Voltora Industries (Voltora), founded by Tory Ogden, is a leading provider of electrical solutions in Queensland and Victoria, specialising in electrical, data, security, air conditioning, and solar services. Their team of highly trained and specialist technicians regularly undergo training and attend product launches to stay up-to-date with the latest options available for their customers.
In a hugely competitive industry filled with businesses of varying sizes, Tory saw a gap in the market and a way to differentiate Voltora. No one in the industry was providing full transparency over work delivered, and there was little care placed on maintaining ongoing relationships with the customer. Service would be provided, jobs completed and closed out with minimal attention given to the outcome, relevant communication/reporting to the customer to ensure they understood the issue and customer follow-ups and satisfaction. Tory used his experience to create a company focused on outcomes and customer relationships rather than quick fixes.
Voltora is a customer-focused and service-based business that is committed to delivering top-quality service for all job types at reasonable prices. Known for their collaborative approach with customers, the company takes accountability for every aspect of the job, ensuring complete transparency from start to finish. With their dedication to delivering on promises and exceeding expectations, Voltora Industries has established itself as a trustworthy and reliable choice for comprehensive electrical solutions.
Voltora grew rapidly, establishing itself in the market as a leader in delivering exceptional service to their customers, but with the growth came several operational challenges. Their existing processes were hindering the amount of new business they were able to secure and their ability to continue providing the level of service their customers had come to expect.
Voltora Industries Goals
Voltora had a clear vision for their business and the level of service they wanted to provide. However, their existing workflow impeded their ability to maintain the high level of customer service and transparency they had become known for as their customer base grew and their account structure became more complex.
The key challenge for Voltora was to alleviate the heavy workload on Tory, who was responsible for the day-to-day running of the business and to get him his evenings back. Voltora’s labour-intensive administrative workflow to manage quotes, jobs, staff, contractors, products and customers across multiple states meant more than half of Tory’s week was consumed with quoting and other small tasks. This only increased as they grew to manage over 800 jobs a month and provide services to both commercial and residential customers. The complex nature of their business and the structure of their customer accounts also meant it was difficult for anyone other than Tory to quote jobs accurately and consistently.
The next challenge Voltora faced was visibility over opportunities, communications, resourcing, supplies and a holistic view of customer accounts. They had no visibility over who had communicated with each customer enquiry, making it difficult to follow up and ensure no opportunities were missed. This was further impacted by the assignment of lower-scale jobs to supervisor-level technicians causing increased costs for the business. Additionally, there was no efficient system for tracking parts inventory to allocate them to the right jobs. Often resulting in the incorrect parts being packed or not being available for collection by the technician. This was further compounded by the manual methods for documenting customer feedback, and warranty claims were prone to errors and inefficiencies.
The final challenge was getting their systems to talk. Voltora employed various systems and tools for tasks, but none of them worked together to provide an adequate top-level view of the holistic needs and shortcomings to manage the business effectively. The solution needed to be able to remove as many of the manual tasks as possible from their workflow to free up time to take on additional jobs, provide a higher level of customer service and scale the business.
Fluent Group Solutions
We created a comprehensive plan focused on future-proofing Voltora by implementing a mix of new Salesforce technology, integrated with their existing systems.
There was a strong emphasis on automating as many day-to-day processes as possible, centred around a well-structured CRM to manage enquiries and streamline quoting with visibility of product & part stock levels whilst assigning appropriately skilled technicians to the right jobs in the first phase.
Sales process & Account structure defined
To achieve this, we started by defining a clear sales process that aligned with their unique way of working and supported the company’s goals of sales efficiency, streamlined administrative workflow, and a comprehensive customer view.
The process needed to account for their complex account structure and was developed with their existing platforms and automation in mind. Throughout implementation, the process was further optimised to account for additional nuances related to the account structure, quoting, and customer support requirements.
A key innovation in defining the sales process was the development and mapping of a unique and complex account structure. This structure needed to represent the complexity of the different types of customers and opportunities that Voltora services. Including real estate agents (property management) and their tenants, referral work from suppliers, general customers, and intermediate-sized customers with a small property portfolio.
Developing a clear account structure was essential to manage communication, billing, product maintenance, and support effectively by identifying the various roles, properties, and contacts within each opportunity. This structure also means there is now history connected to a “property” rather than a customer for rentals, providing a holistic view regardless of changes in tenants or agents.
Defining the account structure also allowed for the creation of appropriate automation to ensure everything goes to the right place, minimising time lost and financial implications from manual handling and inadequate information on customer/property accounts.
“The team at Fluent never missed a beat, from project kick-off to implementation to the ongoing support since. They made themselves available every step of the way. It felt like a true partnership, and they were genuinely invested in our business’s success. Even when our requirements changed at the last minute, they adapted the solution, and our operations have never been better.”
– Tory Ogden, Managing Director
CRM Implementation
Building on their unique sales process, we collaborated with Voltora to leverage Sales Cloud to automate the delivery of their customised sales process. The introduction of Sales Cloud also helped to build a complete picture of customer accounts and their varying complexities established when defining the Account Structure – ensuring communication and invoicing happened with the right people.
Sales Cloud was an invaluable tool to provide Voltora with visibility of their opportunity pipeline and streamline quoting by allowing easy generation of multiple quotes for customers and approval rules to ensure discounts are applied correctly.
Tory and his team now have true visibility over their entire lead, opportunity and job pipeline and can pass that onto their customers by providing transparency over exactly where they are at in the process.
Tory no longer needs to rely on manual reporting, he can access real-time results directly in a customised dashboard view. Voltora and their customers now benefit from:
- A vastly quicker enquiry workflow
- Shared visibility ensuring the Voltora team can work together to close deals and answer customer queries
- Seamless facilitation of quote acceptance, invoicing, payments, inventory assignment and job scheduling
Customer Service System
With the sales process and account structure defined, and Sales Cloud implemented, the focus was shifted to effectively managing the customer relationship through feedback, warranty claims for products/parts and general customer support. Service Cloud with Knowledge was implemented to seamlessly tie together opportunities/customers, jobs and CPQ complex bundles, which allowed the team to stay in one system and improve response times. The AI component extended its capabilities by applying machine learning to better support their customer base and call upon relevant materials, such as manuals and data within Voltora’s knowledge base, to provide tailored and efficient support to their customers.
Quoting & Billing
The implementation of CPQ and billing allowed Tory to build complex pricing bundles unique to Voltora, which resulted in greater efficiency for the company. This approach involved productising every scenario and element of the business, from products to parts and labour, and removing guesswork and manual calculations previously involved in pricing and discounting. As a result, Tory’s team is now able to produce accurate quotes, freeing up time to prioritise new and more important tasks. CPQ has also provided greater insights into revenue and allowed Voltora to split it out per segment in their chart of accounts, enabling year-to-year comparisons.
Data Synchronisation & Transformation
The last piece of the solution was getting their systems to work harmoniously and push and pull the right information to the right places meaning less double-handling and fat-finger errors. A key reason for utilising Salesforce Sales Cloud, Service and CPQ in their solution was because of the unparalleled flexibility and collaborative nature Salesforce’s cloud tools gave us to craft a solution that would mean we didn’t have to burn the house down. Instead, Voltora could keep their essential tools and systems in place.
A big milestone was integrating with simPRO, a system Voltora weren’t willing to part with as it is the core platform used to manage warehouse inventory, supply levels and the assignment of appropriately skilled technicians to the right jobs. Integrating Sales Cloud with simPRO allowed Voltora to draw on the inventory and live pricing for over 15,000 products and leverage that live in the quoting process within complex bundles consisting of products, parts and labour. This was further leveraged with the integration of Conga document generation for quotes, Xero for accounting and SMS Magic for seamless communication with customers.
Salesforce now acts as their single source of truth for all account/property information. All opportunities are received and managed through Salesforce, quotes are compiled with CPQ bundles and generated directly from Salesforce through Conga. Once accepted, this signals an invoice to be generated and issued via Xero and a job to be created and assigned to the appropriate technician with the respective parts in simPRO. Once assigned, the customer receives confirmation the technician has been booked, and details for their job are sent via SMS (SMS magic). On completion of the job, a survey is automatically generated and sent to the customer for feedback through Service Cloud and any issues or warranty claims are then processed within their account in Salesforce. Eliminating the need for tool switching, reducing mistakes, time and effort required to manage new opportunities. Removing a large percentage of the manual tasks that previously encumbered their workflow, freeing up time to provide a higher level of customer service and scale the business.
“Being able to see all our customer information in one place has been truly transformative for our business. We are now able to create and house our complex quoting bundles in Salesforce and no longer need to manage part supplies and invoicing in different platforms.”
– Tory Ogden, Managing Director
Outcome
Implementing Salesforce has had a transformative impact on Voltora’s operations. It’s meant that Voltora (and, more specifically, Tory) now have visibility across all facets of the business. Providing them with a more streamlined sales and quoting process has led to increased conversions and more time spent on tasks that matter. Combining this with the simPRO integration has also enabled them to assign appropriately skilled technicians with the right equipment to the right jobs, in turn saving the business money and requiring fewer callouts, resulting in an increase in overall customer satisfaction.
It’s successfully granted Tory, the founder and CEO, his evenings back, allowing him to focus on expanding the business and generating new ideas. With other team members now able to quote jobs accurately, the number of quotes generated increased by over 100% and with all quotes going out the door in less than 1 business day, this increase in productivity enabled Tory to finally take a much-needed week off to Las Vegas, marking his first proper holiday in over three years!
The time spent checking on inventory as part of the quoting process has virtually been eliminated, saving valuable time for the entire team. Voltora Industries also experienced a notable increase in conversion of new customers, demonstrating the effectiveness of the streamlined sales and quoting process. The centralisation of customer information in Salesforce enabled efficient tracking of customer communication and feedback, eliminating the need for cumbersome spreadsheets.
The holistic and tailored approach of implementing Salesforce within their existing stack has proven instrumental in addressing Voltora Industries’ specific challenges. The streamlined operations, increased productivity, improved conversion rates, and valuable time saved on administrative tasks demonstrate the powerful impact Salesforce has had on setting their business up for success.
These benefits combined have seen Voltora realise a payback on their Salesforce investment in less than 6 months. A stunning result!
Results and Benefits
- Tory recently took time off to go to Vegas for a week (previously not possible).
- 100% increase in quotes out the door to customers within 1 business day
- 30% improvement in stock-on-hand turnover as a result of inventory integration within the quoting process
- 64% decrease in incorrect products and technicians being booked to jobs
- 80% increase in customer satisfaction via automated NPS process, powered by Service Cloud