From a Lead to an Invoice – How many Apps are needed?

This consulting firm's old systems were straining to cope with a rapidly growing business. The alternatives they tried were complicated, expensive, and involved multiple apps. The solution?

Company

TechHelp Idaho provides consulting services to Idaho manufacturers. They supply everything from information and training to technical and professional assistance, all to help manufacturers be more competitive.

The company has a team of 10 to 15 consultants around the state, with offices attached to three major Idaho state universities: Boise State University, University of Idaho, and Idaho State University.

Challenges

TechHelp Idaho was supposed to be helping clients, but when it came to client engagement, they were the ones who needed help.

“Prior to WORKetc, the entire front end of our client engagement was dark,” said Bill Mullane, TechHelp Idaho’s marketing manager. “Everyone was just doing their own thing. The first visibility we’d really have with a client would be if the engagement turned into a billable project.”

TechHelp Idaho was still plodding along using their old in-house system, TechTrak, to monitor clients and projects, until the company got a wake-up call.

“We have sister centers in all 50 states,” said Mullane, “and many of those had used our old system, TechTrak. By about five years ago maybe, most of them had moved off that system we’d built and had moved on to other products like SalesForce or Microsoft Dynamics, you name it.

“They all had kind of moved on and moved to the cloud and we’re the last center using this old, not cloud-based system. And at a national conference, we were used as an example, nationwide, of what not to do. So we were determined at that time, we need to change.

“We tried everything,” Mullane continued. “We sampled, test drove every system out there and they all were just lacking. All of our 50 sister centers around the US, none of them could find a system that they could use to manage their business without using bits and pieces of other programs. And then we came across WORKetc.”

Solution

Of all the solutions TechHelp Idaho tried, WORKetc was the all-in-one, cloud-based business management system that did everything the company needed it to do.

“We test drove it and went, ‘Wow, wait a second. This is what we’ve been looking for”, said Mullane. “This could really manage our business end to end. We’re not going to have to pick from among ten thousand apps that might fit the project mode and another ten thousand that might fit the billing.”

“And not only that, but it was affordable. There were other products out there that some of our centers had linked to, but they were just prohibitively expensive and complicated. WORKetc just worked, it was simple, it was affordable and it managed the business end to end and did what we wanted it to do.

“There was a lot of retyping in our old system,” said Mullane. “There was a lot of moving things from one system to another system. Now with WORKetc, everything is in one place and we can use the information that’s already there to move to the next stage of a client engagement.“

Results

WORKetc was a game-changer for TechHelp Idaho, giving them more capabilities than ever before.

“The biggest impact for us is market reach,” said Mullane. “We were flying blind before; we were dark on the front end of our business. Getting all of our contact information in one place and then with WORKetc we’re able to tag those clients you know based on geographic location, industry, area of interest, things like that. We’re able to communicate with our clients in a way that’s more meaningful to them, so we’re not sending information about a cheese-making workshop to someone who makes software.“

TechHelp Idaho is now able to automate and track the process in a transparent, visible way with webforms in WORKetc.

“We started using Google webforms a while back. Simple captures information creates a little spreadsheet — that was nice. WORKetc took it to the next level,” said Mullane. “With WORKetc we can create web forms in an easy, intuitive, point and click way. It does a lot of things for us. It allows our client to come to us and ask for help and just with a simple link on a webpage opens a web form. And now our clients are giving us valuable information — their names, company email address, titles, everything we need to know about them.“

“Just in the last five months or so we’ve received over 40 leads through the web form system,” said Mullane. “We wouldn’t have had any of those leads in our old system until they became a billable project.”

In addition to the powerful web forms feature, Mullane also finds WORKetc’s Gmail Gadget extremely useful.

“The Gmail gadget is amazing and we haven’t even really tapped the power of it yet,” Mullane explained. “I can attach anything to anything in WORKetc, right from my Gmail inbox. I get an email from a new client and then attach it — boom! Put it in the system. Get an email from a client I’m already engaged with, click and attach it back to the lead, attach it to the project, attach it to billing.

“We’re seeing more business, more leads, more sales,” said Mullane. “Our workshops are more full. Our communication is more effective. Our consultants are busy.“

There were other products out there that some of our centers had linked to, but they were just prohibitively expensive and complicated. WORKetc just worked, it was simple, it was affordable, and it managed the business end to end and did what we wanted it to do.

— Bill Mullane, Marketing Manager, TechHelp Idaho