Beck Flavors runs an efficient sales team with Zoho CRM

The company

For over a century, Beck Flavors has been creating custom food and beverage flavors for coffee and tea, alcohol beverages, and non-alcoholic beverages for clients they also consider friends. With world-class scientists, cutting-edge technology, and unmatched customer service, they can match the capabilities of any competing flavor house and also offer the responsiveness and personal attention of a family firm.

Introduction

Matt Carr, President of Beck Flavors, proactively and consciously works towards building the company with the right attributes. When a prospective lead is interested in buying a flavor, the company aims to give them the best flavor options possible and then customize them accordingly. This goal informs their work towards a product-market fit to ensure the future of flavors.

The challenge

Beck Flavors knew that the problems most worth solving are usually the most obvious ones. It took the team a few years to fully grasp the invisible levels of complexity involved in running an efficient sales team. They also had a steep learning curve understanding the importance of a solid sales process.

This was an important stage in Beck Flavors' early CRM adoption that led to the switch from Goldmine to Zoho CRM. After bringing together an efficient sales team that worked well together and zeroed in on a viable problem to solve, uncovering the layers of complexity in building their business as well as their product became the next significant hurdle to cross.

The solution

To address these challenges, Beck Flavors signed up for Zoho CRM in July 2010. It was a significant upgrade and, from a modular standpoint, Zoho CRM seemed to be a much better fit.

While Mr Carr was not part of the procurement team during the early CRM implementation days, attending a Zoholics event in California helped him get up to speed and understand the ins and outs of Zoho CRM.

The sales team now uses Zoho CRM to contact prospects. The automation comes in moving a project through the different stages of their sales process. When the prospects come back showing interest in their flavor samples, the sales team puts in a sample request in the Projects module. The specifics of the project are then communicated to the R&D staff and the project is assigned and prepared over the course of five to seven days and then sent out to the customer.

Beck Flavors needs to rapidly evolve the flavors they offer to cater to different customer requirements and needs. So, instead of throwing their products at the proverbial wall to see if they stick, they believe that it is better to take a ‘less is more’ approach. For example, instead of making 70 cold calls a day, it seemed more efficient to identify the most likely customers, and then focus their efforts on those customers to ensure that the product captures their attention.

The sales team is now more proactive, the R&D team spends less time on the phone asking the sales team for information, and they get the samples turned around quicker than their competition because of the automation they have put in place with CRM.

A few personalized emails often got a better response than a barrage of generic emails sent to a non-targeted customer list. Zoho CRM has helped them to showcase their value to other potential customers. Emails are now sent to both initial leads and customers from Zoho CRM. This direct connect has helped them build a better understanding of their sales challenges.