We absolutely love a fine speciality coffee here at Capsule and we've been loyal customers of Midlands based coffee roaster HASBEAN for many years. It just so happened that last year, as they grew to a size where they needed a CRM, they chose Capsule.
There's a lot to learn about building a business from HASBEAN. The company came about when Steve Leighton, the founder, was in a job he didn't enjoy. He'd had a love of coffee since a young age so decided to fully embrace his passion. He developed his knowledge and expertise through a few years of mistakes and hustle, then shared the results with the world through a successful webstore and wholesale supply business.
HASBEAN has experienced phenomenal growth since opening its doors in 2002. In June 2018, they were acquired by Ozone Coffee Roasters International, joining the Ozone roasting and hospitality business in London and New Zealand.
Steve now leads coffee buying for the group, expanding his impact on the coffee producers and building on the relationships he's built over the last 15 years. It's these long term relationships that allow HASBEAN to create a remarkable product for their customers.
But as the business grew, it became difficult for one person to maintain all the customer relationships so closely whilst balancing everything else. So in July 2018, with the support of their new partners, they introduced Capsule.
Capsule keeps track of customers
HASBEAN managed customers incredibly well with numerous spreadsheets, emails and a great memory but as they grew, occasionally sales opportunities got missed. Now Capsule is in place this no longer happens.
Their essential customer service software, Zendesk and accounting software, Xero are plugged into Capsule, so now they can see who's ordered, who's paid and who needs help from one place.
This makes life easier in so many ways, especially now the business has extra layers of management.
“Capsule is a real game changer for us. We started using it and instantly things like customer information and sales forecasts were a lot easier to manage.”Dale Harris Director of Wholesale
Capsule motivates the sales team
HASBEAN roasts high quality, speciality coffee and has an incredibly passionate and knowledgeable sales team. But their speciality product doesn't suit every business need. It can be a bit of a knock to a salesperson when they don't win every opportunity.
“After a tough day, my team can log into Capsule and see their pipeline of orders and very clearly the number of sales they're bringing in, their personal impact on the business and on our producers around the world, it's a big morale boost.”
With Capsule, HASBEAN now has a much more accurate view of their leads, conversion rates and sources of new business. They can also clearly see the success of their sales process.
As client information is now stored in one place, the team also gets a clear snapshot of each customer, such as the equipment they have, when it was last serviced and what they're paying out for coffee.
“Our staff members know each client's situation before they go into a meeting as all the information is in front of them before they go - it's so easy and it makes better use of our time.”
Capsule gives farmers certainty to experiment
The world of coffee truly is fascinating and if you drink a lot of it, it's interesting to know where the flavors began. HASBEAN has such close relationships with their producers, the team spend many weeks of the year with the farmers across Central America, Africa and Asia so the HASBEAN website is a great resource.
For the farmers, like Alejandro Martinez from El Salvador shown above, to experiment with new types of beans to create some exciting flavors, they need certainty from the buyer that they'll be ordering a consistent amount of the coffee each year.
This is when sales forecasting and a CRM are crucial. Even when taking into account the over zealous estimates from new customers, HASBEAN's forecasts for the year are more accurate now they use Capsule. Great news for the business, the farmers and of course the customers. With producers having confidence in their future, they're more able to experiment - so more fabulous flavors should be coming to market soon.
“We've just gone through our budgeting process for next year and we can see on our CRM that if we maintain our existing conversion percentage with confirmed leads, we'll be X percentage along the way already. We then feel more confident in knowing how much coffee to buy, and in turn, our coffee producers are much more confident too.”
A CRM system can offer a business a multitude of benefits, but as Dale admits, HASBEAN held off on investing in one after being faced with systems either too expensive or just not able to solve their problems.
“We've just gone through our budgeting process for next year and we can see on our CRM that if we maintain our existing conversion percentage with confirmed leads, we'll be X percentage along the way already. We then feel more confident in knowing how much coffee to buy, and in turn, our coffee producers are much more confident too.”
The flexibility of Capsule allows any business across every industry to benefit from a CRM. We love hearing how our customers use Capsule and sharing their success. If you would like to showcase on our blog please get in touch.
