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7 min read
The client needed a specialist to implement email and SMS marketing for their newly established online store. The client's main goal at the beginning of the collaboration was to acquire potential customers before the store's opening.
Monika Nastalska
Email Marketing Freelancer at SoftwareSupport
8 min read
Learn how Primetric launched their redesign project with SoftwareSupp Freelancer Dawid and has successfully migrated to Webflow in 1 month and improved page speed by 100%.
The delivered professional was an outstanding specialist, he delivered on schedule, was patient and proactive. The project was delivered on time and according to the specification which is rare in these types of contracts.
Arkadiusz Terpilowski, Head of Growth and Co-founder at Primetric, the Client
Time of the project: 1 month
Scope:
Effect: Page speed +100%, redesign completed in 1 month.
Working with SoftwareSupp is pure pleasure!
As a member of SoftwareSupp network I connect quickly with the customer. This approach allows me to work in the same style as always!
The important thing is that they take care of both me and the client. For me - they notify me about current customer collaboration status and for the client - by following our project on Project Management tool, and by contacting me to confirm that everything was going according to the plan to finish the project on time.
Dawid, Web Freelancer at SoftwareSupp
The product website is one of the most important elements of a company’s online presence. It shows the company’s mission, the product features and should convince the potential customers to sign up for a trial. It needs to be a well-balanced mixture of informative and sales content.
Designing a new website is a big project that may take weeks or months to complete. The process of reviewing designs, improving copy, and project coordination can be long and seem to be a never-ending story.
However, with the right design expert and project management, the website redesign can be a smooth and easy process. SoftwareSupp assists you with both assigning a software professional for the job and coordinating the project, so that you can focus on crafting the ideal message for your future customers.
Having a well-designed, eye-catching, and functional website is a necessity for anyone who offers online products. It’s especially important for software companies because their website might be the factor that influences the potential client’s opinion on the quality of their application.
Primetric provides software for resource and finance management. The application helps you with project planning, scheduling, cost/profit management, time tracking, and reporting.
As a part of their rebranding process, Primetric (previously Grenade Hub) wanted to create a new website that would convey their core message for their clients. They wanted to share their mission which is “to provide a single system for resource & finance forecasting giving you the insight needed to make every project a success.”
Their software of choice was Webflow. It’s a website builder that doesn’t require you to know how to code to design and edit a website. Adding future changes and website maintenance is easy with this tool, so Primetric decided they want to use it for their new company website.
Starting a project with SoftwareSupp comes with the assistance of a Project Manager who makes sure that the project is being completed on time, according to the client’s needs, and with the maximum efficiency. You minimize the time needed to coordinate the project, so you and your team can focus on the regular tasks.
With SoftwareSupp, you also cut down on your recruitment and project management costs. You define the budget for the project and figure out the details with a specific freelancer. As compared to regular agencies, working with SoftwareSupp saves you the intermediary costs that are often a significant part of the agency’s final pricing for the project. With SoftwareSupp, the price is estimated upfront, so you know what you can expect and can plan your budget accordingly.
Primetric needed a consultant who would be able to design their new website according to their new brand book. They wanted the project to be done in Webflow, the software that allows the users to build responsive designs without coding.
At SoftwareSupp, we collaborate with experts in different software and technologies. Webflow is a relatively new solution on the market, but it’s getting more and more popular these days.
Apart from the software that you’re working with, whenever posting a project with us, you can add the skills that are required for the project.
We matched the client with a designer that had experience both in graphic design and building websites in Webflow. We also made sure that both the client and the expert are in the same timezone so that the cooperation isn’t affected by the time difference.
Dawid, the expert that worked on the project, is a digital designer with several years of experience in Webflow/UX/UI. He has a holistic approach towards design and helps brands build a strong online and offline presence.
The Primetric team was impressed by Dawid’s portfolio and they considered his designs to be in line with their product vision. They wanted to make sure that the website would match the message they’d like to convey as a company.
The project started with an intro call during which the SoftwareSupp Project Manager coordinated the schedule of the project and introduced the client and the expert. They were able to start working on the project right away. The Project Manager also helped with the timeline and mapping out the exact scope of the project.
When you work with a SoftwareSupp expert, you can be sure that you get more than simple task completion. The experts that we cooperate with always strive to act as consultants, so they will help you with choosing the best solution for the specific problem you might have.
As Primetric was in the process of rebranding, Dawid helped them with choosing their brand colors and suggested some improvements for their brand book. This helped the client to create a coherent visual communication with guidelines that will be useful for any next project they complete.
Creating a new website is always a great opportunity to simplify the brand’s message and to create a clear communication that unites the visual and written elements of the company’s online presence.
Primetric already had a vision for their new website, so they were able to create an extensive brief. Based on the information from the client, Dawid designed the website structure that they started working on.
Dawid and the Primetric team communicated about all the changes that were made to the initial designs. The client appreciated how smooth the cooperation with Dawid was.
After having agreed on the structure, Dawid designed the homepage using Adobe XD, a web-based UX design tool that enables collaboration between people involved in the project. This view was especially important because the main page defines what the next subpages would look like. The Primetric team was able to add comments in real-time to the website design, so everyone was always up to date about the progress of the project.
Having created the overall design, Dawid moved on to designing the graphics for the website. For the Primetric team, it was important to show the functionalities of their application, so the design included videos that showcased the usage of the application.
Showing videos on the websites can explain the features of an application in an easy way. It also catches users’ attention and gets them more interested in what the website is about.
Webflow is an online platform where you can “experience the power of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in a 100% visual canvas.” This means that you can make your designs go live without extensive coding knowledge. The software allows the users to work visually with UI, without heavy code. It then saves you time and is budget-friendly, as designers can create fully functional websites without the need to hire significant front-end development resources. Still, Webflow allows to make proper edits to html, css, JS, classes which results in the mix of no-code design with proper code-based attention to details.
With all the graphics accepted by Primetric, Dawid started working on building the website in Webflow. He created a responsive design that looks well not only on laptops, but also mobile phones and tablets. Taking into consideration different screens that the website visitors use is necessary as the general Internet-browsing trends show that the usage of portable devices is growing.
What really stands out in Webflow is how the software handles animations. This powerful tool allows you to have a real-time preview of the animation that you’re editing.
With webflow animations, Dawid created a smooth design that highlights six major features of the Pimetric app in one dynamic view.
With the entire design created in Webflow, the Primetric team can easily add changes to the website in the future. It will save them time and resources that they would need to spend on hiring a website developer that would apply the changes related to product development or future business goals.
The new website responds better to the current software trends and illustrates the product’s strengths. With videos and animations, the website encourages the user to interact. It also has an overall better UX design that makes browsing the website more intuitive.
The old website described all the features in only one subpage without any categories that would help the user navigate and find what they need. You can compare the old design below with the new one above to see the difference.
There are also significant changes in the way the product features are presented on the new website.
The new design is also minimalistic but it highlights the most important product features with additional background coloring and icons.
Having the website ready is not the end of the redesign process. It’s necessary to stay on top of analytics and track users’ behavior to make the necessary adjustments. This way, you can maximize the conversions rates and improve the experience for your website visitors. Having chosen software like Webflow that makes adding future changes easier is a great example of choosing the strategy that matches the reality of running an online business.
Primetric now has a clear, well-visualized website with proper UX/UI design and can now expect actual improved page speed and conversion rate for its website and product.
8 min read
Which CRM to choose? This is one of the most common questions we hear from the customers these days. With so many possibilities among both free and paid solutions, it becomes more and more challenging to choose the right option.
Which CRM to choose? This is one of the most common questions we hear from the customers these days. With so many possibilities among both free and paid solutions, it becomes more and more challenging to choose the right option based on the needs, features, or required integrations.
In this material we are only going to look into actual high-quality, growing paid solutions as these are the ones that support long-term growth for your company (customization and tailoring to your specific organization’s needs, the competitiveness of features, and many more) and are the only ones we use when providing services to our customers. We’ll also take a more business-oriented perspective.
When choosing the CRM system, there are a few key factors you need to consider and I’ll try to prioritize them in the right order:
In my opinion, that’s one of the most important factors to consider when selecting your CRM solution.
You want to make sure that as your team and business grow, you will be able to adjust your CRM to meet the increasing team’s needs and demands.
But what does scalability mean? It means that once your business grows, you need to reconfigure your system to meet the needs of new or growing teams. CRM needs to be responsive to these reconfiguration issues.
E.g. Your marketing team decides to launch Google Ads as a new marketing channel which has never been used before. They need to be able to quickly plug into the CRM system to analyze the campaigns’ data and/or generate remarketing/retargeting lists.
Of course, as CRM is the most important software in the organization, security plays a crucial role and all the data you store in your system must be safe.
In today’s dynamic environment, onboarding current and new team members to the software is crucial for your company’s success.
Make sure that when given a choice, you choose a more user-friendly solution, allowing your team members to quickly onboard and start using the system.
As a result, you will find spending much less time training your team members on using the software properly and solving tech queries and have more time to discuss business strategy and actual CRM data.
E.g. You onboard a new team member to the team, not understanding the company's processes. If they jump into a user-friendly CRM, they will see the straightforward sales process and will be able to start acting on this right away.
If you’re investing in a CRM system, you need to make sure that you’re able to access it from every side as you grow.
Let’s say you want to automatically extract the information from your CRM to generate proper custom reports. You’d then need to be able to parse the records of your organizations/contacts.
E.g. If you need to set up an integration between your ERP and CRM system, make sure that you have an open API in your CRM system in place allowing you to write scripts between 2 software solutions.
Don’t choose a CRM that doesn’t grow in features and integrations every month.
With today’s market being so competitive, you need to make sure that your technology stays competitive and allows you to explore new areas for sales and conversion growth.
How to check if CRM is growing in features/integrations? Just check their release history or current features’ pipeline. Also, the amount of funding and growth in the number of integration/implementation partners can be a good indicator of CRM’s growth.
Don’t take price as the most important factor in your CRM selection but calculate the upfront cost related to this kind of investment and if possible, minimize the time devoted to maintenance development.
You can also use professional, specialized support to make sure you succeed in your CRM implementation/refinement.
E.g. Some of today’s solutions provide many robust no-code functionalities allowing you to easily integrate and configure without significant dev spending.
CAGR - a compounded annual growth rate
2012: 1,000 customers
2020: 90,000 customers
Source: Data reported by the vendor.
Standard license cost: $69/m per user.
Pipedrive is the fastest growing CRM (announced unicorn status today) and has quickly grown into one of the CRM market leaders, with the rapid growth of +75.50% CAGR and expansion of features, integrations, and user-friendly capabilities.
A huge advantage and benefit of Pipedrive is its straightforward approach towards CRM with a super user-friendly interface based on visual pipeline, custom fields, per-account activity planning, and workflow automation capabilities.
Pipedrive grows very fast when it comes to releasing new features and adjusting to changing customers’ needs, with some of the new features including:
Pipedrive can be easily customized and personalized to match the needs of the company and is industry-agnostic.
So you will be able to easily adjust it to the specific needs of your business or team by customizing custom fields, proper integrations, or workflow automation setup.
As a Pipedrive Partner and implementation company, we’ve seen many companies strive with this technology, growing their sales and conversion thanks to proper setup.
Pipedrive benefits:
Pipedrive drawbacks:
2018: 15,000 customers
2020: 40,000 customers
Source: Data reported by the vendor.
Standard license cost: $69/m per user.
Freshsales is part of the Freshworks suite of products, so its great advantage is that it’s a part of a growing and expanding ecosystem, which comprises solutions like helpdesk (Freshdesk), live chat (Freshchat), or calls center (Freshcaller).
Another great advantage is a built-in marketing automation module, allowing you to easily draft customer journeys, based on clicks, opens, website visits, and many more.
It will also integrate with your WhatsApp and Apple Business Chat, providing you with robust features when it comes to communicating with prospects and customers.
It’s not the easiest CRM to use, though. Every page of the system takes some time to load which I would say sometimes makes it more tailored to larger businesses and not dynamically growing startups.
Freshsales benefits:
Freshsales drawbacks:
2015: 15,000 customers
2020: 95,000 customers
Source: Data reported by the vendor.
Standard license cost: $108/m per user.
HubSpot is more than a CRM solution as it’s a marketing suite that allows you to run full content marketing, funnel, and customer journey planning.
Hence, HubSpot is a perfect tool if you operate an online or semi-online business based on content marketing and want to analyze visitors’, customers’ sources, extract the data about their conversion, and make sure you know the actual cost of every lead you acquire through a content marketing channel.
Like other tools, HubSpot will allow you to personalize customer journeys, customize the records to match your desired data structure, and communicate with prospects on the CRM level but once you use its marketing module, you will also be able to draft landing pages and integrate them with your CRM system.
It’s quite expensive for a CRM solution, though, so if you’re not into an in-depth marketing analysis, another CRM tool will likely be a better choice.
HubSpot benefits:
HubSpot drawbacks:
2015: 50,000 customers
2020: 150,000 customers
Source: Data reported by the vendor.
Standard license cost: $35/m per user.
Zoho is another all-in-one CRM growing in popularity focusing on products and offers. That means it acts as a good solution for those selling repeatable products (like retail stores or e-commerce) and sending structured offers to potential customers.
Zoho CRM will allow you to create order forms for customers and has vast options when it comes to creating a custom data structure (there is no limitation like division into organizations, products, contacts), invoicing, and reporting customization.
Zoho will also allow you any custom API integration with an own Deluge coding framework.
Zoho benefits:
Zoho disadvantages:
2011: 100,000
2020: 150,000
Source: Data reported by the vendor.
SalesForce is the largest and one of the oldest CRM solutions on the market, so it’s not growing as fast as other CRMs do (at least customer-wise) but contrary to other CRM systems, it will offer you every functionality you can think about.
These include marketing automation, sales automation, prospecting, cold emailing campaigns, resources management, invoicing, account management, and many more, including additional apps or APEX-based modifications.
And while its features will be great in terms of functionality and robustness, you will need to handle them through separate modules (e.g. Sales Cloud for Sales & Pardot for Marketing) which will require some significant integration work (still, despite being interconnected these act as 2 separate modules).
Implementing SalesForce will be challenging and expensive (significant development cost, upfront payment for the software), so you will need to be sizable to handle one and maintain it.
On the other hand, joining the “SalesForce club” can be beneficial for building your business relations with other SalesForce users.
SalesForce benefits:
SalesForce disadvantages:
As you can see, new CRM solutions are building a stronger presence due to their user-friendliness and increasing number of features/integrations which makes them a considerable choice when compared to SalesForce and other large CRM solutions on the market.
2 min read
How to successfully complete your identity verification at SoftwareSupp to start submitting offers for projects.
In order to submit your offers for projects @ SoftwareSupp and to work with customers through our support platform, you will need to go through our verification process.
One of the steps in this process is verifying your identity. Our identity verification process is held by Stripe and there are quite a few things worth remembering on road to completing it.
Please find the process described in detail, below.
No matter if you operate as an individual or as a company (e.g. small agency) it is recommended that you verify your identity and set up your bank's account as an individual.
Why? The identity verification process for an individual will be much easier and smoother and there is a greater chance that you will omit some key obstacles on road to completion.
On the list, you will find 31 countries that are supported by our identity verification process.
You will need to select the one which is your country of residence (where you have a valid physical address) and where you have an active bank account.
Once you select the country you will be able to input your local bank account details.
The list of supported countries is very limited (due to Stripe restrictions), so there is a high chance that you will not find your country on the list.
We are working on the solution to extend the verification process supporting the remaining countries.
As for now, we have an alternative method we use with selected members that might work in your case as well. Below, please find more details on this one:
If your country is not available on the list, please use the below details (these are our account details).
Type: Individual
Country: Poland
Bank account number: PL64 2360 0018 0107 0000 0014 2602
For this method: Once you complete the project, you will need to send your invoice to payments@softwaresupp.com and we will transfer your remuneration directly to your bank account.
Once you enter your bank account details, you be able to launch the verification process and successfully launch the identity verification.
The next step of identity verification process is handled by Stripe.
This process is performed by Stripe and it does not have anything to do with your Stripe account, so you’re not required to own a Stripe account and if you own one, it will not be affected in any way.
During this process, you might need to provide several information such as your place of residence and scans of your identity documents.
Please provide all the required information as it's necessary to successfully complete the process and to make sure your account is fully active and ready to apply for projects/jobs.
Once you provide all the information and complete the process, you will need to wait appx. 24 hours for us to confirm on the provided data.
If, during your verification process, there are any steps you're not able to process, like uploading document scans, please contact us at consulting@softwaresupp.com for any help/questions.
You can also upload any additional documents like ID through our secure form under the link below:
-> Link to uploading your documents to SoftwareSupp
7 min read
The recruitment process has evolved a lot in recent years. Companies can choose from multiple strategies to interact with candidates. Recruitment chatbots have become more popular as they take over a part of the workload of the HR team.
Time of the project: 1 month
Scope of the project:
The recruitment process has evolved a lot in recent years. Companies can choose from multiple strategies to interact with candidates. Recruitment chatbots have become more popular as they take over a part of the workload of the HR team. With well-designed automation, the recruiter can save a lot of time at the first stage of the recruitment process.
When a company is the growth stage, the team needs to manage many job applications at the same time. To make their work easier, you can automate a part of the process and give candidates an alternative way to learn more about the company.
LG Chem is the largest Korean chemical company. Their headquarters are in Seoul, but they have offices and facilities are located in many locations around the world. LG Chem manufactures chemical products, petrochemicals, and many types of batteries. The company’s motto is: "We connect science to life for a better future.”
As a global manufacturing company, LG Chem has multiple open positions at a time. The “recruitment chatbot” project was completed for the company’s Wrocław facility called LG Chem Wrocław Energy. They employ numerous professionals with scientific backgrounds and are targeting different levels of experience and specialization. They need an efficient recruitment process to ensure continuity and quality of production.
LG Chem was searching for Quality Assurance Specialists, SQA Engineers, Shift Managers, Technicians, Customer Support Specialists, Electricians, Accountants, HR Specialists, and Interns. The recruitment team had a lot on their plate and needed a smart automation process that would help them answer the candidates’ questions and store resumes for specific positions. As many candidates contacted them via their Facebook page, they wanted to create a chatbot that would help the team manage the real-time conversations.
At SoftwareSupp, we connect the companies with the most suitable experts for the project they want to complete. We made sure to choose the automation expert that has experience in building chatbots. We needed a person that would not only create the chatbot flow but also write messages that would engage the users.
On the SoftwareSupp platform, you can find experts from around the world that specialize in different types of tasks. The recruitment bot was to be designed for the Polish market, so we chose the expert who was a native Polish speaker.
LG Chem wanted to place their chatbot on their Facebook page. They needed the software that would run smoothly with Messenger, be easy to use, and allow them to design engaging dialogues.
Even though there are many interesting chatbot options on the market, Chatfuel was the obvious choice for LG Chem. The software is designed specifically for Messenger and Instagram conversation, so it matches perfectly the client’s expectations.
What’s more, Chatfuel is a no-code platform, so the LG Chem team was able to add changes to the conversation flow on their own once the bot was set up.
To design the right chatbot flow, it’s necessary to describe the users’ goals and most common questions. Then, they need to be translated into a logical conversation structure. Chatfuel gives you the building blocks that allow you to easily create your own chatbot.
LG Chem wanted to inform the candidates about the open positions, answer the most common questions, and follow up with the application form. Their recruitment flow consisted of the following steps:
The chatbot’s flow needs to be flexible as the users can follow multiple conversation paths during one interaction. For example, they might be interested in several positions or go back and browse “Benefits”. A well-designed chatbot will ensure a smooth transition between these topics.
In Chatfuel, you can choose from various plugins you can use to design the conversation flow. You don’t have to send only plain text messages — add images, videos, or predefined buttons with responses. You can also change the way the message is shown using the carousel view.
For this chatbot, we used the carousel view to present the job openings that are available. This solution allows for the message to be clearer and more concise.
To make sure the data is securely stored and that the company is fulfilling all the requirements related to the GDPR, we added a disclaimer before the application form appears. Only when the candidate agrees to data processing, the recruitment process can take place. Otherwise, their CV can’t be transferred to the recruitment team.
To be able to gather emails from the candidates, LG Chem also needs to acquire their consent to data processing. At the beginning of the conversation, the users have an option to subscribe to the mailing list and agree to receive information about future job openings.
The SoftwareSupp consultant was responsible not only for the technical part of the project but also for creating the messages that the bot sends to the applicants. Designing a smooth dialogue structure is necessary to get a high number of applications.
We agreed on the chatbot personality with the LG Chem team. For this chatbot, the messages were designed to be casual, yet professional. The goal was to encourage people to learn more about the company and apply for open positions.
Once the candidate chooses their preferred position, the bot sends them a detailed job with requirements and activities that the person would perform during their typical workday. Some longer messages were split into two to keep the conversation more dynamic. For example, one message included the requirements for the job and the next one included the benefits the company offers.
With Chatfuel’s AI rules, you can choose phrases that will trigger the desired response. If the user types in “hello”, the bot should naturally respond with a welcome message. It’s OK to rely on predefined buttons, but we need to be aware that people will also write their questions in the chatbots.
With this automation, the users can talk to the bot in a more convenient way. Based on the specific set of words they use, the chatbot will understand where to direct them
It may be a surprising fact, but slowing down the chatbot is actually a good practice. Bots have ready-to-use replies that can be sent instantly. However, it’s better to program the bot to show its response with a delay and display the “typing” emoji first.
This trick makes the conversation more natural. When you talk to a real person they don’t send you a three-paragraph message in a split of a second. Naturally, it takes time. To make the interaction more human-like, it’s advisable to slow down your bot a little bit and show the “typing” emoji.
With Chatfuel, the candidates can send their resumes via Messenger. Once the chat is completed, it triggers an email notification with all the necessary detail that’s sent to the HR department.
Thanks to the chatbot automation, recruiters get the full information about the candidates delivered to their inboxes. They can save a lot of time and focus on finding the most suitable candidates for the company
The LG Chem team gained a new recruitment tool that helped them manage the workload of the HR department. The recruiters didn’t need to instantly respond to the chat message, which allowed them to save time and prioritize their tasks according to their impact, not the urgency.
With the chatbot automation, the candidates were able to learn more about the company and get answers to the most common questions. The application process was simplified and available on the most popular social media platform which contributed to the number of applications the team received.
Letting a chatbot help you with a recruitment process can be beneficial for any company that experiences high volumes of applications. If you design a conversation flow that is both friendly and well-structured, you can start building a positive relationship with the candidate even before the actual interview.
4 min read
How we address contracting issues by using an escrow payment mechanism and how you can use it to make sure that basically any work you contract is processed securely.
We can often hear (and have also experienced) situations of dishonest contractors, not transferring the money your way once the project has been completed or transferring only part of the payment, despite all the scope completed and delivered.
The same happens with customers sometimes being scared that the funds/payments they transfer to the contractor have vanished and the work will not be delivered.
Some of the common issues including in transactions between 2 parties include:
Let me show you how we address these issues by using an escrow payment mechanism and how you can use it to make sure that basically any work you contract is processed securely.
Escrow is the system that allows you to deposit the funds on the intermediary account before it is transferred between the entities.
So what’s the use case? The most common use case for escrow is e-commerce, where you want to make sure that the goods are delivered your way in a secure and timely manner.
Let’s say you’re purchasing a product but want to make sure that you pay only on successful delivery. You can either actually pay on delivery or use an escrow mechanism to secure the transaction. In the 2nd scenario, you pay for the products to the intermediary account, while the funds are actually transferred to the supplier when you mark the products as delivered.
A good example can be Alipay operating as a separate entity to Alibaba, acting as an intermediary and allowing you to securely purchase goods @ Alibaba.
Similar system can be applied to services, where you want to make sure your services are delivered in a timely and quality manner. In this case the funds are deposited on the escrow account before the launch of the service and paid to the supplier on successful service completion (indicated by the party ordering the service or intermediary).
So how do we work at SoftwareSupp ensuring the quality of provided services, safety of payment and delivery of the actual scope of the work performed?
For every offer we send to customers we provide an option to process the first payment securely using an escrow account. So once you start the project with us, you will have a few payment options:
You can choose the preferred option once you accept your project and start your work/service/task.
At SoftwareSupp we deliver software projects, so it’s especially important for us to ensure the quality of provided services and safety of the whole process.
First way of ensuring quality service is our certification process which comprises of multiple steps.
Second one is processing the payment securely using our escrow mechanism.
Our escrow system is hosted by Stripe, allowing us to run the payments securely through the 3rd party and at the same time, a reliable institution.
Stripe also covers our identity verification process as all experts joining SoftwareSupp need to connect their bank accounts and provide identity documents to be able to join any projects we run for customers.
Once the party successfully verifies their identity and connects their bank account, they are connected to our escrow system and we can then start running the secure transactions with them participating in the process.
Once the customer pays for the services the participant’s remuneration becomes locked on his connected account, awaiting for the project to be completed.
The project can be marked as completed by the customer anytime, simply by using a dedicated option created for the customer in the “My projects” section. Once the project is marked as completed, the funds are released and sent to the party delivering the service.
Escrow mechanism brings multiple benefits to all parties of the process:
For contractors:
For customers
For overall process
There are probably many more but most importantly escrow or semi-escrow mechanism (e.g. 50/50 payment) allow to deliver high quality of the delivered services as escrow mechanism can be used both for full as well as partial payments.
To sum up, escrow mechanism provides an effective way of managing transactions between 2 parties, ensuring the actual delivery of services, acting in the best interest of both customer and contractor and maximizing efficiency of the whole transaction process.
4 min read
JIT Team had clearly defined goals and expectations when it comes to their Pipedrive CRM account. They turned to us with an issue solving a problem with generating proper reports in their CRM system.
I am very happy with the performed services and the quality of communication.
Jacek Zawadzki, Head of Sales at JIT Team
Time of the project: 1 month
Scope:
Effect: 1 day a week saved on manual report generation.
JIT Team is a software house located in Gdańsk, Poland, offering services in software development, including multiple technologies such as Java, JavaScript, .NET, DB, BigData and mobile (JS-based and Xamarin). With over 300 people on board, you can be sure that they have the right resources on board for your project needs.
Even though they are an IT company themselves, they turned to SoftwareSupp with the need for support in the below issues:
+ overall CRM setup, audit and configuration.
JIT Team had clearly defined goals and expectations when it comes to their Pipedrive CRM account. They turned to us with an issue solving a problem with generating proper reports in their CRM system. Some of the things they were not able to see:
With our support they were able to quickly estimate the cost of the project up front, so from the very beginning they were sure about the price for the service.
JIT Team’s executives needed urgent support as they were in the middle of structuring their sales team and wanted to quickly be able to generate proper data/reports to help them.
They also needed a person with the right set of skills and experience to complete the project.
Once they submitted the project, they were immediately assigned to the person with the right experience (Pipedrive/Zapier/API/Google Sheets) - Aaron, who was supported by an experienced CRM team at SoftwareSupp.
Once the expert was assigned and the estimate was provided, JIT Team was able to quickly accept the offer and process the payment.
Accepting the project by JIT Team also meant accepting our terms and conditions which include all points related to professional legal agreement such as:
As the JIT Team requested a separate agreement to be signed, we also signed a regular paper agreement.
Once we made sure to have an agreement in place, JIT Team was able to settle the payment using a preferred payment method which in this case was a regular invoice.
The payment was put on a safe escrow account, waiting for the project to be completed.
Some of the work that we’ve performed for customer included:
We performed a CRM audit to analyze the quality of inputted data and information such as lead sources, contact details and organizations’ data.
We ran a series of meetings to make sure we understand the customer’s needs properly and that we plan the project properly.
We set up CRM guidelines to be followed by the sales team when using a CRM account. The guidelines involved regular CRM setup items such as email integration and information about the sales process to be followed by the sales team.
We set up Pipedrive Insights to make sure that the JIT Team is able to analyze activities of the sales team members.
We set up the framework for Google Spreadsheets report, allowing JIT Team to get a broader look on their sales activities and deal structure:
- by source
- by contact level in the organization
- by region
Together with Aaron, we set up a custom integration linking Pipedrive data to Google Spreadsheet, with the help of custom API and Zapier.
The customer was able to communicate easily through a dedicated platform, including chat, ticketing system and secure password sharing.
They could also keep in touch through email and regular meetings scheduled at their convenience.
JIT Team received regular status updates to make sure they know about the current stage of the project and plan accordingly on their side.
Once the project was completed, the final report was delivered to the customer, including the access to the software and the script integrating their CRM with Google Sheets report.
JIT Team can now analyze the team’s efficiency through Pipedrive Insights. They can also run a custom report from their CRM system, based on their specific needs.
Every Sunday, they receive a link to the updated CRM report in their Google spreadsheet, helping them analyze their sales performance and plan activities for the upcoming week.
A short quote from the customer:
I am very happy with the performed services and the quality of communication.
Jacek Zawadzki, Head of Sales at JIT Team.
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