CrankWheel & Yell helping SMBs during CV-19 lockdown

Screen sharing for sales calls helps SMBs continue to sell during the pandemic the same way Yell Limited has done for over 4 years, with extended free usage

Reykjavík, Iceland: For Iceland-based CrankWheel, working remotely from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic is nothing new. It has always been a remote-first company, with team members across 7 countries in 3 continents working together. The company provides screen sharing solutions tailor-made for sales teams, letting salespeople transform a regular phone call into a type of online meeting where a presentation or product demo can be shown, so the team is used to not only practicing remote work, but also enabling it.

With the onset of CV-19, CrankWheel saw a massive surge in interest for their specialized solution. “We had grown to about 90,000 registered users in February, recently at a rate of about 2,500 per month. With the onset of COVID-19, almost overnight, the number of new monthly users tripled - we added over 7.500 users in March and that rate has continued and grown since then,” said Jói Sigurdsson, the company’s CEO.

Another strong trend CrankWheel saw start in March was an increase in their larger business customers transitioning hundreds of field sales agents to doing online sales meetings from their home office. One of these was UK-based Yell Limited, a customer since 2016.

“We wanted to find ways to help businesses keep selling through the pandemic,” Jói recalls. “One of our efforts to this end was a series of webinars designed for the hundreds of field sales agents we were seeing being transitioned to telesales. Another initiative was sparked from a conversation with our contacts at Yell, who were putting together offers from their partners designed to help SMBs.”

An offer was put together and is now listed on Yell’s partner page, where SMBs can sign up to use CrankWheel’s commercial version for free for an extended period, and to retain modest usage for free after that, or upgrade with a special discount.

Howard Cooke, Head of Service Management, for Yell for Business (UK) commented:

“We’ve been working with CrankWheel for over 4 years and their online support for our sales team and their customers is ever more important in these challenging times. We’re delighted we’ve been able to negotiate an extended free period for our customers, plus a new discounted price for customers, post the three months. Support for our SMB community is crucial in this environment and we are making sure we’re doing all we can to help them get back on their feet and back to business as soon as possible.”

About CrankWheel, ehf.: CrankWheel is a provider of a screen sharing solution that is tailor-made for telesales teams, letting salespeople transform an ongoing phone call into a type of online meeting with a presentation or product demo. Founded in 2015, CrankWheel’s system has been used for over a quarter of a million sales meetings since the advent of CV-19. CrankWheel was voted Iceland’s Best Bootstrapped Startup in the Nordic Startup Awards, 2017.

About Yell Limited: Yell is No.1 for managed digital marketing services for all types of local businesses in the UK*. Its goal is simple - to connect consumers and businesses online. Yell.com features a range of tools to help consumers in their search for trusted suppliers including ratings and reviews, mobile apps, messaging and more. Yell is one of the largest resellers of Google Ads in the UK and provides a full range of managed digital marketing services for businesses including Pay Per Click, Websites, Display adverts, Social media and directory listings. Over 100,000 businesses currently advertise with Yell, and Yell.com is used by millions of consumers every month.

*Source: M-Brain 2019, in terms of revenue from sales of managed digital marketing services