Interview with Chris Donnell, multimedia coordinator at Cosmichrome
//
TL;DR
Cosmichrome — a company that produces and supplies unique spray, successfully manages its distributors around the world with a CRM for manufacturing.
Background
If you want it to shine bright like a diamond, Cosmichrome can make it happen. Founded in 2001, the Canadian company patented a unique spray that can cover almost anything in a chrome-like finish that never turns yellow.
And it turns out there’s a huge market for making things shiny. Over the last 19 years, Cosmichrome has produced and supplied chrome spray products and machinery to distributors worldwide. Their spray has been spotted on runways, racetracks, and everywhere in between.
As Cosmichrome grows, the company is focused on controlling the many moving parts. Although Kommo is not always considered a CRM for manufacturing, it has more than gotten the job done.
“We implemented Kommo because we needed some sort of structure to make things more efficient and have all our data synchronized within the team and also the distributors,” explains Chris Donnell, who has been using Kommo for over a year now.
Chris is the multimedia coordinator at Cosmichrome. He handles advertising, social media, website, graphic design, and customer service.
“We implemented Kommo because we needed some sort of structure to make things more efficient and have all our data synchronized within the team and also the distributors.”
The challenge
Cosmichrome was growing rapidly but had trouble keeping track of leads.
One of the main culprits? Conversations with leads were mixed in with all other communications. And since the leads were pouring in from several channels — email, WhatsApp, Instagram, and phone — the team juggled multiple, shared inboxes.
This was complicated because they divided their leads between their sales team and their distributors. “We didn't know who did what, when,” recalls Chris, “Who is aware of the email and who is not? And is it being taken care of?”
Because of this, the CosmicChrome team was constantly confused about whether anyone had followed up and, if they had, how to get that lead to the next step without forgetting about it. As a result, Chris says, “We would lose a lot of leads because we didn't know how to handle them or when they were handled. And if they were handled.”
“We didn't know who did what, when.”
And losing a lead was a big deal for Cosmichrome.
“[The sales cycle] is very niche, and it's very expensive,” Chris explains, “it ranges from like a week to six months to a year.”
Cosmichrome had the goods and the market but were still struggling.
Finding a CRM for manufacturing
After getting Kommo, the work process became much clearer. “Before we found a CRM for manufacturing, our secretary would take care of all the inquiries in our shared mailbox and she already had a lot to handle,” Chris explains.
“Now it's mostly me who handles the initial messaging to people and assigning leads to which distributor,” he says, “So now it frees up her time to make quotations and get orders actually made and sent. Kommo has really helped a lot in our whole way of working together.”
He also emphasizes that getting normal business processes under control has increased the speed and amount of sales they and their distributors can close — a crucial boost to their bottom line.
“The rate at which we would reply to people now is much faster,” he says, “all of our distributors love it.”
How Cosmichrome expanded with Kommo
Step 1: A clearly defined lead acquisition strategy
Cosmichrome uses two main platforms for paid lead acquisition: advertising through Facebook and Google.
Google Ads
When a lead clicks the Google ad, they land on Cosmichrome’s homepage. The lead fills out a KommoFORM and is instantly added to the pipeline with a tag marking the lead’s source.
Facebook Ads
When the lead clicks an ad on Facebook or Instagram, they are sent to a specific Cosmichrome landing page. They also submit a form there, and land in the Kommo pipeline.
Step 2. Structuring the sales process
Chris explains that because the product is very niche and expensive, the sales cycle can last up to a year.
Cosmichrome's pipeline in Kommo
Chris uses the CRM for manufacturing by defining the pipeline stages as follows:
- Incoming lead
- New lead
- Send brochure & Price list
- Waiting for reply
- Quotation request
- Quotation sent
- Quotation follow up
- Standby lead
- Bounced email address
Messengers
The team also connected Instagram Direct and Facebook Messenger to capture inbound leads.
Step 3: Getting distributors on board
To fully utilize the CRM for manufacturing, Cosmichrome added their distributors as users in Kommo. Once a lead comes to Kommo, Chris assigns it to the distributor based on the language and country, making it easy for them to increase their response speed.
Step 4. Preparing materials in different languages
Since Cosmichrome sells globally, they created materials such as email templates, chat templates, and KommoFORMS are available in various languages.
Here’s an example of an email template in French
Here’s an example of the same email template in English
Step 5. Automating Digital Pipeline
Cosmichrome runs a personalized lead nurture campaign based on the language and country of the lead.
It starts by tagging leads by country and distributor. For example, Canada Lead FR.
Tags in a CRM for manufacturing
This allows the team to launch automated emails specific to that tag.
In addition, distributors can quickly pinpoint where their leads are in the pipeline. “We use tags to indicate which distributor it is for, what the inquiry is about, and what language they speak,” Chris explains.
The Result
According to Chris, after implementing Kommo for manufacturing, the response rate has gone up significantly, the loss of leads has gone down, and productivity has significantly increased.
“Loss of leads has gone way down because everything is seen in Kommo, and almost nothing is lost,” he says, “Kommo has given a good 60% percent boost in all avenues: getting leads, keeping leads, getting back to leads and saving time. It’s huge.”
“Kommo has given a good 60% percent boost in all avenues: getting leads, keeping leads, getting back to leads, and saving time. It’s huge.”
🚀 Make a personal sale with Kommo
✅Kommo is a pioneering Messenger Based Sales CRM software that helps businesses achieve more sales and create long-lasting customer relationships. It is a tool that enables companies to reach better results and increase their profits.