When Argentine telecom company Anura needed a solution that would fit its unique way of attracting customers it deployed Zoho Desk.
Standing out among the tough competition is not easy, and having a strategic vision is needed to find a disruptive factor. Over 10 years ago, Anura, an Argentine Telecom company, understood this and applied it by offering companies a cloud-based telephone central solution.
With this, they absorb maintenance and import costs, including the high dollar-to-Argentine peso exchange rate.
To put things in context, in 2011, you could buy a Chevrolet car for ARS$ 46,000 (Argentine pesos). In 2021, with that same amount of money, you could buy two pairs of Nike sneakers.
With this value offering and advertising strategy, Anura had a problem that many desired: They started to have more and more potential customers. But this caused their lead management methods to become difficult to track and affected their commission scheme.
To adapt to this change, Anura decided to implement tools that would fit their needs.
The beginnings
For Sol Maunier, Commercial Manager at Anura, the tools must adapt to the company’s needs. Her experience working in the commercial area of packaging and printing companies helped her form a clear conception of what she needs.
When she arrived at Anura, Maunier realized that she had to work with customers from scratch, both those who came through Google Advertising and those the company went out to find. It allowed them to work until they had almost 4,000 customers.
In the early days of Anura, customer inquiries were held in a shared Excel. Leads were assigned depending on each case, but this method became impossible to manage due to significant backlog prospects.
They endorse open source, so they tried a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) of that style. It was not the solution as they depended on the development area to implement new functions and reports. There was little independence.
The company needed a solution that would fit its unique way of attracting customers. Their Google Advertising generated two contacts: People who completed a form and those who called directly. The problem was that 60% of people chose to call without completing the form, so salespeople had to fill in the information manually.
Customer follow-up was another big problem. They had no way to track the emails they sent so they lacked a record of calls, which affected their commission scheme.
On top of this, there were incorrect calls and forms, either looking for another company or a different service. This information also had to be recorded, and it was not possible.
When the number of people calling grew to 80%, they knew it was time to change.
The solutions to several problems
The first thing they looked for was an accessible CRM with integrated telephony. For Sol, it was urgent to see the record of the calls they exchanged with their customers. Looking for options, they realized that many of their customers already used Zoho, so they hired them.
Sol was convinced that it was possible to integrate telephony with APIs and webhooks.
Now, it was possible to avoid losing money from many customers by tracking the follow-up the salespeople were making.
“I consider myself a very dependent Zoho user. I use it all the time,” said Maunier.
The follow-up helps control how each salesperson works, but there is an even more significant factor. The team now works more harmoniously as the commission scheme is more unmistakable. If a salesperson leaves a client for three months, someone else can take over. Zoho also helped with the approval process.
They now also track the newsletters they send to their base of potential customers through Zoho Campaigns. It includes information related to the cloud telephony service. One of the most recent was in August 2022, when they communicated digital portability in Argentina so that customers may migrate to a virtual solution while keeping their own telephone number.
With such an extensive package as Zoho One, the sales team is not the only one benefiting. The management uses Zoho Analytics to see the salespeople’s work, analyze sales and predict how many phones they will need in the coming months.
“For me, the problem with follow-up is one of the main achievements. It allowed us to automate several tasks and have greater visibility of management in a more transparent way, which translates into more closures and more sales,” said Maunier.
With a vision of the future
Anura already has several automated processes, but they plan to go further. With Zoho Desk, they wanted to achieve separation when a customer makes a simple inquiry from those that need support assistance.
Regarding their sales area, the new integration with WhatsApp opened up a world of possibilities. Their customers can now use WhatsApp Business and their salespeople follow up through this messaging app.
The union with Etixen
When they found out about Zoho, Anura interviewed several Zoho Partners to integrate their systems. In the end, Etixen’s way of working convinced them. Anura explained their sales cycle and Etixen customized Zoho to fit the client’s specific needs in terms of processes, customer acquisition and automation.
With these changes, automation became a part of the daily routine of the sales team. Anura is seeking to continue applying this concept with Etixen in other areas to improve their results.
“Etixen helped us customize everything. They understood clearly. They did an intensive job side by side to decipher what we needed and make it possible,” said Maunier.
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