An Australian government-funded company streamlines its operations and boosts customer management with Zoho CRM.

The company

Established in 1989, Realise Business is a management consulting company with over 30 years of experience in providing trusted and affordable business advice, education, and support to thousands of business owners across Sydney. It operates as a not-for-profit enterprise and is funded by the federal and state governments.

At every stage of the client's business, Realise Business excels at providing highly experienced business advisors and access to regular events, to education, and to its growing network of up to 300,000 other Sydney businesses. The company's team of business advisors has a combined total of over 200 years of business experience.

Realise Business is the provider for the NSW Business Connect Program (funded by the New South Wales Government Department of Industry) and the federal government's Australian Small Business Advisory Service (ASBAS), and is proud to have won the Small Business Commissioner Award for excellence. They were also nominated as finalists for the Optus MyBusiness Awards and CEO Magazine's 2022 Not-For-Profit Executive of the Year award.

The challenge

Realise Business had been handling its clients' data using Act!, their previous CRM solution. Because their customer base had grown so much through the years, and because they had adopted multiple separate third-party applications which weren't integrated, the team finally realized their need for a well-integrated system that could help them manage their operations and growing customer database more effectively.

They required a powerful business solution with multi-directional integration in order to achieve a smooth business process. Upon evaluating several options, management decided to move ahead with the Zoho One suite. The suite offers a powerful CRM solution that helps Realise Business's teams handle their customer base, while also providing management with clear visibility into the company's performance and process. Along with Zoho CRM, the team also uses Zoho Subscriptions, Zoho Forms, Zoho Sign, Zoho Bookings, and Zoho Projects. All of these applications are tightly integrated and enable an easy flow of data from and into Zoho CRM, which in turn enables the business to achieve its operational goals.

Why Zoho

Jacqui Attard, CEO at Realise Business, has been very clear on why she moved ahead with Zoho. The team evaluated several tools before deciding on Zoho and identified the three most convincing reasons to choose Zoho: ease of setup, value for money, and privacy policies. Since Realise Business works for the Australian government, a secure and privacy-adhering solution was necessary. During the evaluation, Realise Business's management team had to produce Zoho's privacy and compliance-related documents to the government. After much scrutiny, management finally received the stamp of approval from the government.

The solution

Realise Business has three different teams using Zoho CRM—the client relationship team, business advisors, and management. The client's entire journey is recorded, managed, and processed within the CRM.

Implementation with Aurelian Group

Aurelian Group is an Authorized Zoho Partner which specializes in Zoho One implementations for solopreneurs and medium sized organizations. Along with Attard, Matt Koopmans, Founder and Director at Aurelian Group, implemented Zoho One for Realise Business. The primary goal was to consolidate the entire customer's journey in order achieve a better view of the business's processes, from lead generation to onboarding to subscription to finance. Aurelian Group was also tasked with eliminating multiple manual touchpoints to enhance the company's overall efficiency. Koopmans and Attard envisioned this entire journey and are proud to have worked together to finally achieve their goal.

Enhanced client onboarding process with Zoho CRM

Realise Business's clients reach them through various channels, such as their website, social media, phone, and referrals. While the team manually enters the details of prospects who contact them by phone or referrals, thanks to the integration with their website and social media accounts, Zoho CRM automatically identifies prospects' data from these channels and adds them as leads. All leads must pass through several stages of the opportunity pipeline in order to become paying clients. Every stage is mapped to a set of activities which are configured using workflow rules. For example, when a lead is added to Zoho CRM, they automatically receive a business assessment form to gauge their fit as a client. This is powered by Zoho Forms which, when filled and submitted, auto-populates all the information directly into the CRM, minimizing the manual effort required of the client relationship team.

Auditing made easier for management

After analyzing the business assessment form, the team schedules meetings between qualifying clients and business advisors. Business advisors use Zoho CRM to record all client-related details, such that it acts as a central data repository for the organization. This central repository is a key point of reference when the leadership team assesses each advisor's time management. Zoho CRM tracks the total amount of time each advisor spends on a specific client across different programs, the total number of consulting hours each advisor accrues, the total number of hours each client spends with different business advisors, and more—all of which helps Realise Business's management team find and present important data to stakeholders during audits.

A consolidated view of the client's entire journey

Realise Business has a clearly defined goal: to be available for their clients throughout their journeys. The result is that many clients return as leads each year. The client relationship team feels empowered being able to view the client's entire journey with Realise Business, past and present, and despite any breaks between deals. This enables the team to better understand the client's history and plan subsequent coaching sessions accordingly.

The team believes strongly in enhancing the experience for both new and returning clients. Having a consolidated view of each customer's journey helps the client relationship team match each client with the most suitable coach in order to provide them with the best possible experience.

Valuable data insights for management through reports and dashboards

Working on government projects, the management team at Realise Business has always aimed to maintain a clear picture of all numbers and business conditions so that they can inform their stakeholders with timely and accurate reports. Zoho CRM's reports and dashboards have helped the team achieve this goal. Tracking crucial numbers like the monthly total of incoming leads, paying clients, new clients, returning clients, and so on enables the team to check on the health of the business and plan future actions accordingly. This data analysis also equips the team with insights that help inform and drive improved marketing tactics and lead-capture strategies.

Empowering the management team to generate reports and review any piece of data at any time has helped them eliminate the time and effort that would otherwise be spent waiting for subordinates to generate them.

"The impact that CRM has had on me is that I do not have to go around asking people or wait for the numbers or reports," Attard says. "I can get them whenever I need them."

Handling the massive business growth during COVID

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a sudden surge in business activities for Realise Business. With so many small businesses suffering during the pandemic, the Australian government ramped up several projects to help these businesses survive. Realise Business was one of the companies entrusted to help small businesses stay afloat, and was given several projects to oversee.

The sudden increase in business operations, lockdowns, and work-from-home employment—all at the same time—pushed Realise Business to go online and enhance its operational capacity. The team relied heavily on Zoho to scale up, automate processes and systems, and move the business online.

"To handle the surge," Attard says, "we needed to automate business processes to leverage that growth opportunity seamlessly. Zoho helped us overcome this difficult situation."