In this case study, Felicia Ceballos-Marroquin, Tech Ops Manager at mortgage bank SecureOne Capital Corporation, California, describes how they used Gravity Flow to automate their sales process and reduce their turnaround time by over a half from the industry standard of at least one month to an industry-leading 14 days.

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The Problem

Before we implemented our workflow automation project, we never had a complete understanding of what was happening at each step of the sales process. The gaps caused vital business information to be inefficiently communicated, poorly reported and even lost. It also meant we had to rely on the more experienced sales people to move the process forward.

The Solution

Now we use Gravity Flow and Zapier to keep several departments working together and ensure that no steps are skipped. This continuity ensures that all of our borrowers have a great experience.

Proposals are created using Gravity Flow for each borrower with different loan options. When the proposal is ready, Gravity Flow notifies the borrower via email and text as well as the sales person who will be pitching the deal. It also creates a task for our disclosures desk, so the file stays in compliance. The task is different depending on whether the loan is approved or denied and Gravity Flow routes the proposal according to the conditional rules we set up.

We can now track a file from the beginning to the end of the process providing us with the information we need to make improvements and eliminate bottlenecks.

We plan to continue adding new steps to the system as we identify new opportunities for further efficiencies and other areas and processes that can be integrated.

The Benefits

Since using Gravity Flow, we now have an increased capacity to close approved loans faster, which is what really matters to us and to our borrowers. We now have a 14 day turnaround time which is unheard of in our industry where excellent is at least 30 days. While we did not apply Gravity Flow to our processing pipeline, we were able to spot errors and missing information earlier in the sales process so we could correct it before the loan made it to processing and clogged up the pipeline. We also introduced a CRM at the same time, but the flexibility of Gravity Flow allowed us to standardize and automate auxiliary processes that our CRM and Loan Software were not designed to handle. All of these changes, allowed us to change our culture to more of a manufacturing mindset, from beginning to end, giving us benefits of saving time, information retention, enhanced communication and clearer reporting.

 

Felicia Ceballos-Marroquin, Tech Ops Manager,
SecureOne Capital Corporation,
California, USA.

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In this case study, Zach Bowers,
Digital Marketing Specialist, and Christine Battin, Business Solutions Analyst at Weiman Products LLC, describe how Gravity Flow was used to replace spreadsheets and emails with a reliable workflow which cut the process down from months to just a couple of weeks, saved on costs, and improved employee engagement.

About Weiman Products

Weiman Products is a specialty cleaning products company headquartered in Gurnee, IL, outside of Chicago. The consumer division is made up of 7 brands including well-recognized brands like Weiman and Goo Gone.  The Healthcare division is the leading supplier of private label cleaning and care products for surgical instrument decontamination and preservation in the USA. The company has experienced 36 straight years of growth.

The Problems

• Multiple versions of Excel spreadsheets were causing inconsistent and unreliable Master Data.
• Lack of transparency around the entire process.
• Unclear responsibilities for data input and lack of accountability for changes.
• The entire process was taking too long and was a drain on employees’ time and energy.

The Solution

The objective of the project was to ensure that each department could “vet” data and changes efficiently before it got transferred to the master database.

For each new Stock Code we create we need multiple fields filled out by multiple departments. This was previously done with Excel spreadsheets and multiple versions would end up being sent to different people until it was unclear which one was the most up to date – if indeed any of them were. So we created forms that contain all the fields in our Master Data Database allowing us to consolidate the data more effectively and efficiently.

With Gravity Flow we can now make each entry available to all of the departments at the same time so that they do not have to wait to fill in their fields.

This cut down the time to create the Stock Code in the database from two months (or more) to two weeks.

It also allowed us to establish stage gates so that we can collect estimates of the data for use in marketing and then collect the real data, vetted by the appropriate people before it gets into the Database. Since Gravity Flow allows us to have only the fields that each person is responsible for editable, it’s increased the integrity of our Master Data significantly.

The new workflow saves us money by cutting shipping fines and time and now the people trust the data in the database again.

Finally, the Gravity Flow API allowed us to develop our own custom workflow step very easily which sends the data to a CSV file and uploads it automatically into the database at the appropriate point in the workflow, streamlining the process even further.

Zach Bowers, Digital Marketing Specialist
Christine Battin, Business Solutions Analyst
Weiman Products, LLC
Gurnee, IL
USA

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In this case study, Daniel Maier, Web Systems Administrator for the City of Winter Park, Florida, describes how Gravity Flow is used to manage a complex vacation request workflows, reducing processing time from several days to minutes, resulting in increased employee and supervisor productivity and satisfaction.

The Problem

Prior to Gravity Flow, our agency was using basic email messages to manage vacation requests amongst employees and supervisors, which used to take a great amount of time to finalize our manual workflow and caused a huge email traffic in our inboxes. Managing, storing and responding to all those email messages were also a tremendous challenge.

The Solution

With Gravity Flow, we managed to develop a complex and customized vacation workflow system with several different layers and steps, simplifying the vacation request process for our users. Gravity Flow is a highly customizable workflow solution, and it allowed us to create the exceptions and add the specific features our process needed. With the assistance of the exceptional support Gravity Flow provides, we were able to develop a vacation workflow solution that not only saves us time but also money in managing our requests.

The process that used to take several days to be completed can now be completed in a manner of minutes in a comprehensive and easy way.

Daniel Maier
Web Systems Administrator
City of Winter Park
Florida, United States

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In this case study, Cecil Bordages, Volunteer Treasurer of PAALS, a nonprofit that trains service dogs for individuals with disabilities, veterans with PTSD and children with autism, describes how they replaced unreliable paper-based processes with digital processes built with Gravity Flow and generated time savings of up to 210 hours per month translating into cost savings of up to $3,150 per month.

About PAALS

PAALS (Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services), founded in 2007, is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization committed to enriching and empowering children and adults with physical disabilities and social needs by training service animals and providing animal assisted educational and recreational activities.

PAALS trains animals to assist people with varying abilities to live more independent and enriched lives by providing them with assistance dogs. Some of our specially trained canines are taught to turn lights on and off, tug open doors, pick up dropped items and alert for help to assist individuals in wheelchairs. Other dogs go on to assist children with autism and soldiers with PTSD to accomplish therapeutic and real life goals.

The Problem

In our area of services, we handle many different types of forms, applications and requests from the public or potential clients for information. In the past, these were managed by paper applications, checklists and, often, scraps of paper being passed around. Needless to say things often fell through the cracks and we often didn’t have any record of a requests being received, much less fulfilled.

We do not have a dedicated IT staff and rely on a non-specialist volunteer for all our website and IT projects.

The Solution

The combination of Gravity Flow and Gravity Forms have allowed us to automate many of these processes. Currently we are using this combination to manage 12 different digital processes such as volunteer applications, summer camp registrations, requests for a speaker/presentations and email inquiries. Requests and applications are completed online using Gravity Forms and then routed to appropriate staff for action (i.e. response, approval, etc.). Gravity Flow gives us the capability to monitor each request as it goes through the workflow and to have a permanent record of who did what when it is done. Using Gravity PDF we are also able to provide electronic and/or paper copies as needed.

The Savings of Digital Processes

The initial amount of money saved by having a volunteer (with little prior web experience: me) design the forms and implement the digital processes instead of custom web development by a specialist saves an estimated $8,000 to $10,000. We are adding new workflows all the time so this amount will continue to increase with time.

Amount of time spent finding/recovering/redoing dropped / lost requests or applications: 40 – 60 hours per month.

Amount of time saved on rework on requests or applications: 20 – 30 hours per month.

Amount of time saved by being able to quickly determine status of requests/applications: 10 – 20 hours per month.

Amount of time saved fewer phone calls and returned phone calls because the processes can answer the questions: 80 – 100 hours per month.

So the totals per month would be 150 – 210 hours. Using an estimate of $15 per hour that would be a monthly savings of $2,250 to $3,150 (or about 7% to 10% of our monthly budget)

Conclusion

Digital processes built with Gravity Flow have helped PAALS become much more organized, efficient and responsive to our volunteers, clients, potential clients and the general public.

 

Cecil Bordages, Volunteer Treasurer,
PAALS
Columbia, SC
USA

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