CASE STUDY
Crexendo’s Salesforce Switch: A Better, Cost-effective System
Crexendo Inc. needed help migrating from Salesforce to another, better CRM. Paying the Salesforce CRM price was crippling the business, so their Director of Information Technology Phillip Alger was tasked with finding a new CRM within 90 days. Ultimately, he and his team chose Zoho, working with Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk, Sign, Creator, Forms, and Social, among others. 72 licensed users from Crexendo currently enjoy the many benefits of the Zoho platform.
The core problem for Crexendo was their overhead spent on the expensive Salesforce software. In order to complete development their team required special training, and they did not have a Salesforce developer on staff. This led them to search for a contractor outside the company to make changes and upgrades. In the end, the cost of hiring outside drove them to look for another, better and more cost-effective product.
Phillip Alger
Director of Information Technology, Crexendo
The Business
Crexendo Inc. was formed in 2007 as a voice telecom company with customers across the U.S. and in 13 foreign countries. With 75 employees, this voice over internet protocol (VOIP) organization was formed following the sale of another very large telecom company. Serving as the Director of Information Technology, Phillip Alger is responsible for infrastructure as well as determining which applications are used and how they are utilized. Crexendo is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona.
The Challenge
At the heart of Crexendo’s problems was overspending to outsource the company’s Salesforce development. Crexendo had spent thousands of dollars just to change fields and update workflows throughout the system. The process affected the Sales Department the most. Any time they had a new product or a new process for selling, they had to wait for the development team to finish and implement it. According to Phillip, “This significantly slowed their ability to efficiently sell our product.”
Finding a Solution
In their hunt for a solution, Crexendo was straightforward and logical, beginning with a web search to find proven CRMs on the market. With half a dozen companies to choose from, Phillip did the necessary research on each one.
After narrowing down their list of viable options, Crexendo tested three different CRMs in earnest. According to Phillip, “Zoho stood out because of the ability to customize it as much as [they] wanted, without needing specialized knowledge.” He and his team appreciated the varied approaches to learning Zoho, from watching videos and reading manuals to live chat support. Crexendo began with CRM Plus and switched to Zoho One, affording them more users, more features, and less cost.
Phillip knew he needed a partner to help with deployment, but was up against a hard deadline that was fast approaching, just 90 days away. He said that after speaking to partners all over the United States, “ZBrains responded quickly. When I spoke to the consultants they assured me this had been done before, that it was a cookie-cutter conversion.” From there, ZBrains and Crexendo met, discussed terms and timelines, looked at the data, and proceeded with the deployment in earnest.
In addition to the quick response time and assurance of experience with this kind of migration, “what stood out [about ZBrains during the planning phase of the project] was their ability to have a conversation at a level where they cared about our business,” Phillip explained. “They knew that data was the most important thing in the CRM system. They knew to ensure all the fields mapped properly, data types mapped properly, so we wouldn’t be impeded by bad data in the new system.”
Phillip Alger
Director of Information Technology, Crexendo
Implementation & Results
The Crexendo project began with CRM, which consolidated many loose processes to one uniform sales process, from leads to deals to contract generation. From there ZBrains deployed Zoho Desk, Zoho Forms, and many other Zoho apps. “Nearly every Zoho application was used and/or is currently in use for most of our processes,” Phillip noted. Crexendo currently uses Analytics, Assist, Forms, Cliq, CRM, Desk, Social, Sprint, Vault, Writer, Sheets and more; according to Phillip they use easily 20+ Zoho apps.
In addition to consulting and implementation, the ZBrains team also coordinated all the Zoho training, and observed how Crexendo used the software to make changes to it as needed, to help them better adapt.
Phillip estimates a project of this magnitude “should have taken a year” to complete, what with migrating and cleaning 12 years of data into a brand new system. Instead, Crexendo was able to meet, and even beat their hard deadline of 90 days to have a new system deployed. And, Phillip is very pleased with the results, remarking that the result of all their hard work was “a much simpler CRM system with more data than before…. We have new items, new processes, and we can set them up ourselves in minutes. [Zoho] allows our sales team to move more quickly on the data they need to sell.”
Speaking on the Record
Phillip has positive feelings towards both Zoho and ZBrains. “As a consultant part-time for other businesses, I have implemented numerous Zoho solutions for small-medium sized businesses. It truly is the best value we’ve ever purchased for our company, hands-down. The improvements made in documentations and ease-of-use have increased our efficiency drastically. It exceeds any other product on the market.”
“What I appreciated about ZBrains the most is that they came in, cared about our business and this project, and knew we were under the gun. I’d recommend ZBrains to anyone that needs a partner for Zoho,” Phillip acknowledged. He continued, saying, “ZBrains is more than just a partner to us. They have been very professional and personal and have helped us achieve our goals by discussing our business, our future, what we plan on doing, and how we’re going to get there. They do all that while recommending solutions and helping us implement those solutions.”
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