How Zing Events turned a pandemic crisis into record profitability

Zing Events designs and delivers team building experiences for organisations across the UK. When the pandemic hit, its core business, bringing people together physically, became impossible, and the whole team had to work remotely with no digital infrastructure in place.

• Manual enquiry handling: enquiries arrived by phone, email and website with no unified tracking, so opportunities regularly fell through the cracks.
• Time-consuming proposals: every proposal was built manually, taking hours to calculate pricing and generate documents, with inconsistent formatting and slow response times hurting conversion.
• Disconnected planning: event logistics relied on physical documents, spreadsheets and verbal communication, with no real-time visibility into staff assignments or event status.
• Market uncertainty: as restrictions eased and demand became volatile, manual processes simply couldn't scale with recovery.

Axithorn began by mapping Zing Events' complete operational ecosystem, from customer journey to logistics to reporting, before designing a Zoho CRM-centred solution:

• Enquiry management via a custom web form feeding directly into Zoho CRM with automatic lead assignment.
• Smart proposals built with custom pricing functions and automatic, personalised document generation in Zoho Writer.
• Event planning with staff assignments, itineraries and packing lists in Zoho Sheet, using the Google Maps API for intelligent driving time and scheduling.
• Feedback automation capturing and analysing post-event responses for continuous improvement.

The rollout prioritised speed given the urgency of the situation: core CRM setup first, then automation workflows, operational integration, and finally feedback and optimisation.

"What began as a period of uncertainty and survival soon became a turning point. The system Axithorn built doesn't just help us manage events, it powers our entire business behind the scenes, supporting our growth long after the crisis passed."

1. Crisis can catalyse transformation. Urgent need often drives better decision-making than lengthy planning; don't wait for perfect conditions to modernise.
2. Automate the entire journey, not half of it. Half-measures deliver half-results; automating the complete customer and operational journey multiplies the benefit.
3. Choose a partner who understands your business, not just the technology. Understanding the events industry's specific requirements made the difference for Zing Events.
4. Build for flexibility. The system that helped the business survive lockdowns is the same one supporting its growth in recovered markets.