Top to bottom workflow optimisation for local car recycling company

The Problem

One of the more significant challenges facing the GP Metals team was lead management. Leads are business opportunities that come from various sources, mostly cars that are due to be scrapped. Leads were spread out between either different emails or different third-party platforms. They were hard to manage and easily lost. More importantly, they didn't give the team a lot of information, usually consisting of merely the registration plate of the vehicle and nothing more, which isn't very helpful. The team needed a way to consolidate and manage leads in one place, in a way that also opened the floodgates to data availability.

In a nutshell, we at SimpleCrumb devised a proprietary web portal for GP Metals that pulled all these leads together in one place. We built email scrapers to get leads from emails. For leads on third party sites, we connected our new portal to their APIs, getting instant access to the data straight from the source. These leads were pulled into a leads portal that GP Metals staff could browse through all in one place.

We also broadened the scope of the data available to the team. Now when a lead comes in, staff can see not only the VRM, but MOT history, colour codes of the car, price of the engine, price of the catalytic converter, years it was being manufactured, and plenty more.

Continued Support

After the successful rollout of the leads portal we visited GP Metals for a walkthrough of their business. Here, we were looking to get to know their business requirements and understand how they work. The main goal was identifying weaknesses in their current workflow and making suggestions for how we could improve them, as we prepared to continue to support them as they continued revolutionising their business.

We had lots of meetings with GP Metals early on in the collaboration process to make sure our expectations aligned. From then on we started developing a number of other features, building onto the already successful web interface we had created. One of the next things we introduced was a calendar view, allowing staff to organise leads by date, making it easier to manage and prioritise them.

Additional Features

As part of the next phase of development, we built a range of new features. Many of these went beyond the staff portal, such as email and text reminders for customers, and easier payment processing system-wide. Here are some of the most notable additions to the GP Metals system:

Certificate of DestructionIt's a legal requirement to issue a Certificate of Destruction (CoD) when scrapping a vehicle. This notifies the DVLA that they should permanently close the record associated with that vehicle, as it has been destroyed and is no longer on the road. The process of submitting one of these forms is long and requires going through a Government portal online. We created our own API to help automate the process, reducing the time it takes to submit a CoD from 15 minutes to just 15 seconds.

The Driver's AppYet another feature that went beyond the web portal was a driver's app. This app was designed to help drivers whilst out on the road, allowing them to see their jobs for the day, what vehicles need to be collected, in what order, and at what time. It also includes a driver tracking feature that allows the office to see where drivers are at any given time. These additions saved company drivers the time of liaising with the main scrapyard and streamlined the process of collecting vehicles.

The Yard section of the app tells employees where different parts are stored in the warehouse. The warehouse is large and pieces can easily get lost with a manual system. When putting a part on a shelf, the staff member need only scan a code on the shelving unit and the location is accurately recorded in database, making future retrieval a breeze.

PartsThe online system also has a parts section, which shows staff what vehicle parts are useful and part aren't. It links up automatically with eBay's (the nation's largest platform for selling and buying scrap metal) selling/shipping interface so those parts can be sold later quickly and easily.

Data AnalysisThere's also a lot more data analysis features on the platform, with data viewable from all parts of the business. Robust financial data tracking allows staff to review their revenue stream more easily and manage their finances better. We're also using UK Vehicle Data to retrieve all publicly available information on vehicles destined to come through the company's doors, which is then used to help staff make better business decisions.

eBay IntegrationSome of our recent work has been integrating with eBay's API and their other services. This includes:

• Creating listings
• Attaching all relevant data that eBay needs: categories, condition, item aspects
• Pushing them up to eBay to start listing them
• Editing them whilst they're up, seeing how long they're up for
• Automatically relisting them
• Once sold, syncing the orders into our system and managing their picked and shipping states through website and app
• Integrating with various couriers and their APIs so they can automatically make shipping labels through the system
• Pushing the tracking numbers back up to eBay

The Outcome

The new system has been a huge success for GP Metals. The leads portal has made it easier for staff to manage leads, and the new features have streamlined the business's workflow. The driver's app has made it easier for drivers to collect vehicles, and the parts section has made it easier to manage the warehouse. Just a year on, we now integrate with over 15 different APIs and continue to regularly update the system with new features and improvements. Using this new workflow resulted in a growth of 25% revenue increase in the first year alone, enabling GP to expand their business operations and reap a 750% return on investment. GP Metals was recently invited to a national conference hosted by eBay to demonstrate their new system, and is now pursuing exciting new opportunities because of it.