Based in Newton Abbot, ambitious startup Estuary View claims that it has hit the ground running by using the award-winning quoting software Framepoint, from Tommy Trinder, by embracing new ways of working and by finding opportunities in the challenges presented by the pandemic. Never afraid to do things differently, the team at Estuary View opted to enter the market without a physical showroom, leveraging Framepoint to present customers with a best-in-class virtual showroom instead.
Peter Hambleton, Estuary View’s sales lead, said that Framepoint had “opened up a whole new customer experience”: “Not having a showroom can leave you relying on the customer to use their imagination. The Framepoint software bridged that gap. It’s great to be able to visually show exactly what the customer wants, superimpose those options onto their property, and show a very clear likeness of what they’re looking to achieve. It was a bit of a guessing game until we started to use this software.”
Starting a new business in the middle of a pandemic presented a unique set of challenges, but Peter and his team used the opportunity to rethink processes and work smart. Speaking about Framepoint, Peter said: “We can try things out with the customer so quickly using our touch screen laptops. We then instantly create pricing requests through the software which get sent straight on to our suppliers, but we also use the same drawings for quoting. You don’t have to do the same things over and over again. We haven’t had to use a pen and paper at all.”
Restrictions may have eased, but many people are still nervous about visiting public spaces. The team at Estuary View have been meeting customers online using Framepoint’s remote selling feature, and “the feedback has been absolutely amazing”, claimed Peter.
“We’ve been able to create products with customers virtually, on a Zoom call, bouncing ideas back and forth, changing designs. They send us a picture of their property, we superimpose the products onto their house. It’s fantastic. If the customer is an hour and a half away, then you’re usually looking at a whole day to do that, whereas we’ve done it in 20 minutes!”
Framepoint has saved a huge amount of time in the office too, Peter explained. “We’ve done some research into this and we’re saving three to four hours a day with Framepoint, so that’s essentially 20 hours a week! It frees us up to concentrate on what we’re good at, and we can be more productive and sell more.”
Credibility is a cornerstone of running a successful glazing business. As a startup, Estuary View has found that Framepoint has helped level the playing field. “In this industry, you’re always up against two or three other companies on every job, and often some of the big nationals. They don’t use anything like Framepoint. We can trade on the fact that we’re a local, independent company, but that we’re ‘down with the kids’ and using the very latest software. The feedback has been amazing. You can almost tell that the customer is thinking ‘OK, this company really knows what they’re doing!’, and it sets us above the competition.”
Framepoint is subscription-based and billed monthly. To find out more about Framepoint, and book a free demo, installers should visit www.tommytrinder.com.
