session.
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