Calc123
Online Quoting Forms
Calc123 is a SaaS technology developed by Semantia that enables a Microsoft ExcelTM spreadsheet to be used as a calculation engine for generating online quotes and estimates.
Clients upload new spreadsheets at anytime 24×7, rollback
to older spreadsheets as well as monitor spreadsheet activity logs through a simple admin account. By-passing the need for developer updates and putting the control for quote pricing in your hands.
Shifting from manually calculating quotes with a spreadsheet to automation with Calc123 reduces the time it takes to generate quotes. It also reduces errors in pricing calculations and prevents other human mistakes, like using the wrong spreadsheet for pricing or forgetting to add levies and taxes.
Calc123 clients have benefited most by gaining greater control over their pricing – allowing them to introduce new billables, given them smarter ways of calculating COGS and margins, as well as being able to incrementally introduce pricing increases.
Calc123 Overview
According to Google, 4 out of 10 people research online before making a buying decision.
Calc123 makes it easy to get a quote into the hands of people doing research as early as possible (in their buying decision making phase) to give your business a better opportunity for brand recognition and sales conversion success.
Prospects are online researching products and services like yours 24x7...
Build Your List
Collect prospect details for your CRM or customer list to give your Sales and Marketing teams better qualified leads that are warm and ready for contact.
Leverage Your Website
Give your website visitors an easy way to start a buying transaction with you by providing an estimate or quote they can get themselves 24x7.
Support More Customers
Take the pressure off your call centre staff and customer support team by filtering out "time wasters" and support more real buying customers.
Calc123 Delivers Credibility, Professionalism and Automation
The three things that successful businesses need from their website today are - Credibility, Professionalism and Automation.
Credibility
Being believable and worthy of trust requires respecting your website visitors - giving them the control to start "getting to know you" on their terms. Calc123 gives your website visitors a way to discover your pricing and an opportunity to follow up with communications that outline the reasons why they should want to buy from you. Digital quotes and estimates make it easier for prospects to know. like and trust that you are credible.
Professionalism
From banking to bill payment, everything is now digital. Digital because it is fast, consistent, accurate and trackable - all the essential ingredients of a professional organisation. Providing estimates and quotes digitally with Calc123 gives your business and brand the instant benefits of professionalism through fast quotes, consistently on brand and message, with accurate pricing that can be tracked.
Automation
From cost reduction to process improvement, automation makes it possible to scale and grow your business at reduced risk. Generating quotes with Calc123 that flow into your business processes and systems cuts down cycle times, reduces pre-sales costs and improves business productivity. Automating the first step in your sales cycle in a way that you and your team can control.
Calc123 Client Results
Website Quoting Engine Case Study
The data and business metrics from the Client
357%
Increase in Quotes
429%
Year-on-Year Increase in Booked Vehicle Moves
1,700
Annual Person Hours Saved
Background
Carways, a family run vehicle logistics business, reached out to Semantia for assistance with online quoting.
The starting point was a website that provided basic quoting, a contact us form and a 1300 phone number.
The website generating very little new business and, without a call centre, enquiries were either being kept waiting on-hold for too long or abandoning the call altogether.
After discussions with their executives, a simple pricing calculation spreadsheet was developed for key routes and a web form was built and deployed on their website.
The client's number one objective
What was done
1. Create and optimise their pricing spreadsheet
The client was using a static rate card to create every quote and the quotes were stored in a shared mailbox.
The first step was to assist the client with transitioning from this manual rate card and getting their calculations into a spreadsheet that would reliably generate the correct pricing.
With the core information needed to obtain a vehicle transport quote captured in a spreadsheet, we proceeded towards a proof of concept (POC). The POC took less than one week.
To prove the process and minimise risks, the first spreadsheet only priced a limited number of delivery routes (where the client had the greatest confidence in their costs and margins).
2. Design the process
The new system needed to reflect not just the quoting process but also had to be integrated into a new online booking capability – providing a seamless flow from obtaining a quote to booking the vehicle logistics online.
Quotes are considered a legal offer to provide a service and the conditions under which that service would be provided. Therefore, we needed to ensure that in addition to sending the quote to customers via email, that the quote could be retrieved in its original state at any time – even though pricing may have changed since the quote was originally obtained.
Naturally, ensuring that each and every quote was securely stored and easily accessible by both Carways’ staff and it’s customers was a key requirement.
Furthermore, since the actual booking process could occur many days later, the quotes needed to be easily retrievable online and in real-time.
3. Did what they couldn't do
The Calc123 team provided full support – creating and optimising the client’s pricing spreadsheet, building the quoting form and thank you page needed for their website.
4. Fit quoting into existing business workflows
The Calc123 platform has enabled Carways to easily extend the reach of it’s transport services.
Where previously, rate cards would need to be shared with staff, customers and logistics partners, Calc123 now let’s all of Carway’s affiliates obtain quotes through a centralised quoting system – whether via a web site, mobile apps or web services.
By helping our client get the most out of digital quoting, the built-in capabilities of the Calc123 platform has been able to extend the Client’s reach online.
The outcomes and results
Steps 1 and 2 were completed in 90 days – ensuring the fundamentals were correct was vital for preventing losses later.
After the online quoting was launched, our client saw an increase in ….
