Increase in productivity of employees using Bigin impacted business growth

The company

Vinay Gupta, an MBA graduate from Delhi, took over his father's business in 2003. Goverdhan Retail India Pvt Ltd wholesales ready-made garments and serves retailers with over 1,000 brands. The company sources garments from 16 cities all over India to supply traders, wholesalers, and retailers and stocks clothing according to seasons and current fashion trends. The company is strong at 100 employees, and they're working towards the vision of building an accessible brand in apparel retailing.

The challenge

Initially, the entire company was conducting business using Excel spreadsheets and paper. Gupta's foray into digital transformation began when he hired developers to implement an in-house, on-premise CRM software platform. The biggest challenge he faced with this software was upgrading it as and when Goverdhan's business process changed. Additionally, he had to pay the developers an annual maintenance cost.

But apart from this, the main functional challenges they had with their existing software were keeping track of huge volumes of data and, since garment types continually change every season, tracking the inventory, which was increasingly burdensome. In 2021, amid the pandemic, Gupta decided it was time he adapted to the current market trends and looked for cloud software that would address most of his concerns.

Introduction to Bigin

The key to a successful business is to address customer needs in due course. Accordingly, Gupta ensures his team regularly follows up with Goverdhan's existing client base of retailers and traders to elicit feedback about the quality and fashion trends in the market. In order to run their business, Goverdhan sources garments based on this feedback from their customers.

Gupta was also in search of software that could help him track his employees' productivity. He then determined the criteria he was looking for in a CRM software tool: a Contacts module, the ability to assign deals and tasks to users, and a mobile application to record sales calls.

Gupta made a conscious decision to look only for Indian-made software, given that such a tool would likely also have an Indian support team. He evaluated a couple of products before arriving at a decision. DeskEra was one of the software tools he evaluated, but he wasn't impressed with their mobile app. He also found the UI too complex, as accounting, inventory management, and other processes were part of the package. He then moved on to evaluate Zoho CRM and Bigin, but once he assessed Bigin, he didn't give it any further thought. He purchased five users immediately and proceeded with data migration. He uploaded 2,000 contacts to Bigin instantly, which were divided equally across the sales team. Using the Activities module, Goverdhan's management was able to monitor the team's productivity and call recordings, which provided the company with the insight they needed to plan the upcoming batch of garments.

The solution

As Gupta delved into Bigin, he started simplifying his business process. The team uses five pipelines currently: customer operations, interview process, loyalty program, account management, and tour survey. Bigin is therefore able to capture the whole customer journey and complete lifecycle of Goverdhan's business.

Customer operations

Zoho Forms is integrated with the company's WhatsApp Business account, along with the chat bot. He uses Zoho Forms to collect feedback, customer complaints, product ideas (filled out by field sales agents), and surveys. Every form submission automatically creates a deal in Bigin, and a custom workflow automatically assigns each deal to the sales, marketing, and support teams. The teams pick up these leads and follow up with them regularly. Using this pipeline, they also capture customer complaints so the support team can prioritize them.

New accounts

This pipeline stores new account records (retailers and traders) and maintains the status of each one's line of credit. Once a deal is created, it's automatically assigned to field agents for background verification, which sales agents routinely update. If an account is rejected due to issues with its background check, the process is re-initialized.

Interview process

Bigin makes Goverdhan's interview process seamless. The company publishes a form on its website, WhatsApp, and even in newspapers. When a form or a call is submitted, Bigin automatically creates a deal in the pipeline and HR reaches out to the candidate to schedule an interview. This pipeline has three stages—on hold, accepted, and rejected—and the company uses workflows to set up automatic emailers for each stage.

Loyalty program

Gupta recently introduced a loyalty program for his customers to boost sales and increase the number of repeat orders. It's a great initiative for a small business to retain customers at a growing stage. The organization's marketing team tracks this pipeline in Bigin.

Tour survey

Garment businesses always have agents in the field who carry out business operations. Hence, it's important to research travel information in advance, such as hotel options, optimal routes, and travel costs. Gupta deployed this pipeline especially for field agents so they can track the issues they face and come up with alternative solutions while traveling.

Benefits and ROI

• Effective customer operation management has ensured the company's growth, along with increased staffing.
• Within a year of using Bigin, business contacts increased from 2,000 to 12,000.
• Since Bigin was introduced, 90% of customer queries are resolved and 10% are either untraceable or lost. Before Bigin, the reverse was true!
• The support team is now more focused as they close tickets within 24 hours, resulting in greater customer satisfaction.
• Bigin's Reports and Dashboards help track employees' metrics on a daily basis.

Looking forward

The garment business is a tricky industry to work in, as its trends change constantly. The businesses that excel in this type of industry are those who keep up with these ever-changing trends and attract customers. Gupta's aim—not just to adapt to fashion trends, but also to adopt technology to simplify his business—has played a crucial role in its success.

"Bigin is a great product for small and medium-sized companies," Gupta says. "It's a must-have product for those who wish to serve customers nationwide."