Do your customers say similar things about your business? Because those are all real testimonials from real customers of an Australian home furnishing company that’s growing by leaps and bounds.

The secrets to its success? Customer service, clearly, plays a big part.

But its model (no showroom; working with customers online until it’s time to go on-site) is also a factor. Not simply because it makes tremendous sense in the post-COVID world, but because it also contributes to the customer experience. As the furnishing company says:

“We believe that good design advice can only be given whilst in the home, not a showroom. So because we choose not to have a showroom and advise on site, we are able to keep our costs extremely low…”

This brings us to another key driver of the client’s success: prices, and keeping them “unbeatable.”

Low prices, stellar customer service, a great reputation, and multiple and growing locations across Australia, and yet… something was missing. And what was missing was preventing more than a few sales from closing.

No product library, inaccurate pricing, unprofessional quotes

That headline is not us “dissing” the client. Those are the words of its National Finance Manager.

When asked what issues he was facing that led him toward IQX, he pulled no punches: “We had an extremely poor quotation system prior, which did not possess an itemized library of components, nor did it cost items accurately, nor did it present a professional quotation.” Ouch.

Additionally, he cited a lack of transparency into business processes that he may not have known existed before IQX.

Zoho and IQX: a complete solution

He and his team searched and — as they were a Zoho CRM customer — soon found IQX, which has always been highly touted by the Zoho team, and which has a seamless, single sign-on integration with Zoho CRM (and also Zoho Books).

In addition to being a solution to the problems the Finance Manager so bluntly outlined, other factors were driving his decision to choose IQX over other sales proposals automation solutions, including but not limited to:

• Integration with Zoho CRM

• User-friendliness of the software

• Report writing functionality

• Built-in product library
  (the product/pricing configuration engine at the heart of IQX) 

• Project management functionality

• Customizability of the solution 

• ...and price
  (IQX starts for about $2 per day, per user)

For the manager and his 37 sales reps, IQX was a near-immediate game changer.

Sales proposal automation and transformation

“We have now increased our profit gross margin from 26% to 38%... within 3 months of implementation. Without IQX, we could not have done this,” he said. “We now also have the ability to incorporate all of the IQX quotations into Zoho CRM, which we also connect to Xero [its accounting software].”

By empowering the sales team to automate the sales proposal process and completely integrate with their CRM, IQX helps the growing company grow more quickly and turn a weakness (“unprofessional quotes”) into a powerhouse strength.

And while IQX includes sales proposal templates, contact and document storage, and analytics functionality, Sullivan appreciated one feature above all else. “The key facet here is the product library. We can now cost out the child items, roll them up to the parent item, which allows us to establish our COGS [cost of goods sold] and measure profit… it’s more streamlined and saves [reps] a ton of time.”

As a company that essentially provides a unique and customized deliverable for each customer (as no two houses are alike), the product configuration engine built-in to IQX has proven to be an exceptional asset for the furnishing company.

Where some companies in the space still configure products in quotes using spreadsheets and tables, IQX automates the process and enables “drag and drop” product creation within every quote.

“The ROI is awesome”

In the end, in any B2B technology purchase, it’s all about return on investment. When asked what he might say to others considering IQX, the client was succinct: “Stop hesitating and implement it: the ROI is awesome.”

Typically, that’s the best compliment a B2B technology company can receive. But with this particular client, a company that’s a clear leader in customer service, one further thing they said stuck out: “We have an excellent relationship with [IQX] and their software development team is awesome.”

And from a company whose customers call it the “best of the best,” knowing that we’re doing as good a job at customer satisfaction as they are is perhaps the highest form of praise there is.