Leading Australian Request-for-Quote Service Quotify Increases Subscription Revenue by 5X with Zuora

Automated billing and collection help request-for-quote service improve accounts receivable and debt collection

Redwood City, CA – May 23, 2012

Summary

  • Zuora, the subscription billing and commerce leader, today announced that Quotify, one of Australia’s largest providers of request for quote services, is using the Zuora Subscription Commerce Platform to enable usage-based billing and debt collection for its online service, which connects Australian consumers with home service providers.

  • Using Zuora, Quotify has overcome challenges related to debt collection, a problem faced by many subscription businesses. Since switching to Zuora, the company has more than quadrupled its revenue, eliminated significant debt collection expense, and greatly reduced bad debt through payment reminders and suspension of delinquent accounts. Automated processes for billing, payment, and collection enable the company to focus its attention and resources on growing existing accounts and expanding into new service areas.

Refocusing from Debt Collection to Growth

  • Quotify help hundreds of thousands of Australian consumers find and select pre-qualified providers of home services from pest control to security to financial planning and more. Providers sign up for monthly subscriptions and are billed by usage based on the leads they receive. Consumers receive up to three free quotes by SMS or email from suppliers who meet their criteria as well as access to supplier ratings.

  • Rapid growth in Quotify usage since its 2007 launch had placed increasing strain on the company’s in-house billing system, which was hard to maintain and lacked the flexibility and scalability to adapt with its requirements. In addition to inefficiencies in customer invoicing and credit card processing, the system lacked a mechanism for managing accounts receivable, forcing the company to make thousands of collection calls per month costing Quotify both time and money. Even then, Quotify collected around just 70 – 80% of receivables each month.

  • Quotify now uses Zuora to enable complete subscription billing and payments. Home service providers who subscribe to Quotify are emailed PDF invoices each month based on the number of leads they have received; 65% of customers are currently on auto-debit and pay by credit card via Zuora, further streamlining the process and accelerating time to revenue. Improved visibility into bad debt helps the company suspend delinquent accounts more promptly and effectively.

  • Since adopting Zuora as their billing platform two years ago, accounts receivable has gone from a low percentage of collection to a high percent rate and has only gotten better. Debt collection is now automated and worry-free, and instead of being error-prone and time-consuming, with Zuora, billing only takes a matter of hours and is mistake-free.

  • This improved effectiveness collecting accounts receivable has enabled Quotify to eliminate the cost of its third-party collections agency as well as the time and expense of in-house calling. The combination of improved back-end efficiency and increased cash flow helps the company focus its resources on account management, growing existing accounts, and expanding its business into additional service areas.

Commentary

  • “The effectiveness of our billing and payment processes has a direct impact on our cash flow; delinquent accounts force us to spend additional money and resources on collections, and bad debt undermines our revenue model,” said Juan Delard de Rigoulières, CTO of Quotify/Life Events Media. “Zuora has given us much more confidence in our billing and payment systems and freed us to grow our business in the knowledge that we’ll be able to monetize our services effectively.”
  • “Operating a subscription business means needing to collect not just a single customer payment for a single transaction, but recurring payments throughout the life of the subscription. Companies like Quotify simply have to get this right in order to succeed; with Zuora, they can realize the advantages of recurring revenue while avoiding the problems of bad debt,” said Shawn Price, President of Zuora.

About Quotify

Quotify is a national service that connects consumers with home services suppliers, such as pest control, carpet cleaning, financial planning, and kitchen fitters. For consumers, it takes the hassle out of searching for reliable home services suppliers and matches the three most appropriate suppliers according to the their specific requirements, such as location, date and preferences. Consumers benefit from a rating system based on other users’ experience. Quotify also offers a wide range of advice and articles on its website. Founded by digital media experts, Quotify generates revenue by receiving a lead generation fee from each supplier. For more information, please visit https://www.quotify.com.au.

About Zuora, Inc.

Zuora is the global leader in subscription commerce and billing, helping companies in every industry transition to the Subscription Economy. Enterprise leaders and high-growth companies alike use Zuora’s multi-tenant cloud platform to launch, scale, and monetize their subscription services. Zuora’s applications work where traditional ERP applications fail: Subscription pricing, quoting, orders, billing, payments, and renewals. Built from the ground up by SaaS industry veterans from salesforce.com, PayPal, and Netsuite, Zuora services innovative customers like Informatica, Tata Communications, Box.net, Ning, Xplornet, Ustream and Reed Business Information. To learn more about Zuora, please visit zuorainternprd.wpengine.com.

October 10, 2014