Struggling to scale a labor-intensive payment processing system
ZenPilot is all about efficiency. Founder Gray MacKenzie started the consultancy with his partner, Andrew Dymski, after the pair successfully launched an inbound marketing agency and a project management platform based on their signature streamlined operational processes.
It made perfect sense for ZenPilot to quickly establish its expertise and pick up momentum with sales. But as Gray soon noticed, there was one area in their systems that was holding them back—payment processing.
They were using a combination of Quickbooks Online, Stripe, and a tool called SamCart that required human oversight to ensure everything synched and operated correctly.
“We had to do a lot of work manually,” Gray says.
Although SamCart could manage online credit card payments, it wasn’t able to process automated clearing house (ACH) payments, which support direct debit transactions.
Whenever a client wanted to pay with direct debit, Gray and his team had to use manual workarounds to process the payment, create an invoice, and input the transaction into their customer relationship management tool (CRM), HubSpot Sales Hub.
“We were doing it so much that we had to pay somebody to manage those invoices,” Gray says.
Not only was the manual method expensive, but it slowed down the process of closing deals and kicking off new projects.
“We would have clients get distracted when the delay was too long. By the time we arrived for their kickoff, they had forgotten about the project and didn’t have things ready for us,” Gray says.
For a team renowned for efficiency, it was a frustrating situation.
Gray didn’t waste any time searching for a more robust payment processing solution. He needed something that could process ACH payments and integrate with his CRM to eliminate the procedural bottleneck.
As a HubSpot client since 2012, he was intrigued when they announced the beta launch of an integrated payment tool.
Gray says, “HubSpot has a history of building new products and improving them over time. That made it a relatively easy decision.”
Confident that HubSpot payments would grow with his needs, and appreciating the simplicity of its native integration with his HubSpot Sales CRM, Gray signed up for HubSpot payments.
An instant payment link that accepts ACH and connects to workflows
Rather than a separate web page that interrupts the intake process to take the payment, HubSpot payment links are designed to work seamlessly inside the sales experience.
Customers can buy and pay directly from your website, inside an email, or even in a chat session.
Not only is this convenient and smooth in your sales conversation, but it delivers incredible flexibility in the way you deliver and automate your onboarding process.
Better yet, with payments built natively into your CRM, you never have to worry about important context missing in customer conversations. You have a full, 360-degree view of customer interactions with your company—including payments—in one place.
ACH Processing
HubSpot payments granted Gray’s first wish—accepting ACH payments. This enabled Gray to eliminate an additional 3% in fees he’d been paying through SamCart, a saving which he passed on to his customers.
“We've had clients say, how can we set this up for ourselves?” he says.
Automated payments
Gray also eliminated the tedious manual parts of invoicing, processing, and inputting customer payments.
He says, “The ability to create that single payment link and accept ACH has made the process a lot simpler and more straightforward for us.”
The links are easy to use and they help systematize the intake process. In fact, they’ve made it so straightforward that Gray has been able to train two people to take over most of the sales activities he used to do himself.
“Giving them quick and easy access to payment links has been a big benefit. It’s made their lives a lot easier, and it’s freed me up to do more lead generation. I spend more time producing content, co-marketing, and creating more deal flow,” he says.
Frictionless workflows
By allowing customers to make a payment without being redirected to a new web page, HubSpot payment links open up new opportunities for a smoother intake process.
Gray and his team have harnessed them in an automated workflow that begins right inside a sales conversation:
- They set up their standard introductory service, called ZenPilot’s Agency PM + Process Blueprint, as a product inside HubSpot payments with a description, terms, and price.
- They created a link that they can embed in a sales deck or email.
- A customer can click the link to sign up for services. Some customers sign up before the sales rep is finished walking them through the solution!
- The link accepts the payment and triggers a workflow that automatically logs the payment in Sales Hub and starts a project for ZenPilot to implement in their project management system, ClickUp.
- The customer is redirected to an intake form, and then to a meeting scheduler.
With this, ZenPilot gets all the information they need to start the project, and the client gets the kickoff meeting booked within five minutes of clicking the signup link.
“They don't have to wait for an invoice,” Gray says. “They can sign up really easily and then go straight to the intake form. They're already rolling, and we're rolling on our end.”
One thing Gray appreciates about the flow is that it takes the customer through the process in a digestible way.
He says, “You don't see the intake form until you've made the payment. So you don't have to worry about what's coming, you just get it one piece at a time.”
The payment links have created a huge savings of time and energy for the team because they don’t have to chase the customer after the payment to gather intake info and schedule the kickoff call.
By building their process around the payment link automation, Gray’s team has made their kickoffs more satisfying.
“By incorporating the intake form into the flow, we have enough setup work done that we can show up at the kickoff with all of the project assets built out and ready to go,” he says.
That streamlined intake has a big impact on the client experience.
“The faster we can get them started, the better service we can deliver,” Gray says. “By the time they get on the kickoff call, they’ve already got real work done.”
It’s also crucial to helping ZenPilot scale their services.
“Allowing customers to sign up directly on the call is a big deal,” Gray says. “From our side, it lets us get back to revenue-generating activities faster.”
Savings of over $15,000 per month
HubSpot payments save ZenPilot significant time and money by delivering streamlined, intuitive workflows.
Most notably, by enabling ACH payments and eliminating fees that they used to pay through SamCart, Gray’s team reduced their costs by about $250 per sale. That’s a staggering $15,000 each month.
In addition, the automated processing saves his team about two working days per month that used to be dedicated to manual invoicing, processing, and inputting.
Finally, by creating an easy payment process that his sales reps can manage during sales calls, Gray has freed himself up for more lead-generating activities.
“Our lead volume has gone up by about 30% over last quarter,” he says.
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