Business Challenge
The agency had outgrown its off-the-shelf CRM and was relying on a combination of spreadsheets, task trackers, and email threads to manage sales operations. Key problems included:
- No centralized view of leads, opportunities, or deal statuses
- Manual preparation of proposals and client onboarding documents
- Inconsistent follow-up processes across different sales reps
- Difficulty analyzing pipeline metrics or forecasting revenue
The leadership team wanted a system that would reflect how sales really worked inside the agency — not just contact tracking, but full lifecycle support from lead qualification through to contract signing and kickoff.
Solution
The client had a well-established but largely manual sales process involving several stages: lead intake, qualification, proposal creation, internal approvals, and client onboarding. Each of these steps was handled using different tools — a combination of CRM, Google Docs, spreadsheets, and emails — which made the process fragmented and harder to manage at scale.
We worked closely with the agency team to understand how they operate on a daily basis. The new system was designed around their actual workflow rather than forcing them to adapt to generic CRM logic. For example, deals often involved multiple revisions and internal discussions before a proposal was ready — so we built in the ability to track internal approvals and notes directly inside the deal card.
Proposal creation was another bottleneck. Managers were using templates stored in different locations, often customizing them manually. To streamline this, we added a module that lets them create proposals using predefined blocks, pre-filled with client-specific data pulled from the lead record.
Once a deal is marked as won, the system automatically launches onboarding tasks and notifications for the operations team. This helped the agency avoid delays between sales and delivery. We didn’t try to automate every edge case — the goal was to reduce repeat manual work and make key stages more visible to everyone involved.
Throughout the process, we focused on building something familiar to the team — a tool that fit into their habits and helped coordinate tasks without adding complexity.
Project Stages
- Process Mapping: Documented lead-to-onboarding flow with inputs from sales, legal, and operations
- UX Prototyping: Created wireframes for lead cards, deal pipelines, and proposal workflows
- Development: Built the CRM frontend and backend with modular APIs and structured data models
- Testing & Rollout: Introduced in parallel with the legacy system, then gradually phased in across teams
Business Outcomes
- 100% of active deals now visible in a shared pipeline with role-based access
- 70% faster proposal turnaround time through reusable templates and automation
- Improved sales forecasting with real-time deal velocity and conversion metrics
- Reduced onboarding delays through automatic task generation after deal closure
Technologies Used
- React: Frontend user interface for pipeline management and CRM actions
- PHP (Symfony): Core business logic for lead, deal, and document processing
- MySQL: Relational database for structured CRM data and proposal content
- REST & GraphQL APIs: For frontend-backend communication and external integrations
Need a Similar Solution?
Looking to streamline your agency’s sales workflow with a CRM that actually fits how your team works? We build custom platforms that automate real processes, reduce manual handoffs, and support team collaboration from lead to launch. Let’s talk!
