Cape Fear Energy Systems Reduces Costs and Streamlines Processes With Zoho One

The challenges

The company's manual processes weren't keeping up with their teams' efforts to deliver high-quality work. Unclear workflows introduced errors, necessary information was hard to find, and processes were inconsistent. As the company grew, several areas emerged where they needed to automate and standardize.

Replacing pricy, disconnected apps

For Cape Fear Energy Systems, a sale requires approvals, permits, a unique design, and finally a hand-off to an installation team—all before they can begin building the final product for the client. With their sales process wrapped up in Salesforce Sales Cloud, they lacked a connected system for these steps.

Once sales closed a deal, completing the project was mostly manual. System designers and installation teams found out about new projects only when meetings and tasks showed up on their calendars. Manually transferring information and building task lists from scratch introduced room for error at every step. With around a dozen people this was manageable, but it would never scale.

Disconnected communications

Before committing fully to Zoho One, the company used Microsoft Teams for text chat, yet communication gaps remained—gaps employees filled by simply texting each other. That worked short-term, but spreading company communications across both personal and company phones wasn't manageable. Information shared in those channels was hard to find, creating time-consuming issues for both admins maintaining compliance and employees trying to do their jobs.

Security concerns become file management headaches

Cape Fear Energy Systems relies on an external agency for their IT needs, and that agency advised against using OneDrive or Google Drive for file storage. For a while the company used SharePoint, but its imprecise access controls slowed things down. Employees needed a way to pass project documents up to admin without making them visible to everyone in the company. A system of separate folders shared with different individuals was workable, but difficult to keep track of.

The solution

Cape Fear Energy Systems's CEO, John Donoghue, wanted to lower costs while finding a software platform the company could "grow into." In 2020, they purchased Zoho One and began using Zoho CRM to replace Salesforce. CRM did everything they needed it to, and the whole Zoho One subscription cost a fraction of what they had been spending on Salesforce. Even with all the apps they use today, they still pay less for Zoho than they paid for Sales Cloud alone.

Zach Perozzi, CIO at Cape Fear Energy Systems, has spearheaded their adoption of Zoho One. Shortly after the switch to Zoho CRM, he was asked to build a new process in the app—and realized the company had access to far more through Zoho One. A natural tinkerer, Zach dove in and began streamlining their tech stack one app at a time.

Connecting sales to installation

Connecting sales to accounting, design, and installation through Zoho CRM and Zoho Projects—Zoho's waterfall project management tool—gave Cape Fear Energy Systems the foundation it needed to plan for growth. They now have a standardized process from the moment a lead comes in to the point it's ready for the installation team to take charge.

The process is mapped out in Blueprint, CRM's process orchestration feature, to automate tasks and ensure every step is followed. Leads entering the CRM are routed to the sales team. After a meeting with a prospective client, the rep updates the lead's status and the automation sends it to accounting for review. Once the sale is won and all required approvals are logged, it passes from CRM to Projects for a system designer to begin.

The designer receives a notification, opens the "My Jobs" module, and reviews the deal information against a standardized checklist to confirm the necessary details and sketches are present and correct, then creates the project in Zoho Projects. The company deliberately chose to keep this step manual—having a designer review what sales collected lets them use their technical expertise to catch gaps and contact sales before the project is assigned. From there, the project goes to a project manager and installation team with a standard set of tasks, and the project manager logs updates and any notable issues as work progresses, making billing and customer relations easier.

Moving away from Microsoft

Early in the transition, Zach noticed employees were using Zoho Cliq more than Microsoft Teams simply because they could open it right inside the CRM interface. That sparked a search for more opportunities to save money and reduce the number of apps employees had to learn. Switching from Outlook to Zoho Mail cut license costs and let users set up custom rules and filters; employees especially like the task list in the Mail mobile app, which lets them check off to-dos on the job site and have that progress reflected back at the office.

Document management was the next step. Leaving SharePoint for Zoho WorkDrive was a natural choice and turned out to be a $24,000-a-year improvement—and the team ended up preferring its interface and feature set. Finally, replacing Microsoft Docs and Excel with Zoho Writer and Zoho Sheet moved them to a fully unified system.

Communication, connected

Zoho One gave the team Cliq, a communications app that stands alone but is also built into the interface of CRM and other Zoho tools. Its biggest value is that integration: employees can open the Cliq chat box within CRM, calendar, email, or other apps and jump straight into a conversation, while the search function surfaces the threads they need without switching apps. Like every mobile app in Zoho One, Cliq ships in both Android and iOS versions, so every employee can stay connected whether or not they have a company phone. The company also set up custom automations, with bots sending schedulers, recurring messages, and reminders.

Files and passwords, managed securely

WorkDrive made it possible to implement a new way of storing project receipts. An admin controls the receipts folder and can easily review and process the related expenses, while each employee who submits receipts has a personal sub-folder only they and the admin can access. In short, the admin sees everything and employees see only their own files—keeping accounting and management informed while protecting customer and project details.

Zoho Vault lets the team manage and share passwords for other accounts and services securely. Zach uses Vault to manage hundreds of passwords across multiple teams, relying on its admin oversight and access controls to share them responsibly. It's especially useful when an employee leaves: admins can take control of any account signed up under that employee, withdraw access, and view the access history of every password they oversee.

Single sign-on

Zoho One also comes with OneAuth, a secure login app that lets administrators set up multi-factor authentication and biometric login options that are easy for employees to use. Cape Fear now has a bank of shared computers in their warehouse that any employee can walk up to: they open OneAuth on their phone, scan a QR code, and the Smart Sign-in feature logs them into their Zoho account instantly. The shared machines save time for quick checks before heading to a job site or wrapping up tasks at the end of the day, with no technical skill required and no risk from reused or lost credentials. Employees who initially saw no need for another authenticator app are now on board once they've seen how easily OneAuth gets them into everything.

The benefits

Cape Fear Energy Systems has continued to expand their usage of Zoho One one app at a time, because they see value from each implementation. Having so many of their workplace apps connected in a single integrated platform makes it possible to standardize processes across projects, improve oversight, and simply make the work day easier for everyone.

Cost concerns conquered

The company set out to replace their CRM to lower software costs and find a platform that supports growth. Zoho CRM met their functionality requirements, and the Zoho One price point was an improvement over their Salesforce contract. With 15 Zoho apps in use and counting, they still pay less for Zoho than they paid for Salesforce Sales Cloud alone—and they save $24,000 a year from replacing SharePoint with Zoho WorkDrive.

Growing value

Year by year, the value they've received from Zoho One has grown. They were already saving money using just CRM, and every app they've implemented since is included in the bundle. As the company has grown and used more of the suite, they've made processes more efficient and increased capacity for more clients. Going forward, they can save time and money by implementing more of Zoho One as needs arise, rather than shopping for new vendors.

A polished project process

The integrated workflow from CRM into Projects has bolstered the sales and design teams as deal volume has increased. Information passed from sales to system design is more complete and accurate, enabling higher quality work delivered quickly. Once design's work is done, they can be confident the installation team has access to all the essentials in Projects as soon as it's ready for them.

Collaboration wins

While Cape Fear initially thought Zoho could be a lower-cost replacement for Teams and SharePoint, Zoho One has improved the way their teams work together. Between Cliq and Mail, they now have a mobile-friendly, easy-to-use toolset connecting employees on job sites to their teams and to staff back in the office. Task lists and multi-platform mobile support add even more functionality, and keeping conversations in one place with effective search means information no longer scatters across devices. WorkDrive ties it together by letting company leaders oversee all their files in an organized system while protecting sensitive information.

Empowering employees

Zach and others have noticed that employees who use their Zoho tools to find answers, keep information up to date, and stay connected are more likely to stick with the company long-term than those who simply tend to their checklists. Zoho One has become a path for employees to improve their skills and elevate themselves within the company.

Looking forward

Zoho One gives Cape Fear Energy Systems the flexibility to try out software for other issues they run into, and they're seeing good results. Through this approach, Zach has solved a wide range of minor frustrations across the company, and they plan to keep growing into the platform. He already has plans to leverage the Client Portal feature in Projects to give clients a view into the progress being made on their systems.

He'll also soon lead a "re-launch" of Zoho Learn, a central location for internal training and informational resources. The company is creating guides to their tools, processes, and organizational structure so employees can find answers in one place—a starting point for new hires and a useful reference for current ones. They're also looking to cover field service with Zoho FSM. Field service management will be complex and integration is key, so the app will need to be tightly integrated with CRM and Projects from the start—making Zoho FSM the company's first choice to solve that problem.