Fidalgo Coffee Roasters – Zoho CRM + Creator DSD Delivery App Case Study
Industry: Food & Beverage (Coffee Roasting & Distribution) |
Location: Burlington, Washington (Pacific Northwest, USA) |
Team Size: 19
Apps: Zoho CRM, Creator, Analytics, Campaigns, Writer
Executive Summary
Fidalgo Coffee Roasters is a 29-year-old coffee roaster based in Burlington, Washington, supplying fresh-roasted coffee to restaurants, espresso bars, and hotels across the Pacific Northwest. As the company expanded into grocery distribution, online sales, and a build-a-box subscription program, they needed their systems to keep pace with a growing mix of sales channels and delivery complexity.
Fidalgo had already moved into Zoho and needed stronger automation, faster execution, and more reliable connected workflows. Zenatta supported both the earlier CRM-side migration and the next phase of operational improvement—helping bring customer data from Shopify into Zoho CRM, refining the system structure, and later delivering a custom direct store delivery (DSD) solution in Zoho Creator that syncs with CRM and supports real-time invoice generation.
The Challenge
Fidalgo needed Zoho to do more than act as a basic CRM. Early on, the team needed customer data brought over from Shopify and organized properly inside Zoho CRM, along with the right categorization and customization to support both wholesale and ecommerce relationships.
As the business continued to grow, their delivery operations added another layer of complexity. They needed an affordable solution for direct store delivery (DSD) that could connect route activity, sales orders, and invoicing without forcing the team into expensive off-the-shelf or fully bespoke software.
“We worked with another Zoho partner, but were not satisfied with their response times and final product. The biggest problem we faced was the communication between our sales manager and the other Zoho partner. We weren’t getting what we needed.” – David Evans, Owner/CFO, Fidalgo Coffee Roasters
Why It Mattered
For a growing roaster and distributor like Fidalgo, clean customer data and connected workflows are foundational. The CRM needed to reflect the realities of both wholesale and ecommerce operations, while giving the team a reliable base for sales activity, communications, and reporting.
On the operations side, delivery workflows needed to connect inventory and order data, coordinate routes and drivers, and enable accurate invoicing at the point of delivery. Without that connection, the team risked manual work, slower fulfillment, and avoidable friction between office and field operations.
The Zenatta Solution
Zenatta delivered a combination of CRM improvements, document automation, and a purpose-built DSD delivery application to support both office and driver workflows.
- CRM Customization & Automation: Enhanced CRM workflows around Sales Orders and communication, including improvements to email templates and adding “Print” and “Email” actions directly on Sales Order records.
- Sales Order Document Automation: Built and refined a Zoho Writer mail merge workflow to generate customer-ready documents (PDF formatting, field mapping, and merge scripting), aligning output with Fidalgo’s required invoice and sales order layouts.
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Custom Direct Store Delivery (DSD) Driver App in Zoho Creator: Designed and built a desktop + mobile Creator app that integrates with Zoho CRM. When Sales Orders are created in CRM, they sync into Creator, where the app assigns orders to routes and drivers. Drivers can:
- Select a delivery day and route and see all required stop and order details.
- Update orders while delivering, including adjusting quantities based on customer needs.
- Trigger invoice creation and send invoices to customers directly from the delivery workflow.
- Operations Visibility for Admin Teams: Built tools for administrators to quickly pull up a customer profile that includes key operational history such as orders, logs, and related records in one place.
- Analytics + Data Sync Support: Supported pulling data from Fishbowl through Zoho Analytics and syncing key information back into CRM to ensure teams were working with reliable, connected data across systems.
- Custom UX and Branding: Applied custom HTML/CSS styling in Creator so the app matched Fidalgo’s desired look and feel while remaining mobile-friendly for drivers in the field.
Migration Highlights
A foundational part of Fidalgo’s Zoho journey involved cleaning up and bringing customer data from Shopify into Zoho CRM so the team could work from a more structured system and support both wholesale and ecommerce processes more effectively.
Shopify Customer Data Moved into Zoho CRM
Zenatta supported the cleansing and import of Shopify customer data into Zoho CRM, helping Fidalgo establish a cleaner starting point for customer management inside Zoho.
CRM Restructured Around Sales Channels
The CRM was adjusted to better categorize and manage Wholesale and Ecommerce relationships, giving the team a more practical structure for day-to-day operations.
Integration Layer Completed for Shopify + CRM
In addition to importing customer records, the Shopify integration with Zoho CRM was completed to help keep customer information more connected and usable moving forward.
Built for What Came Next
That early migration and CRM cleanup laid the groundwork for later improvements, including sales order automation, field invoicing workflows, and the custom DSD driver app built in Zoho Creator.
“Using Creator, Zenatta wrote DSD software (direct store delivery) that integrates with our existing software via CRM.” – David Evans, Owner/CFO, Fidalgo Coffee Roasters
Results
With the new DSD workflow in place and a stronger CRM foundation behind it, Fidalgo gained a scalable system connected to their CRM and supporting tools—without taking on the cost and overhead of a traditional bespoke software build.
- Shopify customer data migrated into Zoho CRM and organized for cleaner day-to-day use.
- Improved CRM structure to better support wholesale and ecommerce processes.
- Mobile-friendly driver operations with route-based order visibility and in-field updates.
- Faster, more accurate invoicing driven directly from delivery activity.
- Improved operational data flow by leveraging Zoho Analytics to pull key information from Fishbowl and sync it into CRM.
- Fidalgo achieved a custom-fit solution at roughly half the cost of alternatives, with no added maintenance fees beyond their Zoho subscription (per client feedback).
“Zenatta’s customer service and highly skilled staff were able to respond to our CRM customization needs. They get the work done about 2x faster than our other Zoho partner. We were able to get bespoke software at about 1/2 the cost of all the other options with no ongoing maintenance fees beyond our Zoho One subscription.”
– David Evans, Owner/CFO, Fidalgo Coffee Roasters
