If your company has franchises – or even if you are a franchisee – you must have already witnessed problems such as the lack of unification of processes and the difficulty in following some stages of the Customer Journey , right?
Arquivar used to have the same problems, but after a major restructuring – which included, among other things, the hiring of Bitrix24 and implementation and consulting services from Br24 – the company managed to unify all processes into a single Sales Funnel , successfully including a large part of the franchisees.
The result of this is increasing sales conversions and improving the customer experience Archive .
How did they do it? We spoke to Gustavo Azevedo, head of the sales department at Arquivar, and Thaís Pinho, head of Marketing, to understand the whole story, which we now share with you.
Understanding Arquivar's business model
Arquivar has been operating in the strategic corporate document management market for 30 years , being a pioneer in the development of digital technologies and processes here in Brazil, when it was not yet common to see computers in offices.
Document management, process virtualization, compliance with LGPD and even digital products such as ArqGED and ArqSign Software are just some of the solutions available to ensure organization, process agility and the security of data and documents for the company's customers.
Today, Arquivar has more than 1,500 clients from different segments – including big names such as Unimed, Sicredi, Senac and Pearson – distributed between the parent company, based in Minas Gerais, and another 52 franchises spread across Brazil, Bolivia and Mozambique.
Success story Archive
These various sales teams have access to a unified process , which contributes to Arquivar's quality control and is a fundamental part of ensuring franchises have greater success in negotiations . But it wasn't always like this...
The challenges of the commercial process of franchises Archive
In 2007, Arquivar started the franchisee program with the aim of expanding services throughout Brazil, but it was only in 2014 that the area began to gain real traction.
It was at this time that the company began to invest heavily in standardizing the commercial process and in trying to incorporate franchisees into the company's Sales Funnel.
To support all these movements that were taking place, Arquivar's sales team had a CRM software tool , which was supposed to be actively used by all franchisees. However, that was not what was happening. Here are some problems faced at the time:
Few franchisees were adopting the CRM tool , as they had difficulty using it – they found it difficult – and did not assimilate the solution into their own commercial process;
Franchisees who used CRM documented little data, while important information from negotiations ended up being lost;
Each franchisee had their own sales process and the head office had no way of knowing what was happening during negotiations and after-sales;
Leads qualified by the parent company were being sent to franchisees, but conversion into sales was still far below expectations – and there was no way of knowing what was going wrong.
All of these points were a reflection of the lack of visibility and control of the Customer Journey .
Added to all this, the fateful moment, familiar to many sales departments, also arrived: the CRM was no longer supporting the processes and preventing the operation from evolving . It was necessary to find a new solution and implement everything from scratch.
Gustavo Azevedo“The old CRM didn’t have a flow to guide the franchisee, as if it were a step-by-step process that was essential for our project to be successful. It was more of a data record and this didn’t generate value in the sales process, because each franchisee did it in their own way and, if they ended up selling, they registered the data in the CRM to be included mexico telemarketing data there and comply with an obligation of Arquivar. It wasn’t a CRM, but just a database.” Gustavo Azevedo, head of the sales department of the Arquivar chain
The search for a new CRM capable of evolving the commercial process of franchises
To guide the choice of the new CRM, the team created a matrix that cross-referenced the resources required for the project's success with those available in the main tools used on the market today.
However, some specifications – such as the large number of users and the need for an advanced access system , so that one unit would be unable to view the data of another – ended up bringing some difficulties, both financial and limitations of the tools evaluated.
At first, Bitrix24 was not part of the first search and only entered the game when two acquaintances of Gustavo Azevedo, responsible for the commercial department of the Arquivar network, recommended the platform. During our chat to prepare this case, Gustavo laughed and shared the following with us:
“It was even funny, because in the meeting [with the Br24 sales representative] everything we asked about whether they could do it, the person said that it could be done. We were a little hesitant – like the good Minas Gerais natives that we are. But in the commercial part, it met most of the requirements and, what it didn’t meet natively, it could be adapted in the processes part.” Gustavo Azevedo, head of the commercial department of the Arquivar chain
After all this careful and time-consuming search, Arquivar's leadership, the IT sector and the Founder/CEO reached a consensus and approved the hiring of Bitrix24, along with the implementation and consultancy of Br24.
But the most important thing was yet to come: when the proposal was presented to franchisees, they loved the new solution, approved of its ease of use and began to adopt it in large numbers, which had not happened before.
Franchisee engagement in Bitrix24 has made all the difference to Arquivar's sales
As we already mentioned, before implementing Bitrix24, Arquivar was having problems with the quality of the Customer Journey .
Therefore, Arquivar identified the need to standardize the funnel for all franchisees , with the aim of providing them with a kind of roadmap on how to apply the negotiation techniques and stages of the Sales Funnel consolidated by Arquivar.
“Our process is standard. The goal is to unify so that all units sell in the same way, following the best practices that work for our business and that we have identified over the years. Maintaining the Arquivar quality standard was the main reason for us to look for a new CRM tool.” Gustavo Azevedo, head of the sales department at the Arquivar chain.
Today, the Franchisee Journey is fully integrated into Bitrix24 with defined and automated processes . It begins with the marketing baton being passed, continues with the qualification of leads by the SDRs at the head office and continues in the hands of the franchisee, who negotiates and performs the contracted services.
Br24's implementation and consulting team managed to replicate much of Arquivar's robust sales process – which had already been masterfully mapped by the company's own team – within Bitrix24. According to Gustavo,
“Even with a process full of details like ours, the Sales Funnel was very simple to understand, the information fields were streamlined and focused only on what was important for the head office to qualify and for the franchisees to work with.”
After all this careful and time-consuming search, Arquivar's leadership, the IT sector and the Founder/CEO reached a consensus and approved the hiring of Bitrix24, along with the implementation and consultancy of Br24.
To support all this, Arquivar's sales department actively uses Leads, Contacts, Businesses and Companies; CRM Workflows and Process Automation and Workflow to share important information with franchisees.
Another feature that has made a big difference in the process was Bitrix24's Integrated Cloud Telephony. With this, Arquivar has a national number and also 24 active lines so that franchises can use the local DDD , thus reducing the resistance of customers in the north, northeast and south of the country to join this channel, which is strategic for the operation.
In addition to sales processes, the franchise sales team also brought several non-sales processes into Bitrix24 . The goal was to automate as many bureaucratic steps as possible – which diverted the attention of salespeople – or which required following a strict quality standard when closing contracts.
The result of all the changes and implementations was an increase in sales conversions by franchisees who joined Bitrix24.CRM , as they now have a kind of cake recipe in their hands, which increases the chances of closing a deal.
Arquivar's Commercial Director also comments on how franchisees' adoption of the tool has been fundamental to the entire process:
“The commercial and operational process within Bitrix24 is flowing very well, as the adoption [of franchisees] that was previously almost zero – before, only one or two of the 52 units used the old CRM – is now at almost 75%. And it is only growing.”
But, you might be wondering, how did all this affect the company's revenue? If you like numbers, then you've come to the right part of the case.
Gustavo said that before they did not have detailed data on franchisees and everything was very much based on feeling. However, according to the survey they did, the monthly closing today is twice as high as it was last year and the year before , when they did not have the processes designed and implemented in Bitrix24 and, mainly, when most franchisees were not part of the Sales Funnel at the head office.
How Arquivar managed to control the entire Customer Journey of more than
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