In everyday business, you deal with many business processes and documents that require approval from managers, executives, and other decision-makers. For instance, sales associates often turn to their managers for discount approvals on quotes. Using emails to request approvals potentially clutters inbox and proves to be inefficient. Let’s say a customer asks for a 20% discount and you have to get the discount approved by your managers. First, you send an email to your level one manager who in turn refers it to a level two manager. Every email asking a question, feedback, or clarification adds to the email chain. A single missed “reply to” or “reply all” in those email conversations creates undesirable confusions. This whole process is inefficient, induces unwanted delays, and sometimes approvals could even be lost in transit.
Introducing internal Approvals in Vtiger:
Vtiger’s new Approvals configuration lets CRM admins create approval workflows on CRM records for requestors to get quick approvals from managers and senior executives.
Auto send quotes for approval
With Vtiger’s approval process in place, you no longer have to send emails, hold meetings, make calls, or chase down approvers to get quotes approved. Vtiger allows you to auto send quotes for approvals when certain criteria are met. You can send quotes for approval from a single approver or multiple approvers based on the need. Let’s say, if a discount on a quote is below 10%, then such quotes need level one manager’s approval. And any discount above 10% requires both level one and level two managers’ approval. To send such requests automatically, the CRM admin has to take just 2 minutes to set up an approval workflow. Once the required conditions are configured and approvers are set, every time you create a quote in Vtiger, the workflow checks for the discount rate and automatically routes the quote to the approvers set in the workflow.
Eliminate delay
When you submit a quote for approval, the approvers get an email with a link that redirects to that particular record in Vtiger. During the review process, if the approvers need any clarifications, they can simply @mention concerned people in the comment section of the record. Because @mentioned users get notified in real-time, they can quickly chime in to answer questions and give clarification – accelerating the decision-making process. And based on these discussions and conversations, the approver can either approve or reject the document.
Ensure only fully approved documents reach customers
Consider you draft a quote with 15% discount and email it your manager for approval. Your manager forwards your request to a level two manager. After exchanging a few emails suggesting different discount rates, you send out a 10% discount quote to the customer. After a few hours, you receive an email from the prospect telling that they have decided to go to a competitor who offered 12% discount for the same service. When you inform this to your manager, she digs into the long email conversation you previously had and pulls out the email showing that the level two manager had agreed for providing 13% discount. It’s only then you realize that you had missed the email from the level two manager and sent out the wrong quote considering only level one manager’s approval. Result: lost deal.
With Vtiger’s Approvals set up, you will never face such a situation. Vtiger allows you to submit quote to multiple approvers at different managerial levels. If you have one approver at 3 managerial levels, then the quote will be forwarded to level 2 manager only after the level 1 manager approves it. And the quote will be rejected if a manager at any of these three levels rejects. Since managers at the higher level can always track status on approvals and view quotes, they can always suggest changes if needed. This way everyone involved in quote approval process will always stay up to date on the approval progress.
Read Approvals documentation to learn how to set up approvals. Have any questions? write to us at [email protected]
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