Faye

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Operations of a sales consulting company. 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Management, operations, and sales consulting; executive coaching; leadership development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Faye to accomplish?

• Implementation of a new CRM to support scalable growth and improve operational efficiency

SOLUTION

How did you find Faye?

Referral

Why did you select Faye over others?

Referred to me

How many teammates from Faye were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Consultation services to identify areas of improvement and aid in solutions. Project management & Implementation, overseeing the entire process from planning to execution. Training and support for the new system. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Improved ability to measure and track sales pipeline. 
• Improved ability to track and record client interactions and history. 

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

• Communication effectiveness: Faye provided weekly project status updates and was always available for questions and clarity. Our rep Dallin was good about clarifying and following up to ensure communications were understood - both in content and purpose.
• Problem-solving capabilities: Although we ran into quite a few situations where the ideal sales flow was blocked due to platform limitations, we were always provided work around solutions to try and meet our needs, and honest representations of what was possible or not, even if that was different from prior assumptions/expectations.

What was your primary form of communication with Faye?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I was impressed by Faye's exceptional customer service and willingness to go the extra mile.  

Are there any areas for improvement or something Faye could have done differently?

I think the handoff between Sales and the Project team could have been smoother. I felt that there were aspects of service that were communicated as being part of the offering, but were not included in the package when we first met with the implementation team. One example of this was Spanish language translation. 

Separately, I do not think the full goals were communicated well from the sales account representative to the project team. We were able to easily rectify this during initial discussions with the project team lead and management structure, but I think that could have been avoided in the first place.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Daseke owns specialized flatbed and trucking companies. We implement systems to integrate those companies and help them with their operations, like passing loads back and forth. I’m the business system manager. I help the companies collaborate better, and I take care of a lot of the project management.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Faye Business Systems Group?

We brought in Faye Business Systems Group to help us implement SugarCRM so that the sales team could track the daily operations between the companies.

There was a bit of complexity around our design and our CRM because we have Daseke-level accounts, and each operating company also works with internal accounts on its own. There was a lot of configuration and logic design around how they would be set up and how users would engage with those accounts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In the beginning, we brought together sales leaders from our operating companies to do a session and talk about the current and the future state of the system. We discussed the design and the requirements needed and other details on the security, like the UI and the functionality. FayeBSG facilitated those meetings and helped us understand how to design the system according to our needs. They really helped us navigate how to make SugarCRM work for our operating companies and for Daseke as a whole.

They currently work on the system implementation and user adoption. They walk us through how to configure the system to support the design that we need.

What is the team composition?

We have four primary contacts from FayeBSG’s team. Luke (PMO Manager) is our main point of contact and our recurring support person. Jason (President) conducted the initial session. There’s also a system admin who helps us configure our system and support it and a person on the sales side.

How did you come to work with Faye Business Systems Group?

FayeBSG has a positive reputation for helping people implement a system and getting user adoption which is something most companies always struggle with. Others would implement a system, but users won't actually use it because it might not be designed in an intuitive way to help them with their day-to-day work. For us, it made sense that, if we were going to spend that amount of money on a system, we wanted users to actually use it.

One of our operating companies had already engaged with FayeBSG to implement SugarCRM, and they highly recommended them. Other CRMs like Salesforce are very sophisticated and don't have the same reputation for ease of use and user adoption. Those CRMs don’t have implementers at the level of expertise and support that FayeBSG provides. It was worth it to spend the extra money for the support level that would get us to achieve our goals.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2019, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

One proof of user adoption and project success is we have users engaged to the point where they're asking for enhancements and pointing out where they're finding issues in the system.

They're actually engaged in using it daily and can identify if there's a problem, or if there are assets needed that would help things work even better. These users are primarily sales leaders. We still have a long way to go to have an overall user adoption, but we're at the point where sales users are raising their hand and asking for improvements. Overall, we’re happy with their services.

How did Faye Business Systems Group perform from a project management standpoint?

FayeBSG’s management is fantastic. They have better communication than any other project implementation team I've ever worked with in my career. They track tasks and manage them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

FayeBSG’s communication on tasks is stellar.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they could change — that tells you how good they are.

Any advice for potential customers?

Definitely work with them. Have strongly engaged users on your side who want to understand the system — it’s really important. Don’t expect them to just give you the vanilla version of their system and leave it there.

Using their expertise as much as possible will really help you as a customer. Had we just plugged in SugarCRM, it wouldn't have been useful. Taking time to engage with them and talking about how you need the system to work really pays off. Be engaged in those exhausting discussions, they’ll get you results.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president and co-founder of a construction company. We started in 2012 in a suburb of Chicago, and we have since grown to six markets. We perform more than 4,000–5,000 residential construction projects every year.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Faye Business Systems Group?

We were limited in how fast we could scale because we were using analog systems and we relied on paper. It was difficult for our teams to collaborate quickly and easily because we had so many systems that required a handoff — often physical — or for someone to pick up a workflow that had been dropped online. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Faye is integrating our operations with the enterprise version of SugarCRM. They are transitioning our company from an analog to a digital system. 

Faye helped us integrate the enterprise version of SugarCRM.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 13–14 people from Faye.

How did you come to work with Faye Business Systems Group?

We found an early SugarCRM partner that was using the open-source SugarCRM software. We began using that version, but it was not easy since there was no support for it, nor any way to change it. The CRM was expensive and slow. As we started to see the benefit of having online systems and online protocols, we knew that we were going down a problematic path. 

That's when we started looking for SugarCRM partners to get us to the enterprise version of SugarCRM, as opposed to the open-source version. I just started calling partners from the SugarCRM website, and I got a call back from Jason (President) in minutes. They were very responsive, and the rest is history.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent a couple of million dollars with them through the years. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2016, and we are still working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Faye is critical to our existence. We are constantly leaning on them to adjust to our pace. The tools that we are developing with them allow us to onboard people, shorten their proficiency timeline, and increase the total efficiency per person. We scale so quickly that we need more changes and features from SugarCRM. 

Our metric for their success is our own success. We feel as though Faye’s team is an extension of ourselves. When we grow to 100%, we actually need them to grow at 100%. The results of their work help us grow. Even during a pandemic, we increased our revenue from $40 million to $55 million. We are now on pace to achieve upwards of $90 million in revenue. It's all because they've given us the tools to do this work without dropping quality or creating slack.

How did Faye Business Systems Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They are very good at project management. We have weekly cadence calls, during which they provide updates on timelines or any obstacles we encounter. They're very open about how they're progressing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They do a better job than most at understanding our needs, use potential, and pain points. They respond quickly to make any changes or improvements if something isn't working. If it is working, they are ready to find the next thing that they can improve.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They've already identified that they need more resources, so we're working on bringing additional engineers and developers or another team to help us deliver more items that we need as we grow. The only feedback I can give is for them to scale with us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Focus on the objective of the collaboration, and know that Faye is going to own it as much as your internal team does. Because of the quality of their relationship, you don't need to focus on the complicated, fuzzy details. 

Faye is completely on your side, and you should engage them as if they are partners. Don't push them out for any reason; rather, let them know what's going on.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the COO of a diversified financial services company, and we have two main business practices, which are valuation and disposition or liquidation. We value and sell any business asset on the balance sheet and are involved in large retail liquidations and the liquidations of distressed companies. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Faye Business?

We needed someone to manage our SugarCRM system, which we’ve been using for several years to operate our entire business. We do not work with SugarCRM’s company directly. Instead, we work with a consulting firm that could do all the development and maintenance on the platform. 

We’d cycled through a couple of different partners, including an overseas firm that got us to a certain point, but we were looking for somebody that understood our business and could help us develop more strategic solutions. We also wanted to move back to a domestic resource because it would make us more productive and efficient, not having to work in different time zones. This is why we’ve partnered with Faye Business.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

A CRM is usually used to track contacts or touchpoints but we use it in a much broader way — as a sales and marketing tool and as a business operation tool. Compared to Salesforce and other CRMs, SugarCRM is open-source, meaning anybody can get into the code and customize it according to their needs, which is what we rely on Faye Business to do.

There are two things the team works on. First, they maintain the systems we’ve had for nine years. We do over 2,000 appraisals a year, and they all get booked through SugarCRM. When things break and need to be upgraded, they are in charge of it. Second, anytime we want to add in a new module or functionality, they do the development. They scope the work, assign resources to it, and do all of the heavy lifting.

How did you come to work with Faye Business?

We went through a vendor selection process and landed on Faye Business. They stood out from other companies because they had the expertise and experience with SugarCRM, which was what we needed. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Faye Business around two and a half or three years ago. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Though our arrangement with Faye Business is not as formal as other vendor relationships, we do look at the on-time delivery of the project and the functionality of the work. We track the actual hours worked against the hours that we’ve contracted because we could either get charged if we go over or their team would credit us future work if we were under. The good thing is that we stick with the agreement and always hit pretty close to the targeted number of hours every month. 

The service they provide is excellent. They have the ability to roll up their sleeves and do the development work. It’s important to us that Faye Business understands our business because, then, we can approach a problem business-side first before supporting it with the technology. 

How did Faye Business perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team is very strong when it comes to communication and sticking to deadlines. They have a project management system that we are linked into, so we can submit tickets and requests for whatever work we need to get done. 

I often have a laundry list of tasks, but Faye Business stays on top of our project management, which makes them an excellent partner.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Faye Business has a really strong bench of resources for project management, technical tasks, and business development. 

We’ve developed a very close relationship with the team and feel like they’re an extension of our business. They have good relationship development skills across the organization and they’re very accessible; I have a direct line with several people within their group. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes we get a little bottlenecked when it comes to upgrading our code in the system because the person who manages it is working with other clients. When we have something that’s ready, we still have to fall in the queue because we’re relying on this one resource. We don’t want to lose him, of course; we simply want to get more of his services. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

For anybody who’s getting into a technology project, before you start to develop the technology platform, take the time to understand your business process to make sure that what you’re developing complements and supports it. Instead of having to change the business process to fit into a technology, map out how your business works today, how it could work in the future, and how technology can enable it. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CFO COO of Marketing Innovations International, Inc.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We supply logoed promotional products that get people’s attention.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Faye to accomplish?

• Customize ERP Software to better fit business needs
• Implement and integrate CRM with ERP Software
• Provide CIO-level advice and guidance

SOLUTION

How did you find Faye?

• Referral
• Other

Why did you select Faye over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Faye has acted as a fractional CIO for almost 30 years overseeing the development and implementation of ERP Software customizations and SugarCRM integration, providing wise insights to anticipate ever-changing technology challenges and assuring the software does what we want it to do.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Improved efficiencies and provided operational solutions within the ERP Software that did not exist out of the box..

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Provided deliverables on time with continuous communication.

What was your primary form of communication with Faye?

• In-Person Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their ability to understand the business needs and find a solution when no one else could was impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Faye could have done differently?

Nothing comes to mind.