Discover how Ignition helped Cloud 9 Strategic improve conversion rates, boost efficiency, and save thousands of dollars a year in merchant fees.
“Ignition has transformed our tasks into workflows which is game-changing. Everything has become easier, more streamlined, and more efficient. Had I known what Ignition could do, I would have picked it up much earlier.”
- Jeannie Savage, Founder and CEO, Cloud 9 Strategic
Industry: Bookkeeping
Location: Gold Coast, Australia
Founded: 2010
Team size: 6.5
Clients: 70
Jeannie Savage is Founder and CEO of Cloud 9 Strategic, a firm specialising in strategic bookkeeping services for clients around Australia. But Jeannie and her team aren’t your typical bookkeepers. They go beyond Numbers 101, to educate and support their clients, optimise their profit, and build their dream business and life.
It’s this above-and-beyond approach that won Jeannie the title of ‘Bookkeeper of the Year’ in the Women in Finance Awards 2022 and has helped her build a thriving practice with hundreds of happy clients.
Jeannie says systems and processes have been an integral part of the business' success, and she has invested in technology from the start. But as someone who is always looking at ways to optimise, she knows there’s always room for improvement.
“Test, measure, modify. I’m always looking at how we do things and how we can get better results,” she explained.
The challenge: become truly automated and stamp out manual workarounds for good
Although Cloud 9 Strategic had invested in technology to streamline and automate various processes, the team was still doing a lot of time-consuming manual tasks, especially when it came to Service Level Agreements. They were dealing with multiple versions, filing issues, and having trouble making adjustments when scopes changed. There was a lack of clarity for both the business and their clients about exactly what they were promising, and this was affecting their business operations and service delivery.
It was only when Jeannie came across Ignition in 2020 that she understood just how much unnecessary work they had been doing.
“We already had a lot of technology in place and we thought things were quite automated. But once I saw Ignition and what it could do, I started to understand just how manual our work had become.”
The solution: Ignition’s smart automation improves conversion rates and boosts profitability
When she first heard about Ignition, Jeannie initially thought it wouldn’t be flexible enough for her business as they tend to do things differently from others. But when she discovered that it was designed with accountants and bookkeepers in mind, she was won over.
“Some of the other software I looked at had a few extra bells and whistles, but they weren’t built for our industry like Ignition is. Straight away it started telling me things I hadn’t thought of before.”
Ignition immediately gave Jeannie greater visibility of the billing schedule and more clarity and confidence in her client billings.
“I was really impressed with how easily I could see the invoicing trail. And if we’ve ever had a billing mishap, we’ve been able to rectify it so quickly with Ignition - it’s been fantastic.”
And because Ignition Payments is native to the platform, Cloud 9 Strategic saves thousands of dollars in merchant fees every year. Ignition’s upfront, automated payments meant they were able to streamline cash flow and eliminate accounts receivable.
“Ignition Payments has saved us $8-10k a year on merchant fees. Payments are now fully automated which saves us so much time and we’ve had zero pushback from clients on upfront payment collection.”
Conversion rates have also improved with the help of several of Ignition's features:
Embedded videos: Jeannie adds personalised videos to each proposal, walking the client through the different service packages she’s offering as well as communicating the value Cloud 9 Strategic will provide.
Proposal options: Offering three packages with varying service levels has enabled Jeannie to convert more clients. It’s also boosted revenue with an easy way to upsell higher-tiered packages such as Virtual CFO services.
Automatic follow-ups: This not only saves the team time in following up themselves, but it also makes it less awkward for team members who aren’t ‘salesly’.
Attachments: Adding a marketing brochure to the proposal give a more professional feel and allows Jeannie to better demonstrate their value.
Ignition has also helped Jeannie get creative in “productising” their services. By offering different packages in their proposals, they’ve seen more uptake of higher value and higher fee services.
“Using Ignition, we’ve been able to streamline the whole conversion process. We’ve improved our sales to conversion rates by 20% and seen more uptake of succession services.”
Jeannie says Ignition has “transformed” their SLAs, giving clients and her team more clarity around the scope of work. And since SLAs are immediately filed in Xero through fast, automated workflows, they’ve been able to slash admin time and avoid hiring more staff.
Jeannie has such faith in Ignition that she’s even created a money-back guarantee which has become an important unique selling proposition for her business.
“Providing a guarantee like this would have been very hard to do without Ignition. The clarity Ignition gives us with our Service Level Agreements is excellent and I sleep better at night because I know all the authorities are done.”
Jeannie only has one regret when it comes to using Ignition, and that is not adopting it sooner.
“The truth is you will save far more than you will spend on Ignition. I’m frustrated when I think of the amount of money I could have saved over the years if I had discovered it earlier.”
