The new Saleswah: CRM for sales and service automation

Posted on January 21, 2022June 14, 2023

CRM for Sales and Service

Saleswah CRM for Sales and Service Automation is not a new product. It has been around for a decade. For the first 3 quarters of the decade, it was a pure-play sales CRM aimed at B2B sales processes. Then onwards, it has added a very large post-sales service management functionality. We are able to configure it easily for one of three flavors: sales CRM, sales and service CRM, or service CRM.

The new SalesWah CRM for sales and service

At its heart, Saleswah is a web-based, comprehensive CRM for sales and service that allows sales, marketing, and customer support to share data and collaborate. The Saleswah of past focused on the sales process tracking and monitoring. The customer support side of Saleswah is a comprehensive field service management software as well as software for running a service (repair) center operation.

User-configurable CRM for sales and service management

Both the field service and service center software are totally user-configurable—no coding required. Both can handle any type or types of product, with a large geographical spread, hundreds of users, or a multiplicity of service centers.

And, Saleswah CRM for sales and service is where they are joined at the hip. By sharing the same database, service truly starts where sales hand over.

Saleswah CRM for sales and service has one of the most powerful mobile apps for field sales and servicepeople. Location tracking, photo upload from the field, and custom forms for data from the field.

Recent enhancements in Saleswah

Mobile app sales dashboard — Sales CRM mobile app dashboard

Over the last 2 years, we have added significantly to the CRM for sales and service. Among the more important things we have done are:
Implement the entire flow from delivery to installation to warranty management, preventive maintenance, repairs, and progressing to annual maintenance contracts.
We implemented a “what next?” flow in sales, where after every activity closed (task, sending a quote, creating a deal, and so on), the salesman gets a prompt to select the next logical activity.
elaborate notifications and alerts—browser-based, app-based.
spares: indenting, usage tracking, and stock tracking.

And, we are mobile first and web first.

The significance of the changes

1. From a pure-play B2B sales and marketing automation product, we have now become a marketing, sales, and service CRM. Earlier, it was more of a profile, event logging, and process tracking tool. Saleswah does much more. It adds significant downstream processes that are post-sales but does it in a seamless manner.

2. It adds process triggers, significantly enhances the reporting capabilities, and adds some really useful dashboards.

So, it is not just an improved product—it is, in many ways, a different product.

The Simply C2 companion app to Saleswah.

The existing problems in customer service

As we have described elsewhere, call centers tend to be expensive to operate for the service provider (that is you). They also create a lot of problems for customers. Customers wait in a queue, face a language barrier in a country like India, and the process is not smooth.

After the logging of the complaint, the customers do not get updated and frequently need to call and talk to the service center.

How Simply C2 solves them

Simply C2 solves it. All service complaints can be logged from the app. The exact current status is updated in the app directly from the Saleswah backend. What’s more, detailed itemized repair estimates can be “pushed” from Saleswah to the customer using Simply C2, and he can approve and pay for the repairs directly from the app.

The Simply C2 is a free service for your customers. Please log into your admin dashboard and enable access for them. Ask them to download the latest version of Simply C2 from the playstore.

How to retire call center and improve customer satisfaction.

Posted on January 20, 2022April 29, 2024

We are all customers. Whether or not we sell or service products, we buy products and frequently need service.

How to retire call center and improve customer satisfaction. 1 The most go-to method of asking for service for your home appliances, office equipment, or even machinery is to pick up the phone and speak to the company call center. Unfortunately, this does not work most of the time.

Call centers will take your call “Monday to Friday/ Saturday” and will inform you that “working hours are from 8 AM to 5 pm” if you happen to call even a minute outside the working hours. And, if you did manage to get through, deal with the IVR settings that change every month, unfamiliar accents, and worse a different language than what you are used to.

When you get thru to an agent who knows his job, the work is usually done. The agent notes down your details inputs them into his service CRM, and you soon get an SMS confirmation.

No one is happy- the service provider or the customer

The troubles with this are many. As I said earlier, this suffers from several problems:

How to retire call center and improve customer satisfaction. 2

Timing limitations: if your appliance or equipment becomes faulty late evening, you have to wait till next morning- amid the rush for getting ready for work, sending kids to school.
Communication issues: language, managing the IVR system. Potential for mis-understanding.
No visibility- as someone logging the complaint, you have no visibility to the repair process- who your assigned repairman is, what defects were found and later rectified.

If you are the company that has set up the call center and is paying for the telecom infrastructure and the salaries of the call center agents, you must know that it is expensive. and for a service that does not even work 24/7.

Warranty tracking nightmare

I don’t know about you, but keeping track of the warranty of purchased goods and services is difficult. You need to keep all the purchase papers and invoices safe. Then, keep track of when the washing machine warranty ends, or if your microwave oven’s annual maintenance contract should be renewed for one more year, and when.

“What are you changing?”

I send the laptop to the service center- and then I wait. An hour later, someone emerges and tells you- all that is wrong. And gives you an estimate of charges. You have no idea if he is right. No idea if what he is asking for is justified. So, you pay up.

And, the service providers (manufacturers) are working in the dark. Especially when the products have been sold and resold. They do not know the size of the active installed base of equipment, so are unable to plan for spares, trained personnel, and geographical needs for support.

The crux of the problem: how to improve customer satisfaction

So, you, as a service provider, are spending good money on providing a service that does not make your customers happy. What if you want to provide world-class support to your customers but can’t afford to spend money like the MNCs or the large corporates can?

How to retire call center and improve customer satisfaction. 3

We have good news if you are a service provider

Get your customers the Grahak Setu experience.

The Grahak Setu app provides

Anytime, anywhere access to log service requests for your customers. What’s more, you don’t need any one manning the call center. This is the ultimate self – service app for your customers. They authenticate with their mobile number, add their own equipment, log service requests, get upto the minute status of the equipment under repair and can even chat with the service executive assigned to their case.
Everything is a matter of record- and everything is transparent. You as a service provider can send itemized repair estimates, get his approval and even payments.
Controlled access to the Saleswah CRM- You can configure the level of access your customers get to their data. From minimal access, where they can only check their repair status to being able to profile themselves, add equipment to the database.

If you are a customer, prepare to be happy

Store your equipment details in Simply C2

Download the Simply C2 App.

Enter the details of your home appliances or office equipment in the Simply C2 app. Registration is simple. Login and add your details.

Search and connect to your service provider.

Have a complaint? Microwave not working? Select the manufacturer from the list, add your equipment details and submit.

Prepare to be served.

Revealed: easy way to perform algorithmic scheduling preventive maintenance

Posted on January 1, 2022April 29, 2024

Scheduling preventive maintenance of equipment in regular intervals is required to ensure the trouble-free operation of equipment. This is especially applicable to mechanical equipment- even more so to those with an engine inside.

Moving parts means wear and tear. So, periodically one may need to replace worn-out parts, replace consumables, and so on. We all take our car to the garage for servicing at least once a year- and are familiar with the replacement of lube oil, air filters, fuel filter, and so on.

Of course, there is some equipment which needs maintenance even without there being a moving part in them. A lead-acid battery needs frequent topping up, sometimes once every 3 months.

There are 2 types of scheduling preventive maintenance of equipment- largely governed by the type of equipment.

Fixed interval scheduling preventive maintenance

this happens when the equipment is required to be maintained at a fixed interval of, say, a year or 3 months or some such interval. This typically is for equipment without moving parts or where an assumption regarding wear and tear is made over a timeframe.

Variable interval scheduling preventive maintenance

This happens when the scheduling needs to happen at a variable interval. Here the scheduling accounts for the wear and tear that may happen. Basically, the principle is- if the machine is running daily for a long time, then the maintenance needs to happen sooner than if the machine was hardly being used. Think of the automobile again. Typically, we get our cars serviced once a year. But a rental car – which runs a thousand kilometers per week- will be due for service in a couple of months.

Why do we need to depend on computers?

Let’s say you are managing service operations for equipment spread over a large geography and they are not easily accessible or their readings can not be noted regularly. In that case, there is no option but to rely on past data to make predictions about the future. Let us say, a machine requires preventive maintenance after 1000 hours of running, and let’s say it has run 500 hours to date since the last service, we must look at the data and check how many hours it is running on an average every day and extrapolate it from there to schedule the next service due to date.

How do we decide the variable interval in scheduling preventive maintenance?

Luckily we don’t. Computers do. But we do write the algorithm. In algorithmic scheduling preventive maintenance, the past is the determinant of the future.

Algorithmic scheduling of maintenance is an area of research. Some of the algorithmic scheduling is quite complex. Here’s a research paper that deals with modeling this activity at some length.

We have used a simple algorithm based on moving averages for scheduling preventive maintenance for equipment that are installed in remote locations.

How does algorithmic scheduling preventive maintenance really work?

Step 1: we need to note the run hours the machine has logged since the last visit. This we do on every visit. And this gives us the average run hours. And we calculate this over the last three or five visits.

Step 2: Then we extrapolate. Let us say a machine is due for maintenance after running for 800 hours. Now let us say that we have found that a machine is running on an average for 10 hours a day (as calculated). We say that if the machine has been running on an average for 10 hours a day, and it was due for maintenance in 800 hours, then it is going to be due for maintenance in 80 days from the last maintenance. Makes sense, does it not?

Why this works

The beauty of this is, because we are working with moving averages, we are able to achieve very good results with scheduling preventive maintenance. This technique is used especially when we have equipment under maintenance which are in far flung areas and we are not able to access the actual run hours data on a daily basis.

For an example of where we have used this, read the DG set case study.

Easily create maintenance equipment checklist for your field team

Posted on December 30, 2021January 3, 2022

Checklist for preventive maintenance on the fly

Every field service technician is familiar with maintenance equipment checklists. Let’s see why.

Every equipment under your care has a different maintenance plan. Not just schedule. Let’s take a battery, for instance.

An industrial battery requires preventative maintenance at periodic intervals. If in heavy use, then as frequently as every month. Preventive maintenance (PM) is done to ensure one does not need to come back for ad hoc maintenance/ repair for damaged batteries- basically the same principle behind PM that is followed for all equipment.

Now, every equipment that needs maintenance requires a checklist for preventive maintenance for the technicians to follow. Be it an automobile or a fuel pump or a battery. This is common sense as well as common practice. These maintenance equipment checklists can run to 5/ 6 items for simpler items like a battery vs hundred or more for an automobile.

As an example, take a look at the maintenance equipment checklist published by Alpine Power Systems.

Representational: maintenance equipment checklist for battery

Till recently the technicians went around with printed maintenance equipment checklists and noted their finding there.

The problem with maintenance equipment checklist so far

Committing your checklist for preventive maintenance to a paper based strategy has obviously 2 problems.

Paper is tough to track, and audit. End of the day, someone needs to (or should) sit down with the sheaf of papers documenting all the PM activities that have happened that day and check if the right procedure was followed. Were the right observations made, corrective actions taken and customer feedback monitored?

In comes software. Mobile and web based. For capturing records for every maintenance activity performed. And being able to draw appropriate lessons from the past activities. So, obviously, maintenance equipment checklist should be the first to be computerized.

2. And, keeping history, maintaining records and learning from experience is near impossible unless you have a process for transcribing (error free) all the filled up maintenance equipment checklists. Regularly. And, have a software for analysing the historical records for trends to be wary about.

Challenge with computerizing maintenance equipment checklist

Then comes the challenge: do you have to have different software for maintaining, say a laptop than for maintaining a washing machine? Or for a diesel generator set? Because the preventive maintenance checklist to be used for capturing the details regarding each type of equipment is very different, as you can understand.

Or, should you custom develop- with the help of your software vendor, a checklist for preventive maintenance for the equipment that you maintain? And, look for him again when the firm needs even a minor tweak?

Not easy huh?

That’s where Saleswah CRM comes in.

Checklist for preventive maintenance: Mobile app driven totally customizable

We provide you the ability to custom design, not one, but scores of product category maintenance equipment checklist – one for each type of products you have under maintenance. Not just that; you can create custom forms for visits – as well. These checklist for preventive maintenance are available instantly to all users once designed by the admin.

But, hold on. When you have scores of forms with you on your mobile app, that’s just the same as carrying around multiple paper forms for different product types, right? Ah, no. Saleswah CRM is smarter than that. When you are attending to a an equipment under maintenance, the software will show ONLY the relevant form to you. Without your intervention. In fact, you can’t pull up a wrong form even if you tried.

All this works- without a single line of code, any need for “implementation consultants” getting involved and any spend on time and money.

If you would like to have a demo of how to create maintenance equipment checklists – contact us for a demo.

Customer service CRM software focuses on customer retention

Posted on January 25, 2021January 10, 2022

More than customer retention, support is a major way to gain new customers as well

A case for Customer Service CRM software

With 2021 behind us and having learnt from our experience, we can safely say that customer support is what keeps a company afloat.

Sales to new customers is expensive, time consuming. Customer support is cheaper and the effects are longer lasting. Support helps retain customers. Support helps spread the word among other prospective customers.

Support is also a great source of ongoing revenue.

The years 2020-2021 were years for our Customer Service CRM Software to come into its own. Ad hoc tickets, scheduled maintenance, AMC and Warranty coverage, spares, logistics. For field service as well as for customer service operations managed out of service centers.

And all this at scale- from a team size of 10 to hundreds. Very customizable. And very very affordable.

Who is the Saleswah Customer Service CRM software for?

Saleswah Customer Service CRM software will help you improve customer satisfaction.

Field service CRM software

If you have a medium to large sized field support team that goes to customer locatto attendnding to complaints on installed equipment- high value capital goods (think DG sets, utilities, compressors, chillers, petrol dispensers) or even white goods like AC, then Saleswah service CRM software will help run your service operations.

Service Center CRM software

If you have one or more service centers around the country and your customers bring in or send in products for repair, the customer service CRM software helps too. Think laptops, mobile phones, printers, hearing aids, even cars or even some white goods.

What sets it apart

– A great new mobile app- helping deliver a full fledged service experience at customer site.

Build your own: Every Saleswah customer sees a totally different CRM

– No need for consultants to implement. And there is no need to budget for months of even weeks to implement and adopt. A typical Saleswah customer service CRM software implementation takes just a few days and rarely requires technical support or coding.

customer service crm software customized forms – Customization by the user: add custom fields to all modules, even create custom forms for all types of tickets and even equipment. Push the form to the mobile app for use by your field support team.

Customer service CRM software focuses on customer retention 5

– Any size of operation- hundreds to tens of thousands, any types of products. Browse a particularly complex implementation case study.

What did we do for the Sales CRM?

– As with the customer service CRM software, the accent was on mobility. The mobile salesman will now really like the interface. We also added integrations with Google Workspace (sheets, contact, calendar, gmail), Office 365, QuickBooks Online and added the ability to get leads directly into your Saleswah CRM account from IndiaMart.

– As in the Service CRM, major modules are now user level customizable- add your own fields to Account, Contact and Deals.

– Capture leads from your website- embed a lead capture form on your website.

… and, that’s not all.

Across the sales CRM and customer service CRM software, we have revamped our reporting tool and made it possible to define your own reports. And export the results to csv or Google Sheets.

We now have added notifications across most critical actions- so, whether it is a new lead, a task that got assigned to you or an appointment that is due in 10 minutes, Saleswah will prompt you on your web browser and on the mobile.

Already have Saleswah? Write us and tell us what you liked or even what you didn’t about what we did last year. If you haven’t experienced Saleswah yet, go and sign up for a trial- here.

Sales CRM processes are a lot more than booking, billing and collections

Posted on January 18, 2021January 13, 2022

For small and medium sized businesses, the accounting system of choice is QuickBooks. Starting as a desktop, standalone software, QuickBooks Online- the web based version has caught on and I would reckon is as popular if not more than its legacy version.

This is a fiercely contested market. There are others like Xero, Freshbooks, Wave accounting, Zoho, Tally solutions- plus many software products that cater to one or 2 markets. QuickBooks from Intuit stands out for catering to many markets, having a easy to understand user interface and a very very affordable pricing.

It’s the software that we ourselves have used for close to 5 years.

So, when it came to integrating with an accounting software for Saleswah CRM, it’s no surprise that we chose QuickBooks.

We are not the first CRM to have integrated with QuickBooks, we will also not be the last. But, there is a difference with how we have approached integration with QuickBooks vs how most others have.

Firstly, even if you do not have a QuickBooks account, you can work with Saleswah CRM.

Secondly, Saleswah CRM is a robust B2B sales (and service) CRM which deep and extensive process flows in lead management, marketing campaign management, deal and funnel management, contact and account management and scheduling and logging activities like appointments, visits and tasks. It maintains its own products list, pricing table and can send out Quotations and acknowledge customer purchase orders.

We wanted QuickBooks Online and Saleswah CRM to be complementary in how they worked together.

So, we have 2 use cases.

Let’s say you are already a Saleswah CRM user (admin) and you want to link it with QuickBooks online. You can link to your existing QuickBooks account from within Saleswah. If you do not already have an account with QuickBooks, you will be asked to create one.

Or, if you are a QuickBooks user and you want to check out Saleswah CRM, you can do so by going to the QuickBooks app store and click on Saleswah CRM to instantly create an account with Saleswah. Once you have a Saleswah account, head to the integrations page (under admin settings) and import your Contacts and Accounts, Products List and the list of pending invoices for your sales team to follow up for collections.

Yes, right now we want the QuickBooks integrations to serve the purpose of helping collections effort. The next step will be to push invoices out and do collections reconciliation.

Staying on top of activities, meetings and sales follow-up

Posted on November 20, 2020January 1, 2022

Helping your team with their sales follow-up with minimal effort

A mobile sales team hates reporting. It is also a fact that by the time they are back in office at the end of a day’s visits, the details of most meetings are but a blur. There is a lot that the salesmen do; and we allow them to capture in the CRM.

So, they have 2 challenges.

They do not remember what they did- on site. Which impacts their sales follow-up. They can easily miss commitments they have made.
Now, they need to send a report to their boss- the dreaded daily activity report.

On the Saleswah mobile app (Android), we allow you to make notes on visits and meetings. So,that you can always come back to office and jog your memory to write a more in depth report on visits if needed. We do the reporting for them!

Everyday, you and your reporting manager will get an email with a summary of all that you have done the previous day. You will only get your own data, your boss will get data for all his reportees.

The report covers new leads added, tasks created, customers visited, leads converted to deals and won deals – the previous day.

Not only do we thus create the daily activity report but since it comes from the one shared data source- it is something both you and your boss will go by.

As for sales follow-up, we have added meetings scheduled for the day, deals forecast, tasks due and leads due for follow up in the report.

As you already may have seen, we have now added reminders and notifications for your deals and tasks and appointments. Several times during the day, we remind you of the Tasks you were scheduled to do and appointments for the day. In case you miss the deadline of a task, your boss gets a notification.

Nothing falls through the cracks.

Prevalent frauds in field service management -1

Posted on November 3, 2020April 29, 2024

I will write a few stories – based on personal and professional experience- where I see how fraudulent practices impact the companies providing services and/ or the consumer.

All cases are real and from my first hand experience. Today is the first, the case of the air-purifier field service management.

A few days back we wanted our room air purifiers serviced. It is one of the most well known white goods companies. We called their call center, a service ticket was logged and the technician was assigned to our case.

He landed up at about the appointed hour, did a thorough job with both ( we have two) and then asked for payment.

I paid in cash- he charged me for 2 services, got me to sign off on the “FSR” – which also doubled up as the receipt, and when he was tearing off the top page I saw what was odd.

Except for my signature and date, there was no other impression on the “self-carbon” copy- meant for submission back at his office.

See the possibilities.

He can fudge my rating; in this case, there was no need to, because I had rated him well; but, it is always a possibility.

He can misreport the time of arrival and departure.

Prevalent frauds in field service management -1 6

He can claim that he serviced only one air purifier rather than 2. And pocket the charges of 1 service.

He can claim that he used some consumables- non-chargeable to the consumer, but obviously costing his company something.

Prevalent but preventable

Now, shameless plug for Saleswah Service CRM- field service management software.

If this company was using Saleswah CRM mobile enabled field service management software, this would not have happened.

I would sign on the mobile screen, after I rate him- also on the phone. So, no chance of a fudged rating. Oh, and if your company policy demands that he takes a picture of the client, or the equipment, he can- and the pictures will be sent along with location tags, address etc to your database.
The mobile app will record the start and end time and location of the service call/ visit. And the location.
The receipt can be generated right from the app; configured by the type and quantity of the service availed. No more revenue loss for the company.
You can specify in your service policy that all spares or consumables being used must be entered in the mobile app and and have that implemented/ enforced.

Starting-up: then and now, in the silicon valley

Posted on October 19, 2020January 1, 2022

Much before starting-up was even popular in the lexicon, Bill and Dave were folks who got together to create the pioneering company – that is widely recognized as the birthplace of silicon valley.

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard (no prizes for guessing right), in 1939 started Hewlett-Packard (HP) from the garage in Addison Avenue, Palo Alto, a stone’s throw from Stanford university.

Before starting-up was even a thing: the HP Garage — Always an inspiration to those starting-up: The HP Garage

Why invoke this very well known fact? Just to illustrate a contrast between what starting up meant then and what it means today.

I was triggered by a book review that Mukund Mohan did on his blog about the book Bad Blood. It is a fascinating read – and I am sure many of you have read it or even otherwise are aware of Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Sunny Balwani. Mukund lists his learnings from the sordid saga of Theranos.

The changing ethos and expectation of starting-up

It struck me how things have changed in the valley since those early days where starting-up meant innovation, unleashing the creativity and frequently engineering genius. Bill and Dave were not altruists; they were remarkably savvy businessmen. But they were mindful of their customers, fiercely proud of delivering engineering value to make their work easier.

Would Bill and Dave have recognised “a) fake it till you make it”? From the beginning, an HP marketer was told to NEVER promise the future product and “only sell what is on the price-list”. And to get on the price list, the product must already be available, ready to be shipped.

Trust, respect and shareholder value

Would Dave or Bill have built a company where the customer, employee and investors were all duped?

Would Dave and Bill be starting-up with a plan to run 13 years on no or negligible revenue; only burning investor cash?

Packard, ever the financial conservative, offers a timeless lesson on financial responsibility:

Financial responsibility is equally important, however different in nature. It is essentially a service function to see that we generate the resources which make it possible for us all to do our job.
These things translated mean that in addition to having the objective of trying to make a contribution to our customers, we must consider our responsibilities in a broader sense. If our main thought is to make money, we won’t care about these details. If we don’t care about the details, we won’t make as much money. They go hand in hand.

Dave Packard- Quote: source- The HP Way: Dave Packard on How to Operate a Company

Very few starting-up today have a lofty vision like that.

How did this idea for starting-up come to such a pass? How did we all fall prey to the thinking that the future is always bright and mistake gambling for investing? How did so many people, grown up, wizened old men among them, make this mistake? How come it took 13 years for this scam to unravel?

The answer, Mukund says lies in FOMO. So many people, willingly suspended disbelief for fear that if they passed up on Theranos, they would hand over a massive advantage to their competitors.

I think there are other factors too. The accent today is on growing the top-line, faster and faster and everyone is setting “Bold, Hairy and Audacious” goals. Start-ups today do not see building a company to last as a goal. Bill and Dave built their company such that it became an institution and their folksy wisdom; which included unwavering focus on the customer and respect for employees, returning values to the shareholder became management wisdom.

How many times, have I seen my managers in HP walk away from bad deals? Countless. They were old timers, brought up indoctrinated by the HP Way- a deceptively simple way to run business. I say deceptively, because many of the tenets of the HP way, would be hard to live up to, simple as they may sound.

Infallible guide to decide between configured CRM and customized CRM

Posted on October 10, 2020January 1, 2022

Configured CRM, Customized CRM or custom-built?

Forgive this play on words. Do you want to have a customized CRM; build on your CRM- add features: views, workflows or reports? Or do you want to build the CRM ground up, custom-built for you?

Technically the first option can start from configuration – where you make changes to the CRM UI, add or remove some data capture options to where you make significant changes requiring efforts, involving coding.

I guess we all know the custom-built option- building something ground up- is very expensive. Just to share the perspective on why that is the case, here’s a simple schematic. This can apply to any enterprise software deployment in your company.

configured or customized

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