Executive Summary: EBlock, the USA and Canada's fastest growing online automotive auction platform leverages Zoho One's custom components to enhance Dealer management and achieve greater adoption of their online car auction platform. After a failed internal system launch, EBlock partnered with ZoHelpers to craft a comprehensive solution for new business development, existing customer management, field service car inspections and on-going customer service issues. With the help and guidance of the ZoHelpers team, the Zoho One System has been crafter to support a variety of the business operations utilizing Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk, Zoho FSM, RouteIQ and Zoho Creator, Zoho Analytics.

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The Company: EBlock Inc. is revolutionizing the automotive auction industry with its innovative digital platform. Unlike traditional auctions, EBlock provides a seamless, real-time auction experience that allows dealers to buy and sell inventory in just minutes. Founded on the principles of efficiency and transparency, EBlock's user-friendly interface empowers dealers to list vehicles with ease, receive instant bids, and complete transactions swiftly. This tech-driven approach eliminates the need for physical auction houses, reducing overhead costs and maximizing profitability for dealers. With features like comprehensive vehicle reports, high-quality images, and real-time market data, EBlock ensures that buyers have all of the information they need to make informed decisions.

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The Challenge: The company initially attempted to implement Zoho CRM, but the launch was unsuccessful. Although the team recognized the potential benefits of the product, the implementation was ineffective. To ensure that the CRM fit the business architecture and was adopted by the staff, they reached out to ZoHelpers, a Zoho Premium Partner, for customized solutions. Together, they developed a robust platform within just 18 months and built powerful integrations using the API framework to their data lake, where all of eBlock's data resides. The Solution Zoho CRM is the single source of truth at Eblock. It's used by the entire U.S. and Canadian sales team of 200 individuals for dealer management.

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The Solution: Zoho CRM is the single source of truth at Eblock. It's used by the entire U.S. and Canadian sales team of 200+ individuals for dealer management.

 

Modifying the Zoho System to Meet Business Requirements

As a unique business, EBlock heavily relies on customization of the system to meet their requirements. Zoho CRM's custom modules enable the company to streamline processes and capture what's needed for efficient dealer management.

 

For instance, EBlock’s CRM system isn't just limited to dealers' information but also extends to the transactions the dealers make. With Auction Transaction History, a custom module built by the team, details such as the sale price of a car, bid amounts, and other relevant information are maintained within the module. This data is extracted daily from the data lake, processed through the servers, and then used to update records in the CRM.

 

The Auctions Activity Summary custom module regularly fetches transaction history from the data lake via API, processes it, and updates the CRM system. This allows sales reps to quickly view the recent transaction history when visiting a location. If a dealer has no auction activity within 10 to 14 days, the system creates a follow-up task and sends an email notification, prompting a status check to re-engage the dealer.

 

Additionally, the CRM system also handles credit requests. If a dealership experiences an issue, such as a buyer reneging on a payment, the internal team processes and tracks these credit requests within the CRM. This ensures efficient resolution and management of credit issues. Dealers are also profiled within the system using custom modules.

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Connecting Various Apps to Manage Deal Ownership

The logic for assigning roles to individual CRM records is managed within Zoho Creator. As data is pushed into the CRM, dealers are automatically assigned to territory managers through the integration between Creator and CRM. Mapsly handles territory definitions based on zip codes, and its integration with CRM enables it to update CRM records regularly when changes occur. When a new territory manager is assigned, Mapsly pushes this update to the dealership. Creator then assigns the regional manager and handles other internal definitions, such as associating a customer service manager

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Improving Sales Productivity with Automation

Workflow rules play a crucial role in keeping the sales team proactive and ensuring they don't miss out on any important tasks and opportunities. If a dealer hasn't had any auction activity within a certain time frame, an alert is automatically sent to the sales rep to contact or visit the dealer to understand why they're not using the EBlock application for their car auctions.

 

This includes scheduling tasks and sending email notifications to prompt field salespeople to take action on previously active dealers who have now become inactive. SMS Magic is also integrated with Zoho CRM to send text message alerts to internal teams when certain triggers are met in the CRM system. Bridging the Gap Between the Sales Team and the Field Inspection Team

 

Currently, the entire inspection team in the U.S. handles around 200 inspections per month, and uses Zoho FSM to manage car inspections before the cars are listed for auction. When a car inspection is required, the local territory manager navigates to the account in the CRM system to create a new inspection request. They fill out details such as the number of cars to be inspected, the primary contact, the required inspection date, and the car's location. Saving this information in the CRM system triggers a workflow rule that integrates with Zoho FSM via the API. This creates a new work order in the FSM system.

 

Information about the work order is then fetched back into the CRM system. As the work order progresses in the FSM app, the logged details are updated in the CRM system. Sales managers and sales reps in the field—who do not access the FSM app directly—can view all of the historical inspection records through the CRM’s "Inspection Request" custom module.

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Optimizing Field Sales with RouteIQ

RouteIQ enhances field sales and service operations by optimizing route planning and territory management. Salespeople in the field often route sales calls through the tool to manage their time efficiently.

 

Comprehensive Dashboard Insights

The integration between Zoho CRM and Zoho Analytics enables territory managers, regional managers, and senior executives to create dashboards. The team builds reports to compare data displayed in the CRM against reports from the data lake. Additionally, they have set up triggers to monitor for anomalies in the data. If anomalies are detected on a nightly basis, an alert is sent to a team member to investigate the issue and identify any discrepancies between the data from the data lake and the CRM.

 

A View of Auction Events

The team has migrated all legacy data from Zendesk to Zoho Desk. By integrating Zoho Desk with Zoho CRM, they effectively handle any issues that arise during individual auction events. Currently, the team manages a high volume of 400+ tickets per week.

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Benefits

Since implementing a highly-customized CRM solution with integrations that connect to various systems seamlessly, the EBlock team has achieved a high adoption rate.

 

Looking Forward

As users of the Zoho One suite, and having seen tremendous results from deploying Zoho tools, the company aims to explore other business solutions offered in the suite to enhance their digital transformation.

 

ZoHelpers Partner Bio

Headquarters in Austin, TX, with offices foot-printed across the United States, ZoHelpers, LLC is one of Zoho Corp's most advanced and trusted implementation Partners. Positioned to support clients throughout North and Latin America, they are focused on serving small to mid-tier growth organizations.