Quanda & Helios Integration of marketing tool Quanda with ERP HELIOS
If a company has thousands of customers, marketers can't communicate with each of them as often as they would like to. They need a tool that makes their job easier. And that's Quanda, our SaaS application for smart e-mailing, questionnaires, management and contact collection. We have linked Quanda with ERP HELIOS and created an automation tool that helps their users increase turnover and improve customer relationships.
automatione-mailing apiintegrationconnector
Overview of automations in the Quand marketing tool
The right email at the right time will increase sales and improve customer relationships
Quanda approached us with an idea to improve their SaaS marketing tool. Its consultants
wanted to accommodate companies for which smartly automated e-mail delivery based on
information system data would allow upselling or cross-selling.
Imagine that your customer orders a new printer, but forgets to purchase toner. However,
before the goods are dispatched, he will receive an automatic e-mail, which will recommend
the purchase of toner and explain the reason.
This is exactly what they wanted in Quanda. In addition to higher sales, the goal would be
great customer relations. The idea should help companies that:
have hundreds to tens of thousands of customers;
offer a large number of products in various categories;
have traders or marketers who work with ERP HELIOS; and
sell through e-shops, brick-and-mortar stores or a network of sales representatives.
Current sales data from the e-shop, brick-and-mortar stores and sales representatives are regularly imported into Quanda.
About Quanda
A Czech company that has been developing and providing marketing software to support sales and automated customer care since 2012. The Quanda app
includes e-mailing, questionnaires, forms, and automation tools and connects them in a
unique way. Today, Quanda is used by several hundred companies in 19 countries, mainly
focused in B2B. Read more about Quanda in a separate case study.
10
years of experience
17
languages
19
countries
Quanda invented clever conditions, we came up with a technical solution and developed a
connector
The principle of the new Quanda extension are the "logical sentences" (automation) and a data
connector with ERP HELIOS. Simply put, this means that the marketing tool is linked to data that are entered into HELIOS either manually by employees or copied from the e-shop.
In Quanda, various automation triggers are defined, such as the first purchase or
completed installation of equipment at the customer´s - it always depends on the business
or commercial process of the Quanda’s end user. The algorithms constantly check the data
in HELIOS, and if they find that the condition has been met, they send a prepared e-mail to the customer. In it, the company offers, for example:
ancillary goods;
professional installation of equipment;
regular review;
instructions on how to take care of the goods correctly;
or anything else the client might appreciate at that moment.
Need for clean data
Data without duplication, in the correct format and structure is a prerequisite for
any integration. For example, if you have three people on the system with the same
e-mail, e-mail automation will not work as well as it could.
An example of automation in Quanda
The customer orders some goods
An order is created in the e-shop and the information is copied to HELIOS (or the trader
enters the order manually after a personal meeting or after a sale in a brick-and-mortar
shop / retail outlet).
Quanda searches Helios
HELIOS is searched automatically according to the settings once an hour, day or week. The
system analyses the parameters of the order, purchased goods or services, place of
delivery and contact person.
Checking automation conditions
According to the automation settings, Quanda, for example, finds out whether another
product (e.g. accessories) is missing in a specific order, whether the customer has ever
bought anything, where they come from (country, region, postal code) or whether they have
unsubscribed from e-mails in the past.
The customer will receive an e-mail
When the conditions are met, Quanda sends a ready-made e-mail (for example, offering a
toner for a new printer) and at the same time includes the contact in a short e-mail
series on how to properly care for the type of printer and thus extend its life.
The user does not need any programmer to enter automation
When creating the user environment, it was essential for us that the user (trader or marketer) did not have to learn how to operate it. The extension is thus controlled in the
same way as when the user works with other Quanda functions.
First, the user chooses one of the prepared types of automation from the menu. They then define specific parameters for sending an e-mail:
what must be met for the email to be sent;
what products are involved;
what type of customer the e-mail will be sent to;
how often a particular customer can get this type of e-mail, etc.
Conditions can consist of several variables and can be systemically sophisticated - but the
user does not see these processes in the background at all. They save automation settings, prepare the text of the e-mail and the rest is taken care of by algorithms.
"Dialog for new automation development. Automations are divided by trigger events."
Timeline of cooperation
We have been working on the connector with HELIOS for more than five years and we are moving
it according to the new needs of Quanda.
2016
October
The first meeting on the integration of HELIOS and Quanda
2017
January
Technical analysis and subsequent MVP development
2017
March
MVP connector completion (connector and one automation)
2017
April
Start of development of the final version of the connector and automation module in Quanda
2017
November
Test phase and production launch of Quanda and HELIOS integration
2017+
To this day
Maintenance and updates bringing various improvements (salutation, GDPR, entries in CRM activities, ...)
Technologies on which we built the connector
The tool is written in the Python programming language;
using the proven Django web framework;
ODBC is used to connect Quanda directly to the HELIOS ERP database;
and SQLAlchemy is used to pair individual attributes between the two databases.
You can find out more about the tools and technologies we use at COex on the web technologies page.
Smart spam protection and HELIOS load optimization
The Quanda automation module can prevent sending of irrelevant e-mails or spamming customers
too often. The user has a control system in place to check whether the e-mail
should actually be sent before doing so.
For example, the control system will allow the user to prevent:
the same customer due to automation receiving a product e-mail of the same product
category more than once a week;
Quanda sending any e-mail using automation more than once every 12, 24, 48 hours or
other interval;
the customer receiving a satisfaction questionnaire on the 3rd day after purchase on the
basis of the issued picking list, if the order was cancelled one day after release from
storage.
We also managed with the integration of HELIOS, which does not run on the cloud, but
directly in the corporate network (on-premises). We solved this effectively so that the
connection with Quanda does not slow down the work of other information system users - queries are not directed to the Helios production database, but to a replicated database
that updates in near real time.
Quanda+HELIOS infrastructure diagram
Main benefits of the whole solution
Our client Quanda has improved its SaaS solution, which saves traders a lot of time - algorithms automatically evaluate data and send hundreds of thousands of e-mails.
Customers who shop with Quanda´s users are well taken care of, as they
only receive relevant offers, manuals, or recommendations.
Quanda draws data directly from Helios. Information from the e-shop as
well as manually entered orders from traders or stores are copied there.
The user can set up the new automation themselves without
the assistance of programmers or analysts.
A smart control system prevents sending of irrelevant e-mails.
„It was clear from the beginning that it would not be a small
project. Through gradual analysis of individual parts, we came to the final form of the
assignment and subsequent implementation. I really appreciate the communication within
the analysis and formation of the final assignment. Hours of discussing, inventing and
finding the optimal solution. All of this together shaped the project into the form in
which it has been running successfully for 4 years. I would also like to emphasize the
willingness, speed and competence with which the entire project has been maintained,
including the administration and updating of servers.“
Jan Spáčil, CEO Quanda
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