Enable Develops Custom CRM Solution for Zog Energy
Background
Zog Energy is a domestic energy supplier started by two Queen’s award-winning entrepreneurs, with a goal of providing the best possible value in energy. So when it came time to choose a CRM to enable that goal, they chose Enable.
Problem
Zog Energy needed a CRM system fully attuned to the needs of the energy industry, but didn’t want to break the bank. “We did a review of the market and Sugar came up as highly regarded. I really liked the extensibility and configurability of Sugar so that’s what sealed it for us”, said Tony Chester, Director. “Sugar was a much more cost-effective solution for us, and we felt confident that we could do a lot of the configuration ourselves.” And they needed a great partner to help them implement the solution – so they turned to Enable.
Solution
Zog Energy utilized the community version first so that they could evaluate the system before they went through the buying process. “We saw the advantages in having Enable host the solution for us. Once we had completed our investigations on the community edition, for our live instance we chose Professional hosted by Enable.”
In addition, customization was easy and user-friendly – “We take on a lot of customer service people who have never used a CRM before, but there’s plenty of strong resources to help them”, said Chester. Zog Energy utilized the Sugar University, alongside Online Training from Enable, as well as leveraging the internal knowledge base.
Benefits
Zog Energy’s CRM system is integrated with Drupal, and they also use the Sugar API. “There is a really powerful bi-directional REST API that allows us to insert, update and create records on all of the modules inside Sugar. Our internal systems drive everything through the API so the customer journey is fully automated. When a customer signs up with us on our website, you put in your email address and your expected consumption and you get a price. We capture all of this information and then use the API to create various records about the customer inside of Sugar. Every month we run our customer statement process and over a 24-hour period I believe we do something close to 80-100,000 API calls.”, stated Chester. Zog Energy takes full advantage of the limitless API calls, something no other vendor offers at that price point.
Another welcome change was managing processes with SugarBPM, given customers switching energy suppliers when they come on board. This saves Zog Energy hours per new customer, while also providing peace of mind that their switch is effectively managed. The API updates a national system that controls all of the energy meters, then communicates with all related suppliers to inform them of changes.
Differentiators
We asked the folks at Zog Energy what some of their favorite Sugar features were – here are their responses:
- Tasks: Used regularly, these are triggered by other internal systems, using the API to manage tasks within teams such as account management calls.
- Round-robin assignment for support cases: This allows for even distribution of workload among their support team.
- Configuration: Much of Zog Energy’s information is specific to the energy industry (i.e.; market sector code), and the difference between domestic, industrial and commercial customer, which stores the annual gas consumption, is important.
- Address Management: The ability to have multiple addresses linked to an account makes managing contracts easier when there is a different billing and supply address.
- Custom relationships: The ability to identify multiple contacts against one account enables Zog Energy to manage joint account holders as well as those who have authority on accounts.
- Customer Statements: These are automatically generated and sent out periodically, and capture the opening balance, the closing balance, energy usage, VAT, standing charges and usage charges.
- SugarBPM: When a customer moves out of a property and a new person moves in, the new occupant may not be known. The BPM (Business Process Management) process contacts building management companies, landlords and estate agents automatically – “To be honest, it’s absolutely awesome!”, says Chester.
Benefits
Zog Energy are now billing and supporting over 10,000 customers with a total of six users actively updating Sugar.
To find out more about Zog Energy, visit www.zogenergy.com