FGrade thrives with Bigin and achieves 30% growth year-over-year.

The company

Phanindra was a passionate blogger with a BTech and BBA background who learned programming. After identifying gaps in the market, he built his own website and established FGrade in 2017 to address IT infrastructure needs and security implementations such as website security, email security, data migration, and more. Located in Hyderabad, India, today FGrade serves over 1,000 organizations worldwide with 70+ certifications and dedicated professionals for every product.

The challenge

As an IT consultant, Phanindra knew that in order to scale his company, he needed a tool that could help him efficiently manage sales and operations. He initially chose Perfex CRM, but as it became integral to the team's daily workflow, several challenges began to surface. After a year of using the CRM, Sanjay, the sales manager at FGrade, identified the issues:

• Perfex CRM lacked live chat support, which hindered FGrade's real-time operations when issues arouse during business hours.
• The absence of a telephony integration stood as a significant impediment to the sales and support teams' operations.
• Perfex CRM's mobile application didn't offer email templates, which limited on-the-go communications.

Determined to address these limitations, Phanindra and his team began searching for a new CRM solution.

The solution

Zoho Books and Zoho Workplace were already a part of FGrade's toolkit. Sanjay explains, "We wanted a CRM in the same ecosystem, and Bigin fit perfectly as a lighter version that met all our needs."

FGrade had 50,000 records in Perfex CRM which they were able to import into Bigin within 30 minutes—a process that instantly impressed the team.

Here are some of the features the team uses:

WhatsApp integration:FGrade hosted an event for 500 customers and needed to send out invitations with the event's details and location. Instead of using personal numbers, they used Bigin's WhatsApp integration to send a templated message to all customers, and were able to make the event a success.

Team Pipelines:The FGrade team uses pipelines to track their sales and set aside deals that involve future needs, and move closed deals to a separate pipeline. This enables them to monitor all closed deals throughout the year and keep their sales pipeline clean and organized.

Automations:The team has over 10 automations set up in Bigin. Using APIs, they can automatically assess existing clients' tech stacks, which helps streamline their processes and reduce manual effort.

Automations:The team has over 10 automations set up in Bigin. Using APIs, they can automatically assess existing clients' tech stacks, which helps streamline their processes and reduce manual effort.

Dashboards:Mani, the team leader at FGrade, created multiple dashboard components to track the performance of her team: their calls made, notes added, contacts created, revenue generated, and number of deals in a particular stage. This gives her a clear view of their quarterly or annual KPIs and helps her plan future strategies.

Built-in telephony:This feature helps Phanindra track and monitor calls and enables the sales team to make client calls directly from Bigin.

Mobile application:The sales team heavily relies on Bigin's mobile app for in-person customer meetings. They use it to take notes, review previous conversations, and send meeting minutes immediately after meetings via email templates, which streamlines their workflows while on the go.

Benefits and ROI

• FGrade has achieved 30% growth year-over-year after adopting Bigin.
• New employees save 40% of their time because CRM is the only tool the company uses to manage its operations.
• Their ability to import and export data within 30 minutes boosts their overall work efficiency.
• They easily explore and adopt other products in the Zoho ecosystem, as they seamlessly integrate with Bigin.
• The WhatsApp integration has made it more convenient to communicate with customers and provide project updates.
• Dashboards enable team leaders to make accurate sales forecasts and plan efficiently.

Looking forward

As an expert in the IT and tech industry, Phanindra fully understands the value and potential of a robust CRM. He's excited about the upcoming features and enhancements that Bigin will introduce and is eager to leverage them in his business operations.