How i-literate, a Marketing Agency, cut their client servicing time in half with Zoho One

i-literate is a full-service marketing agency established in 2008 in Cape Town, South Africa. They offer both digital and traditional marketing to their clients, which include companies across numerous industries. The employees on their team are all senior industry experts with 20+ years of experience, allowing i-literate to offer a high-end service. This team consists of copywriters, graphic designers, website developers, signage experts, and social media marketers.

"The biggest problem we faced was logging into multiple applications and wasting valuable time on various apps such as Quickbooks, Hootsuite, WordPress, Mailchimp, Meistertask, and Hubspot," said Jolene Wood, CEO. All of the apps they used were from different vendors, which meant the apps were structured differently and were therefore ineffective in streamlining their operations. They realized their business needed a centralized point to simultaneously manage their operations, finances, and marketing.

A customer recommended Zoho, and to see if it would help their business, Jolene decided to attend the 2019 South African Zoholics conference, where Zoho experts met face-to-face with users to help them understand Zoho products and find business solutions. "Based on the presentation given and interactions I had with the Zoho experts at the event, I realized it was the perfect tool for my business and for my clients, " said Jolene.

The price for the monthly subscription and the extent of the included apps were remarkable; it was a "no brainer" to switch to Zoho One, a package deal of business applications. There was an initial learning curve for the team to fully understand all functionalities of the extensive range of applications at their disposal. However, it was easy to use once they understood all the "nuts and bolts" of what could be achieved. It has been two years since their switch, and Jolene says, "There is going to be no looking back. We are a loyal Zoho customer, and we happily recommend Zoho to all our clients, of which many have started using Zoho One and are happy with it."

i-literate's team has now been able to efficiently refine their financial management system. Jolene's personal favorite is Zoho Workplace, which unifies and centralizes your team's workspace, simplifies file storage, and streamlines team communication. She loves logging on and having all her apps within one clean and easy-to-use platform.

The main benefit of moving to Zoho One is money saved; the team could significantly cut down the operational cost by reducing multiple unnecessary subscriptions. A secondary benefit gained is time saved: there has been a significant increase in their team's productivity due to their ability to work faster and more effectively with Zoho One. "I can definitely say our time has been cut in half since we started using Zoho One," says Jolene.

A further app that has had a direct impact on improving i-literate's business processes was Zoho Projects, a project management solution. It has advanced how they report back to their clients on retainer services agreements. They also extensively use Zoho Books, and their finance team loves it. Jolene says, "It is an extremely professional, easy-to-use, and customizable tool." They also extensively use Zoho CRM and Zoho Social for their team and their clients' businesses.