We worked with Retail NZ to convert an incredibly manual process into a fully automated and streamlined experience. Retail NZ is a membership organisation, designed to support Retailers with a range of products and services including advice with employment & consumer issues, help with resolving disputes, resources and advice on any issue relating to their members’ businesses. They also help with education and training events that assist in growing their members’ businesses and developing their staff.
The Issue – a tedious manual process where many mistakes were possible
Before GravityLab became involved with Retail NZ, its membership onboarding process was cumbersome, resource-intensive and did not provide a great customer experience. Customers would complete a sign-up form on the website that the admin team would capture then manually enter into their database. Customers could pay by a payment gateway or choose to be invoiced. The payment gateway process relied on the customer entering the correct reference on the payment, which was then manually reconciled to the correct account. When a customer chose to be invoiced, the membership team informed the finance team who would then generate a PDF Invoice to send to the customer. There was no way to track the payment against the actual invoice, apart from manual checking. Once the invoice was paid, membership was manually activated by a team member. In both cases, the process was time-consuming, resource-intensive and did not provide a great user experience.
The Solution – a fully automated and robust process
- We firstly integrated their online sign-up form to receive new Leads & Membership Signups straight into Salesforce.
- Salesforce captures the sales opportunity and calculates the pricing.
- An invoice is automatically created in Xero,
- a PDF copy of the invoice is generated in Xero (with exactly the same template) and is saved in Salesforce.
- Salesforce then sends the invoice to the new member/customer automatically, along with a personalised email template including a link to pay directly via credit card.
- Upon payment and reconciliation in Xero, Salesforce is updated and then the membership is started automatically. The member also has the option to request a receipt straight away.
Intelligent automation also enabled Retail NZ to improve member retention through their auto-renewal strategy where Salesforce auto-creates the renewal invoice and sends it to the customer 30 days before their membership due to expire, ensuring continuity in the customer experience.
The Impact – quicker membership sign up and hours saved in admin time
Today, Retail NZ enjoys an integrated, seamless, lead to cash process that has significantly reduced administration time, a robust system that has an exceptionally low margin for error, improved membership retention and ultimately delivers a better experience for its members and customers. With everything logged in Salesforce so Retail NZ can see exactly what emails were sent, when and whether they were opened or not. If you are looking to integrate Xero with Salesforce to better streamline your invoicing and delivery processes, improve your visibility of real-time sales and provide a better customer experience, get in touch.
