CRM Implementation and Integration with QuickBooks and Mail Server

• Project: Sales and customer service processes automation
• Duration: 5 months
• Technologies: Low-code CRM platform Creatio, QuickBooks, Microsoft Exchange
• Target audience: Sales, Accounting, Customer Service departments

KKworx is an IT consulting firm that provides information services, including data networking, virtualization, business continuity, VoIP, and video conferencing.

Challenge

Velvetech’s CRM implementation team had to migrate KKworx’s customer data and other business-critical info to a new CRM and customize the latter to align with the company’s operations.

Process

The Velvetech CRM team has worked with lots of CRM systems — Creatio, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce, and SugarCRM, among others. But for the digital transformation at KKworx, it was decided to go with Gartner Group Rated Leader – CRM Creatio. Primarily, because it perfectly combines the sales and customer service automation.

Creatio provides a client portal for KKworx customers to submit purchase orders or help inquiries. At the same time, the company’s employees have their own space to serve these customer needs.

CRM Data Migration

The project kicked off with migrating the customer data to the CRM Creatio. Velvetech paid special attention when mapping the fields in the Excel files to Creatio so that no data is lost in the migration process.

Sales Automation

Putting all sales activities into a single CRM was the main requirement on the project, and Creatio turned out to be the perfect tool to implement that requirement. Creatio’s sales module helps KKworx employees handle purchase orders, vendors, products, and customer interactions: from the initial customer inquiry to invoice.

All paperwork, automatic notifications, management approvals, and verification steps happen naturally inside the CRM. Some of the requirements from the client regarding product prices and discounts calculation were quite different from the default Creatio options. So Velvetech CRM developers had to go the extra mile to implement the required logic instead of modifying the existing one.

Customer Service Automation in CRM

Another major request from KKworx was to carry out all customer service activities in the CRM too. Creatio’s support module allows the company’s support staff to log their work, create and renew support contracts, create and send invoices to customers along with reports.

Again, the CRM automatically notifies all involved employees and provides the management with the tools to approve invoices, reports, etc. Velvetech CRM developers reused many of the out-of-the-box business processes provided in Creatio. However, to meet some of the client’s requirements, we had to create a number of new business processes from scratch.

CRM Integration with QuickBooks and Microsoft Exchange

The Velvetech CRM development team set up the Creatio CRM so that it syncs the invoices and contacts to QuickBooks and emails to the Microsoft Exchange mail server. That keeps KKworx’s accounting team relying on QuickBooks in the loop and also enables all team members to email with customers right from the CRM.

While implementing the sync between Creatio and QuickBooks, we faced some limitations in that QuickBooks’s SDK does not allow for entering data from the outside. And so we had to find workarounds to be able to sync all required data.

Outcome

The outcoming result of the project was the successful automation of KKworx’s sales and customer service processes with the Creatio platform.

A new CRM Platform and integration with QuickBooks and Microsoft Exchange mail server has facilitated the success of the internal operation process of our client with a compliment for their customer requests. The automated sales and customer service system generally led to total satisfaction in the services provided by KKworx.

What’s Next

The KKworx and Velvetech teams created a list of “nice-to-have features” that would be of good use and could be added to the scope. These can be implemented in the next phase of the project or as product updates as time goes on.