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3 Ways AutoQuotes Reduced Friction for the Foodservice Equipment and Design Team at Café Concepts
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Introduction
When Jill and Robert Walsh decided to start Café Concepts back in 2001, their vision was to support the chain restaurant community with first-class foodservice equipment and design services. With a commitment to staying on top of industry trends and evolving their business to make their service even better, they have a history of engaging the latest technologies and innovations to make their processes more efficient and profitable.
Reducing friction in the sales and post-sales process is a huge part of their company mission, and this includes analyzing both internal and external processes. When processes are easier both inside the business and with the overall customer experience, Café Concepts found successful operation easier to achieve.
Part of their commitment to innovation and technology included Quote Acceptance and AQ Pay from AQ, which transformed some of their basic operations to more efficient and profitable models. Let’s start with where things began.
A case study from
A Roadmap of Inefficiency
Café Concepts is located in beautiful Orange County, California. The Pacific Coast is arguably one of the most picturesque parts of our country, and the Pacific Coast Highway that runs its length is arguably one of our nation’s most famous roads. Driving from San Diego to San Francisco on a road full of speedbumps, on the other hand, wouldn’t be much fun. Symbolically, that’s exactly what was happening with some of the most important processes at Café Concepts. They were being held up, and orders were bottlenecking.
As many foodservice equipment and supplies companies know, change is often slow. As a result, the customer buying process can often be hindered, as well. When you look at the traditional sales process, it can become overwhelming for both dealerships and buyers alike. When you factor in what’s traditionally been a complex post sales process, the overall buying experience has been even tougher.
“When we would do a quote for a new customer, we would save it as a PDF and send it,” said Samantha Flores, Café Concept’s director of purchasing and operation. “They would review the quote and make any changes, or if they wanted to execute it, they would have to sign it and sent it back to us. Sometimes people wouldn’t have access to a scanner or they’d have to print it and send it back to us somehow because we required a signed quote. We had to have their signature to approve the items.”
This was just the quoting process. When it comes to buying and payment, Café Concepts experienced similar roadblocks.
“Then, we’d have to get into the payment part,” Flores said. “So, if they wanted to pay by credit card, we’d have to arrange a time to get the information over the phone because a lot of people don’t like to send that information through email, and there would be a lot of phone tag trying to get the payments covered. Or, they would have to send us a check in the mail, which would take time, or go into a bank and deposit money. Then, if they paid by credit card, I’d have to have my accounting department run the card and print a receipt, and in some cases if it was over a certain amount, we’d have them sign it. There was still a lot more going back and forth.”
Paving the Road to Efficiency and Profitability
Reducing Friction in Three Important Ways
LABOR
TIME
EXPERIENCE
Create a quote, and send a PDF to the customer.
The customer prints
it out, makes changes, signs, and sends it back.
The next step is to schedule a time to take credit card payment by phone if email is a concern.
Accounting sends a receipt for all credit card orders.
For many orders, the customer now has to print out the receipt, sign it, scan it, and send it back.
“When I heard about AQ Pay, I was extremely excited to learn more about it and start implementing it into our business."
As the saying goes, the road to success is always under construction, and the team at Café Concepts is a prime example. By focusing on their vision of always improving, they realized there were some potholes that needed to be filled. They found solutions within the AQ suite of products.
“When I heard about AQ Pay, I was extremely excited to learn more about it and start implementing it into our business,” Flores said.
Once in place, their new process started the same way, but the ultimate path from quote to payment is far more efficient. Instead of sending a PDF quote, Café Concepts can now use AQ’s Send for Signature link instead, which allows them to send a modern, electronic quote that their customer can open right within their web browser.”
“I explain to our customers they just need to click the link and at the bottom they can hit “Accept” and digitally sign. At the top, they can click “Buy Now” and either pay by credit card or debit or bank transfer, which has been really nice for our customers. Sometimes I’ll immediately get the email back from AutoQuotes saying they accepted the quote, and then I will just go in and print their signed quote from the link in AutoQuotes. Then, I get confirmation they’ve paid it.”
Instead of action items throughout the quoting and payment process, now Flores just monitors the steps. Automated emails let her know where payment is located in the process, and orders can be placed without sending them to accounting for collections. Their only need is to print a receipt for company records.
“It’s really simple now. And I’ll usually just follow up with the customer to make sure they got their order.”
No PDF quotes. Just send a link for the required signatures instead.
On the link, the customer signs and pays with either credit card, debit card, or bank transfer using a “Buy Now” button.
A game of phone
tag ensues unless customers decide to mail a check or step into a bank. That takes even more time, of course.
Receive a notification when the quote is accepted and the customer pays the order.
Print a receipt for company records.
That's it!
“There was still a lot more going back and forth."
Send a link.
Receive payment.
Get
real-time info.
Save for your records.
Both in periods of labor shortages and when good staff is easier to come by, you want your team to focus on the right things. With AQ, you can send and manage quotes and invoices with less manual work, freeing up your team and you to focus on the areas of your business that matter most.
One of the easiest ways to maximize labor is to help them save time. When you utilize the tools available in the AQ suite of solutions, you can accelerate the payment process, as well as the time it takes to receive payment. This helps staff and management alike.
The customer experience is critical. When it’s done right, you can reduce friction and increase profitability by providing an impressive, ecommerce-like experience that includes convenient and seamless payment options, as well as access to financing that can reduce barriers of entry for your customers.
AQ Solutions
Quote Acceptance
AQ Pay
AQ CPQ
“It’s really simple now. And I’ll usually just follow up with the customer to make sure they got their order.”
AQ's Quote Acceptance helps you work smarter, moving your customers from quotes to ordering faster. Save time, streamline your communications, and grow your business with Quote Acceptance.
LET'S TALK
If AQ’s Quote Acceptance is about expediting the beginnings of your transactions, AQ Pay is about streamlining the end of it. Save time for both your customers and you by moving beyond old school invoicing.
LET'S TALK
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Say goodbye to paper catalogs, and hello the most comprehensive product database in the foodservice equipment and supplies industry.
AQ CPQ will change your business.
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Quote Acceptance