A few ways to increase the sales department’s effectiveness — isprzet.pl case study

Isprzęt.pl is an e-Commerce platform operating in the B2B sector, supplying construction and industrial companies with heavy equipment, machines, and devices, as well as B2C, offering everyday tools for individual customers.

Challenges

Wojciech Krawczyk, isprzęt.pl CEO started working with Casbeg on the recommendation of one of our clients. The company faced 4 main challenges:

1. Improving the efficiency of the sales department.

2. Cost reduction and increasing profits generated by existing customers by maintaining good relationships and active upselling.

3. Improving the process of order fulfillment and communication with the customer as well as the automation of processes in the company.

4. Audit and improvement of marketing activities carried out in the individual channels, such as Facebook Ads, Ceneo, or e-mail marketing.

Solution

Challenge 1 and 2: Improving the efficiency of the sales department, reducing costs, and increasing the profits generated by existing customers.

At the beginning of our cooperation, we focused on analyzing the sales process in the company using, among others, mystery shopping tests to identify problems and sources of ineffectiveness in this area.

The tests allowed us to identify the most common mistakes made by the salespeople.

In order to eliminate the problems, we conducted a series of individual workshops with the salespeople, which were to increase the effectiveness of the talks with potential customers.

The salespeople used a dedicated CRM on a daily basis, but the data on each client wasn’t always entered correctly and on time. We have prepared proposals for changes and good practices, thanks to which the company constantly monitors the effectiveness of its commercial activities and introduces optimization changes on an ongoing basis using the previously owned CRM system.

What would you do if you found out that X % of the company’s activities have no impact on how many customers you could acquire and generated additional costs at the same time?

Due to the fact that CRM collects data on an ongoing basis, isprzet.pl is able to quickly identify which lead sources and salespeople activities generate additional costs instead of a higher margin. These costs are understood as the work hours invested in calls, and creating & sending offers that do not end with a transaction. This knowledge allows the company to transfer funds where they generate the highest returns, e.g. to increase the marketing budgets of campaigns that generate the most valuable leads.

Challenge 3: Improving the order fulfillment process, communication with the customer and the automation of processes in the company.

A complicated process within the organization turned out to be the main problem in order fulfillment. Most of the stages (determining the goods availability, handling returns, complaints, logistics and shipment) required involvement of all teams in the company. There was confusion between the employees as noone knew exactly who is responsible for each area.

The problem was solved by designing a new process that addresses all possible order fulfillment scenarios, including payment methods, delivery options, and product availability. Responsibility for the various stages of the contract was assigned to the appropriate departments and employees of the store. We helped the team to create a process of cooperation between departments, modifying the structure of the organization, with a carefully planned area of ​​employee skills.

E-mail messages for customers were created at every stage of the contract. This improved communication with the customer, streamlined the entire process, as well as made it possible for employees to understand the role that individual people and tasks play in the functioning of the store. As a result, the number of inquiries regarding order fulfillment has significantly decreased, shipping errors were minimized to zero, and the Ceneo customer service rating increased to 5 stars.

Thanks to the changes in the structure of the teams, the time needed to complete orders was reduced. This was also possible thanks to automation, which affected such areas as: customer service, accounting documents send-offs, discount codes, customer satisfaction surveys, collecting opinions, and handling returns and complaints.

Challenge 4: Audit and improvement of marketing activities carried out in individual channels.

We started by diagnosing errors in web analytics, and then implemented changes to Google Analytics. We also identified key metrics that should be monitored to assess the effectiveness of marketing activities and set new goals.

Together with the client, we analyzed the activities carried out in channels such as: FB/G ads, Ceneo, and the newsletter. During a series of meetings, we developed theories that the client tested in the aforementioned channels. As a result, the awareness of the needs and preferences of customers and the store’s marketing possibilities increased. We worked with isprzęt’s marketing team on improving the team members skills and implementing regular processes in planning marketing campaigns based on warehouse data into their daily work.

The result of many months of work in this area was a series of campaigns carried out at the end of the year. Coordinated activities in many channels were aimed at gaining traffic on the landing pages dedicated to specific promotional campaigns in order to fully use the sales potential of the holiday and the end of the year season. The sales freed up PLN 500,000 of goods that were previously “frozen” in the warehouse.

Results

After introducing the recommended changes, we noticed the effects in the form of:

• sales in the second half of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 increased by 35%,
• customers are kept informed about what is happening with their order thanks to which the number of inquiries decreased,
• customer satisfaction with purchases ncreased significantly, which is confirmed by the reviews on Ceneo website — 100% order effectiveness and an average rating of 5.0 with 250 reviews,
• obtaining over 300 leads from the FB ads campaign at the average price per lead lower than PLN 5 and maintaining the qualified lead rate at about 90%,
• the percentage of unhandled orders, parcels lost in the implementation process, and unknowns in the daily operation of the warehouse and shipping decreased to 0,
• cooperation between departments improved thanks to the unification of knowledge about procurement across all departments. The salesperson knows when will each product be delivered, the accounting rep knows when the invoice should be issued, and logistics knows in advance when each package should leave the warehouse, avoiding misunderstandings and problems during the execution of orders,
• the company is able to quickly identify which activities of salespeople and lead sources generate additional costs instead of a higher margin. The funds recovered in this way are transferred to those areas that really contribute to generating a profit.