Key results:
- Relay used Zoho CRM Blueprints to cut manual work by80%
- In four years, the company grew by more than 4,000%
The company
Relay is a cloud-based employee safety and communications platform built for frontline teams across industries such as manufacturing, logistics, hospitality, casinos, stadiums, and conference centres. Originally launched as a consumer product, the company quickly pivoted to a B2B model, offering cloud-managed, walkie-talkie–style communication devices equipped with safety features and productivity tools like panic alerts and team translation.
Relay offers a smart push-to-talk device that boosts team safety, tracking, and productivity—a modern take on the walkie-talkie.
The challenge
Prior to choosing Zoho CRM, Relay faced a number of business challenges:
Shift in business: When Relay launched its B2B product, it did not have a CRM in place. Although the team was familiar with Salesforce from a previous business, they needed a platform that was simpler and more adaptable to their evolving needs.
Inefficient existing system: The company re-evaluated Salesforce, but found it was too complex for their business needs.
Disconnected tools: Their systems weren't integrated; lead generation and calendar tools were disconnected, which led to duplicate records and forced sales reps to enter data, book meetings, send emails, and manage follow-ups manually.
Manual sales processes: Each sales stage (like "meeting attended" or "meeting rescheduled") required separate manual processes, with sales reps relying on SDRs to keep CRM records updated—which increased the risk of missing leads.
Lack of unified analytics: Relay's data scientists had to analyze data from multiple, unconnected platforms manually, resulting in data silos and inefficiency.
The solution
Relay had an eye on Zoho for years thanks to its various bundled offerings and well-integrated solutions, but never got a chance to explore it, as they were using Salesforce and Zendesk. When they launched their B2B business model, there were many unknowns around the process and future direction, so they needed software that wouldn’t conflict with any existing or potential business models.
After evaluating their options, Relay chose Zoho for its transparent pricing, seamless integrations, and ease of use. They began by onboarding all sales-facing teams—including SDRs, enterprise, inside, and retail sales. With Zoho's affordable licensing, they no longer had to ration user access, which enabled every relevant team member to use the system. This level of access and coordination was something they hadn't experienced before.
Managing the lead generation process with Zoho CRM and Zoho Flow
Relay captures leads through forms on their website and landing pages. These leads flow into Zoho CRM, which connects with Zoho Flow to check whether the prospect is a new or existing contact. Based on this, leads are filtered and routed automatically to the appropriate sales reps for timely and consistent follow-up.
Automating lead progression with Blueprints
Booking process
Once a lead enters the system, Zoho CRM automates key steps in the sales cycle using a combination of Blueprint and external integrations. For example, new leads are auto-assigned to owners through Blueprint. However, actions such as automatically rescheduling meetings after cancellations and updating meeting statuses are managed through a series of flows in Zoho Flow, paired with integrations like Calendly or Google Calendar. When meetings are completed, the system—via these integrations—can prompt a checklist in the CRM to confirm attendance, deal validity, and call outcomes. Based on these responses, Blueprint then updates the deal stage and guides the record through the next steps. This blend of Blueprint and workflow automation has significantly reduced manual work for the sales team, cutting data entry time from 25–30% to just 5% and allowing reps to focus on closing deals. As leads advance, nurture flows and marketing activities are also triggered automatically through these connected workflows.
Order management process with CRM and Sign
Relay manages its orders directly through Zoho CRM. While quotes are still maintained in spreadsheets, the company uses Zoho Sign to handle electronic signatures. A Blueprint tracks each step of the signing process, ensuring visibility and accountability throughout.
Once a document is signed, the order is automatically handed off to the business operations and customer success teams, who manage order fulfilment, shipping, and billing.
Onboarding process through CRM and LMS
After a deal is closed, Relay's leadership team reviews the account and categorizes it into custom categories—namely House, House+, Strategic, or Growth—based on size and needs. This classification triggers the onboarding process.
Larger accounts receive in-person and virtual training sessions, while smaller companies are onboarded through LMS platforms like TrainerCentral and Zoho Learn. These platforms are also used for internal staff and partner training.
Based on the customer type, contacts are enrolled in tailored learning paths (Standard, Pro, or Enterprise). Their training progress is tracked in real time, and completion data flows back into Zoho CRM through Zoho Flow. This enables the success team to monitor adoption, share insights with customers, and take action where needed.
If more users are required, the system flags the account for review and order expansion—making onboarding not just educational but scalable and revenue-impacting.
Contract renewal with Zoho CRM using workflows
To streamline the renewal process, Zoho CRM automatically creates a renewal deal 60 days before contract expiry. This workflow helps sales reps track value changes—whether the contract amount increases, decreases, or stays the same.
Retention is closely tied to customer training. High adoption keeps churn below 1%, while low usage typically leads to drop-offs. Previously, sales reps and CSMs handled renewals and training follow-ups manually. With Zoho's automation in place, these processes are now consistent, proactive, and scalable—ensuring stronger engagement across accounts.
Partner portals in Zoho CRM
Partners are provided with secure, web-based portals where they can log in to access resources such as release notes and follow-ups. These portals allow partners to view specific CRM information based on their permissions, collaborate on deals, and stay updated on key developments. This setup streamlines communication, enables partners to track relevant updates, and supports more effective partnership management directly within Zoho CRM.
Zoho One apps and integrations
When leads come in through Zoho Forms, SDRs quickly follow up and schedule demos using Calendly. Initially, syncing Calendly with both Google Calendar and Zoho Calendar led to duplicate entries. To resolve this, meetings are now scheduled in Calendly, which syncs with Google Calendar and then updates Zoho Calendar through a two-way sync.
Automated notifications via Zoho Flow ensure that all meeting details from Calendly are captured and backfilled into Zoho Calendar, streamlining scheduling and eliminating duplicates.
Unified CRM insights with Zoho Analytics
Integrating Zoho CRM with Zoho Analytics enabled Relay to centralize business data—from ticketing and marketing to sales—into a single platform. This gave teams a unified view of performance across CRM modules like leads, deals, and sales orders. With custom dashboards and scheduled reports, they could track key metrics such as deals closed, lead conversion by region, and ARR, while also sharing detailed reports with large customers for greater transparency.
Leadership used Zoho Analytics to guide major decisions, like hiring SDRs and segmenting sales teams for enterprise accounts. The Ask Zia feature further simplified access to real-time CRM insights, helping every team member make faster, data-backed decisions.
Ticketing tool and knowledge base usage
Relay transitioned from Zendesk to Intercom, and eventually to Zoho Desk, which they now use primarily for email-based ticketing and as a customer-facing knowledge base.
Business customers can call support directly from the portal using Zoom Phone.
Zoho Desk's help center includes chatbots that find information or open tickets automatically.
Data scientists monitor device issues and proactively create ticket suggestions in Zoho Desk, often reaching out to customers before problems arise. These suggestions are pushed from Redshift (Relay's data warehouse) into Zoho Desk and are integrated with Zoho CRM.
Zoho CRM acts as the single source of truth, allowing the team to view and manage tickets directly within the CRM, which saves time and improves efficiency.
''Zoho CRM is the SSOT (single source of truth) and this integration between Zoho Desk and Zoho CRM lets Relay's team to see the tickets through Zoho CRM itself which saves times and promoted efficient work.''
Other Zoho apps used at Relay
Zoho WorkDrive: All business documents are stored centrally in WorkDrive, enabling team members to share PDFs and files internally as links—eliminating any need to download or send files separately.
Zoho SalesIQ: Relay uses SalesIQ for online support chat and chatbots to help engage website visitors, answer questions, and automate the first stage of customer support and lead capture.
Zoho Writer: The company creates contract templates and other essential business documents using Zoho Writer, which also offers features for collaboration, digital signatures, and productivity enhancements.
Zoho Connect: This Zoho app facilitates internal team communication and enables different teams to share updates, collaborate in channels, and organize information efficiently.
"We chose Zoho One from the very beginning because we needed a unified solution that could scale with us. As customer management grew more complex, Zoho One gave us a complete 360-degree view of our sales operations—without the hassle of managing multiple disconnected tools."
Benefits and ROI
How did Zoho CRM impact Relay's operations, boost growth, and reduce churn?
By leveraging key features within Zoho CRM, Relay streamlined critical business processes and empowered its sales team. The following points highlight the tangible impact Zoho CRM has had on Relay's business operations:
Increased efficiency with Blueprints: By implementing Blueprints in Zoho CRM, manual data entry time dropped from 25-30% to just 5%, enabling the team to close deals faster and focus on scaling the business.
Lower churn and higher retention: With targeted training and support from Zoho's customer success team, Relay was able to cut churn in half, strengthening long-term customer relationships.
Accurate forecasting and conversions: A managed onboarding and sales process improved forecasting accuracy and boosted conversion rates.
Stronger sales strategy through analytics: Zoho CRM's advanced analytics provided Relay with actionable insights into customer behaviour and purchase probabilities, which helped them optimize their sales approaches.
Scalable operations with integrated tools: Zoho's interconnected app ecosystem has streamlined workflows and enabled scalable team structures. Relay rapidly expanded its salesforce and introduced specialized roles without disruptions.
Agile innovation and operational excellence: Zoho's automation, analytics, and integrations empowered Relay to innovate quickly, maintain high engagement, and scale operations smoothly.
These CRM-driven improvements played a critical role in Relay's exponential growth. The company expanded by over 4,000% in four years, grew its customer base, and earned a spot on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ list.
"Zoho has been a game-changer for us. With the support of our Success and RevOps teams, along with structured training, we've managed to cut churn in half. Our onboarding process now provides highly accurate forecasting and clear visibility into every stage of the customer journey. We also have a solid understanding of each website visitor's likelihood to convert. Most importantly, all our systems are now seamlessly interconnected—telling one cohesive story that drives smarter, faster business decisions. None of this would have been possible without Zoho."
- Industry typeTelecommunications
- Employees201-500 employees
- Type of businessB2B
Looking forward
Relay continues to streamline operations and unify marketing, data, and partner management into a seamless, automated system. As part of this, the team is exploring AI capabilities within Zoho CRM and is keeping a close eye on upcoming features that could further support their growth. With Zoho as a central platform, Relay is focused on building scalable systems that evolve with their business.
Zoho gives us everything that we need and it's fully integrated. Without that, we'd have to negotiate separately with best of breed point providers, that would have paralyzed us.
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