Integrating SalesCandy LMS with In-house CRM using Graph API
We are still in the process of seeking consent from our client to publish this case study with their brand name. In the meanwhile, we are referring to the client as Property Developer A.
COMPANY PROFILE
Being one of the largest, most distinguished property developers in Southeast Asia with a revenue of USD650 million, Property Developer A has more than 40 years of experience in property development.
Property Developer A has a property diversification portfolio which consists of residential housing, shopping centres, office buildings, industrial estates, hotels, townships and city projects. Having a portfolio of projects ranging from township, city, residential, retail and office development, there are currently over 100 active salespersons attending to more than 10,000 sales leads per month whereby leads are mainly generated from both online and offline channels, including Facebook lead ads, landing pages, property portals and billboards.
BACKGROUND
Property Developer A has developed their own in-house CRM software to track their sales leads. However, having salespersons in different cities, the sales managers needed to manually distribute, track and reassign sales leads. The client understood rather quickly that their manual distribution of sales leads and tracking of sales interactions are not time-effective when their online generated sales leads have rapidly increased.
In 2019, SalesCandy’s Lead Management System (LMS) was recommended to the client which they quickly adopted. It assisted Property Developer A to automatically distribute leads to the salespersons and automatically re-routes the lead to the next available salesperson if left unattended for 25 seconds. Additionally, the management team has visibility to all pending and overdue actions which are logged and reflected automatically in real-time reports.
PAIN POINTS
Double entry of data
Whenever a salesperson closes a lead and secures a booking for the property, the salesperson has to update the win details into SalesCandy LMS and at the same time create a new entry in the in-house CRM by copy and pasting the data from SalesCandy mobile app to the CRM. Having the need for double entry, especially performed on mobile devices, introduces possible human errors. Besides, the salesperson has to manually sync that lead status across both the LMS and CRM when there is a change to the status, e.g. when a loan is rejected and the deposit returned to the buyer.
Manually merging reports
SalesCandy LMS is responsible for tracking lead journeys from when the campaign lead was generated in a marketing campaign to its closing when a booking fee is received. All closing and transactional data is then captured in the in-house CRM to begin on post-sale processes.
In order to perform advanced analysis on sales and marketing data gathered by both SalesCandy LMS and the in-house CRM system, sales and marketing managers need to manually track data and merge reports in both systems. The managers are required to tie specific S&P transactions and unit numbers back to the campaign where leads are being generated and this has been time-consuming.
CHALLENGES
Difference in data structure across both systems
The data structure in SalesCandy varies from the data structure in the in-house CRM. Besides, the business logic is defined differently in both systems. The mapping of the data field is not as straightforward and even unique keys are defined differently across the system.
Moreover, SalesCandy data structure is also needed to be known by the client’s IT team to assist to integrate in-house CRM smoothly. Both systems required few modifications, so it can be integrated with each other.
Missing API for salesperson actions within the same lead status
The Graph API version back then only tracks changes to lead status, e.g. from Follow-up to Won or from Follow-up to Drop. However, the client requested all action logs including actions that happen within Follow-up lead status to be accessible via the Graph API.
To track every salesperson’s action taken on the lead on their in-house CRM system, Graph API was required to be enhanced to ensure that the webhooks are integrated. Implementation into the in-house CRM system was risky as a faulty implementation could result in corrupted data.
SOLUTION
A task force including our customer success and software engineers from SalesCandy is assembled and WhatsApp group is set up for the rapid communication to our client and their technical personnels. SalesCandy is able to sort out the differences in data structure and is able to map the data fields after setting up the webhooks to get Graph API connected with the in-house CRM system, and thus, synchronizing both systems to work together. This was required to be run successfully on a ‘User Acceptance Test’ process before proceeding to be set up on the actual live accounts.
With the belief that the data ownership remains with the clients, SalesCandy has no intention to withhold data from the client. Frequent online discussions took place to finalize the data that the client would like to capture from the SalesCandy system. SalesCandy documented the requirements and proceeded to develop and rollout the enhanced version of the Graph API, version v3.0, to support the requirement from the client.
RESULTS
Synchronized system
After the successful integration, any leads that are created or updated on SalesCandy’s LMS are automatically synced with the in-house CRM. This guarantees data consistency between the CRM and the LMS.
Improved reporting
Following the integration of both systems, sales and marketing reporting and analytics are consolidated to the in-house CRM.
Quarterly sales and marketing reporting which includes ROI of marketing campaigns, total sales revenue, customer acquisition cost and the number of properties sold and other relevant details, has reduced from hours of manual stitching of multiple reports from two different systems into a few simple clicks.