How Brigade Plus elevated their customer experience with a low-code-powered data lake
“Our thought process behind Brigade Plus was to add value to our customers’ buying journeys; so when customers purchase a property, they leave with not just a house but a true home.”
- Ponappa PM Head, Brigade Plus
About Brigade Group
Founded in 1986, Brigade Group has steadily grown as a prominent player in the Indian real estate market. They boast a strong presence in multiple sectors, including commercial, residential, hospitality, education, and retail.
Brigade Plus is cut from the same cloth—a thoughtful initiative that offers customers a personalized home-buying journey, functioning as a comprehensive solution for interior design needs, such as modular kitchens, electrical fittings, wardrobes, and smart home features.
The challenge
The company was looking for a centralized system that could consolidate customer data from a different platform and push it to customer-facing teams, in order to provide a more seamless experience to clients. Unfortunately, SAP alone wasn't enough to capture the information that needed to be integrated into Zoho CRM. Brigade Plus needed to improve the precision of their data transfers and save time on tasks that initially required a lot of manual data entry. They also wanted to set up approval systems to make the customer experience smoother and more hassle-free.
“This approach was necessary, because SAP alone couldn’t determine which information should be integrated into Zoho CRM.”
- Ponappa PM,Head, Brigade Plus
Why Zoho Creator?
The organization sought a solution that could be easily customized to meet their needs. In terms of integrations, they required an open architecture, ensuring that information is easily consumable and platform-agnostic. After evaluating several options, they determined that Zoho Creator was an ideal fit.
First, a scope document that broadly defined business processes was drafted, following discussions with the team regarding potential solutions, after which the green light for development was given. Testing was done as the modules were built.
“Obviously, with the new system, users felt overwhelmed in the beginning. But generally, the feedback that I've gotten after they've settled in and gotten used to the system, is that they've never seen anything like this. They can't believe the amount of automation that we've done!”
- Ponappa PM,Head, Brigade Plus
The solution: Zoho Creator as a data lake
Brigade Plus streamlined the information flow from SAP to Zoho CRM with a seamless integration between CRM and Creator. In this collaborative system, Creator functions as a data lake, storing comprehensive data and selectively pushing only relevant information into Zoho CRM. This approach ensures that the sales team is provided with relevant data before engaging with customers.
Data migration was fairly simple—they just had to download data from the existing ERP system and upload it to Zoho Creator before sending it through to Zoho CRM.
Adding to the efficiency, the integration simplifies the updating of specific fields in Zoho CRM. Brigade Plus achieves this by incorporating a "call" button within Zoho CRM, which seamlessly cross-references data in SAP, ensuring the information stored in Zoho CRM is both accurate and up-to-date.
“By implementing Creator as an intermediate layer, the team can selectively choose the unit-related information that needs to be transferred to CRM, effectively finding a middle ground in the integration process.”
- Ponappa PM,Head, Brigade Plus
Akin to the sales process, where a call sheet is dispatched to the customer for their approval, Brigade Plus was also able to set up design and cost approval mechanisms. In this system, design and cost approvals after finalizing the design are managed through Zoho CRM.
Key benefits
Through Zoho Creator, Brigade Plus has unlocked myriad benefits—optimizing workflows, enhancing data accuracy, and empowering teams with valuable insights, for an elevated customer experience. Here are some of the key benefits in their digital transformation journey:
Streamlined approvals
The integration ensures smooth approval processes for design and cost via Zoho Creator, significantly enhancing overall workflow efficiency.
Data accuracy and currency
Brigade Plus leverages Zoho Creator to seamlessly integrate Zoho CRM with real-time SAP data, enhancing accuracy and ensuring reliable decision-making.
Centralized data access
The centralized system consolidates customer data, offering Brigade Group's teams a unified view, for a more informed and personalized customer experience.
Efficient updates
Specific fields in Zoho CRM are efficiently updated through this integration, enabling the team to maintain current and relevant information for more effective customer interactions.
Enhanced decision-making
Seamless information flow and real-time updates contribute to improved decision-making, ensuring teams access the latest and most accurate data.
Holistic customer view
Zoho Creator as a data lake pushes only relevant customer information to Zoho CRM, equipping the sales team with essential details for a personalized and exceptional customer experience.
With Zoho Creator, Brigade Plus have achieved an impressive 1:4 cost-to-benefit ratio and 18 hours saved per week, while achieving 100 percent adoption. By ensuring smooth approvals, enhancing data accuracy, and providing centralized data access, Brigade Plus is now empowered to deliver a more personalized customer experience.
The road ahead
Going forward, Brigade Plus plans to explore Zoho Creator for their custom business needs, aiming to create unique processes for their systems. The idea is to cover all aspects of their business, from quotation generation and invoicing to payment collection and accounting. “Our intention is to evaluate Zoho for all future business needs,” says Ponappa.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is Zoho Creator?
Zoho Creator is a low-code application development platform that allows users to create custom applications on their own, with minimal coding experience. The intuitive drag-and-drop interface empowers developers and business users to build web and mobile applications that satisfy all their unique requirements with ease.
Are applications built on Zoho Creator scalable?
Applications built on Zoho Creator are built to auto-scale—the back-end infrastructure seamlessly scales as business demand grows. Currently 14,000+ customers across 180+ countries are using over 6 million applications built using Zoho Creator, a testimony to the power of the platform.
Does Zoho Creator have a free plan?
Yes, Zoho Creator has a free plan. This plan comes with a limited feature set and only has one user, one application access, 250 MB storage, and 1,000 records. However, you have the option to upgrade to the paid plan whenever you wish.
What can I build on Zoho Creator?
Be it a task manager, a CRM, an ERP, or an application for almost any situation—you can build it on Zoho Creator. Just drag and drop elements on our visual builder and see your apps come alive instantly.
Can I build mobile apps on Zoho Creator?
Yes, the apps you build on the web run natively on PCs, tablets, and both iOS and Android mobile devices. You can also rebrand them and share it with your employees and customers instantly.