Kots streamlined their business operations and enhance customer experience using Zoho One

Andrew Childers

The Company

Kots offers modern, fully-furnished serviced apartments in Bangalore, India, ideal for extended stays. Catering to discerning guests seeking long-term rentals, Kots prioritizes seamless hospitality and essential amenities like maintenance services to offer residents a managed experience. Positioned within the Build-to-Rent (BTR) industry, Kots specializes in curating properties optimized for long-term renters.

The Challenge

To manage their extensive operations, Kots required a comprehensive tool encompassing both front-end and back-end functionalities. This included:

  • Tenant management to streamline tenant onboarding, data storage, and communications.
  • Apartment service management features to manage maintenance requests and regular maintenance of common areas and apartment services.
  • Financial management tools to handle tenant-related financial transactions such as rentals, advance, advance repayment, electricity charges, and other service bills.
  • Document signing capabilities to offer secure and convenient online document signing for tenants, property owners, and such.
  • Marketing campaign support to manage and launch targeted marketing campaigns to attract new leads

The Solution

After evaluating various software solutions, Kots adopted Zoho One due to its user-friendliness, scalability, and cost-efficiency. Initially, they implemented the major modules in Zoho One:

  • Zoho CRM to streamline lead management and tenant data organization.
  • Zoho Desk to provide efficient support for tenants' needs, including website support handling and the like.

Kots utilized Zoho CRM as their central database to house all rental-related information. This includes managing lease terms, tracking rental days, scheduling individual calendar maintenance for each apartment, and facilitating digital contract signing.

The true strength of Zoho One lies in its seamless integration capabilities. Kots took advantage of this by connecting Zoho CRM with Zoho Books, Zoho Desk, and Zoho Sign. This allowed them to get a comprehensive understanding of every customer and gain a holistic view of each customer's interaction.

Kots leveraged Zoho Desk to provide a centralized platform to efficiently handle inquiries, maintenance tickets, and website tickets. This streamlined communication helped manage tenant emails within Zoho Desk. The integration between Zoho Desk and WhatsApp allowed for faster and more convenient communication between tenants and the support team.

The Blueprint feature in Zoho Desk helped Kots create streamlined support processes and automate workflows. This ensures all incoming communications, regardless of source (website, email, WhatsApp), are automatically converted into tickets. Additionally, automated backend functionalities manage ticket routing, approvals, and other tasks, enhancing efficiency.

Kots also utilized Zoho Projects to manage and create their back-end workflows, enhancing collaboration and streamlining processes across teams. This comprehensive project management solution integrates personal tasks with individual employee assignments, ensuring organizational alignment.

individual employee assignments, ensuring organizational alignment. They created recurring tasks for each tenant and their rental agreements, simplifying task organization. These recurring tasks can be further divided into smaller, actionable subtasks, boosting workflow efficiency.

Assigning multiple team members from different departments to projects provided upper management with a holistic project overview, too. Zoho Projects provides extensive project performance data, facilitating informed decision-making.

Kots implemented Zoho Books as their central accounting platform to oversee all financial operations as well. They utilized Zoho Books to manage tenant invoicing comprehensively, enabling them to:

  • Create and send various types of invoices tailored to specific tenant requirements.
  • Easily calculate and manage advance rent payments and other financial transactions.
  • Simplify tax calculations and ensure accurate reporting using built-in tax functionalities within Zoho Books.

This streamlined approach allows Kots to optimize invoice creation and delivery through automated functionalities.

Kots also utilized Zoho PageSense, a robust website optimization platform, to gain comprehensive insights into visitor behavior. This helped them understand how visitors interact with their website, utilizing features such as heat maps and session recordings. They optimized website elements through A/B testing, ensuring visitors received tailored assistance, leading to increased conversions.

Additionally, Kots enhanced the customer journey by leveraging using Zoho Marketing Automation. This comprehensive solution empowered them to develop and manage automated workflows that nurture leads through the marketing funnel, ultimately converting them into paying customers. Furthermore, they delivered personalized experiences to website visitors based on their unique needs and browsing behavior.

Finally, Kots implemented Zoho Mail, Zoho Cliq, Zoho Sheet, Zoho Writer, and all communication and collaboration tools available in Zoho One into their business operations.

Benefits and ROI

With Zoho One seamlessly integrated into their operations automating various aspects, Kots has experienced increased productivity, reduced operational costs, and enhanced agility in adapting to market demands. As a comprehensive suite of unified applications, Zoho One has not only optimized business processes but has also paved the way for sustainable growth and success for Kots and similar enterprises.