KOTS Housing drastically decreases response times and achieves greater operational efficiency using Zoho CRM

The company

KOTS is a digital-first consumer brand that offers housing solutions for young Indians on the move. Their build-to-rent (BTR) model is optimized to provide a better product-market fit that enables them to create a range of viable housing products in urban Karnataka, India—including studio apartments and residential spaces in gated communities. Interestingly, the idea for KOTS originated from the founder's own house-hunting experience as a university student in Italy. They discerned a need for rental spaces in Bangalore, as people from other areas were coming there for work and needed housing. In this, KOTS saw an opportunity.

"There aren't many brands like us who are building to rent," says Aswath Jayavel, Business Manager. "There are a lot of paying guests and shared living spaces and rental homes, but not a single brand player like KOTS."

They seized this opportunity by providing solutions that enhance residence discovery, tenant experience, and essential services like housekeeping.

The challenge

In the business's initial stages, the company realized that there was a lack of organization in internal processes and the discoverability of KOTS's services for customers. To solve these challenges and provide an seamless experience for the tenants, they created a website that serves as an engine for discovery and sales, with Zoho One implemented for internal operations.

The teams at KOTS were using Google Sheets and Google AppSheets until they became familiar with Zoho through Zoho Sites. Once acquainted with Zoho's wider ecosystem, they realized there were more apps they could use to make their operations even smoother.

They eventually shifted to Zoho One so they could work in one software ecosystem, but before doing so, they evaluated Google Workspace and Odoo. Vijeth Reddy, Co-Founder and CEO at KOTS Renting, says, "There were other SaaS platforms that were ready to use for our industry, but as a scaling, growing company with a lot of operational intensity, you need to evolve your product continuously. That was missing in those products."

The solution

When KOTS started with Zoho CRM, their primary objective was to digitize their existing process. "Our plan was to connect the dots between different teams, and the CRM would act as a primary database rather than just being used for sales," says Aswath Jayavel, Business Manager at KOTS, who primarily takes care of digital transformation and marketing. Data comes into the CRM through different input channels via an array of integrations throughout the organization, including third-party channels, the company's own platform, and Google integrations. "The data-gathering system is automated, and this engine functions itself without much intervention from us," Jayavel says.

As a centralized database, CRM collects leads from sources like KOTS's website, third-party apps (real estate broker websites), social media ads, Google ads, campaigns, and calls through Zoho CRM's PhoneBridge integration. This lead gathering and management processes are divided into two parts: pre-sales and post-sales. The post-sales process uses the CRM database extensively to track customer data.

At the pre-sales stage, people visit the website, search for properties, and book them. After booking, they're guided through the post-sales process, which involves Know Your Customer (KYC) verification, the contract signing, and email verification, upon which time they become a tenant in the database. This is an end-to-end automated process, and everything is connected to Zoho CRM through Zoho Flow or Zapier.

When asked what the best thing about a having centralized database is, Jayavel says, "From the moment we know the source of the lead for each booking until they become a tenant, we have a complete data view." This helps the associated teams analyze each stage of a lead's journey, which in turn gives them a complete view of their customers' journeys.

Dashboards

At KOTS, the internal teams have a complete view of the sales funnel with customized dashboards for each team.

The sales team's view 

The sales team at KOTS has the flexibility to customize their dashboard according to each individual salesperson's preferences. The dashboard features the number of leads they're each handling, which customers they've recently contacted, and those with whom they need to follow up. They can also see which customers are in which follow-up stages, which helps them be more self-reliant when it comes to day-to-day decision-making.

The marketing team's view 

The marketing team at KOTS uses Zoho CRM to log lead sources and track which ones are generating the most leads in order to improve the performance of their marketing engine. These insights help them manage a steady inflow of leads and plan their campaigns accordingly.

Management's view 

The management team gets full visibility into the sales process via a sales dashboard, which includes a view of leads in different stages of conversion, such as the follow-up, visiting, discussion, and booking stages. This consolidated view offers detail down to the individual reps and leads involved, which makes analysis and decision-making more feasible for the decision makers.

Regarding the move from Google Sheets to Zoho CRM, Jayavel says that whereas tracking leads in Google Sheets was difficult and didn't have offer any data visibility, with Zoho CRM they now have live data tracking. "Previously, our spreadsheet data just piled up, and we weren't ever able to use it to get a broader view of what was going on in the business," Jayavel says, "but now I can forecast my bookings pipeline and plan accordingly."

Jayavel also says this has increased the operational efficiency of his sales team. "When we used sheets, there would be data pipeline inconsistencies. Zoho CRM has solved that. Now, most of our agents are independent; we don't have to interfere in the sales process at all. We feel way better than when we started."

Once they have complete track of their lead sources and pipeline, KOTS relies on automations using workflows to take the customer's journey forward with minimal manual intervention.

Workflows

Of the automations KOTS has achieved using Zoho CRM, Jayavel notes that they can now rely heavily on workflows. "We have around 60 to 70 workflows which support us in understanding, managing, and automating our customers' journeys," he says.

One example Jayavel gives of how workflows help facilitate tenant contracts is they're now able to send new tenants dynamic contracts specific to each flat, obtain signatures, and update the system automatically—meaning booking can happen 24/7 without any human dependencies.

WhatsApp integration

KOTS has connected WhatsApp to Zoho CRM using the Wati API, which enables them to send automated messages via WhatsApp-based workflows in Zoho CRM.

The tenant's journey

The team at KOTS now has a complete view of each tenant's profile post-sale in the Tenants module, as well as access to omnichannel conversations with tenants beginning at the time of booking. Using Zoho Desk, their support team handles all questions and tickets across channels with reduced turnaround times.

The support team also uses Zoho CRM to record, view, and act on details, chats, and transactions related to specific bookings, including onboarding and offboarding information, tenant management, and refunds.

"We're able to get a comprehensive view of our tenants from different sources in one place and resolve their support requests promptly," Jayavel says. "This system gives us the flexibility to understand each tenant's journey and offer them much better support." Jayavel thinks this now makes the company more process-dependent than talent-dependent.

Similarly, related records show up automatically in the Accounts module. "In this format, I can ensure my team is better aligned and available to address more pressing issues," Jayavel says.

Benefits and ROI

Prior to adopting Zoho CRM, the salespeople at KOTS would get contact leads lists and handle them manually on a round-robin basis. From there, they would make anywhere from 20 to 50 calls per day. After implementing Zoho CRM and its custom modules and workflows, the average salesperson now makes around 120 calls per day. "It's increased more than four times," Jayavel says. "Previously, our leads conversion rate was around 23 per month; now it's up to 78."

"Our response times have drastically decreased since the introduction of sales dashboards and our complete integration with Zoho CRM," he adds. "Zoho CRM has played an important role in the digital transformation of KOTS."

Jayavel attributes KOTS's newfound operational excellence to Zoho CRM. "It has definitely helped us improve our efficiency and achieve the operational excellence we wanted," he says, adding: "Our ROI continues to double each year."

Of his experience with Zoho CRM so far, Jayavel says, "Our CRM journey has been quite good. What I personally love about Zoho CRM is everything we need is built-in. Without the CRM, I don't think we would have gotten so much done. It's helped us build quick solutions with high capabilities and rival the competence of larger organizations in terms of operational efficiency."

About the support from the Zoho CRM support team, Jayavel adds that they've worked closely on a couple of issues and have received prompt resolutions.