InfoGrow

Can you provide a little background on your company?

We are a software developer for multiple platforms, and we market to large corporations. We also have a division that I’m involved with now, which is our healthcare division. We create, market, sell, and support software for the chiropractic industry, both their back office practice management software as well as the doctor’s documentation notes software.

What was your main objective going into the project with InfoGrow?

We were using GoldMine as our database and our records management system. We needed to move from that because we had outgrown GoldMine. We did an internal search and decided to go with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We then hired a consultant to work with us on the implementation. It was not InfoGrow. We had all kinds of problems. It actually delayed our implementation by eight months. So, we finally moved over to Microsoft Dynamics, but we still had problems. We obviously were no longer using the original group that we had hired. I did a search and found InfoGrow; I engaged InfoGrow in the summer of last year, and they came in and helped us tremendously. They looked at how we had things set up, made recommendations on how it could be more efficient, dug in to our software, and worked with the various department heads. I wish I had found them 18 months ago. It would have made our life so much easier.

What were the reasons for choosing Microsoft CRM as opposed to, say, Salesforce or Sugar?

That decision was really made at the corporate level. They decided to do that because at the time, some of our divisions were using GoldMine, some were using another record system, and some were using an internal system that we had homegrown. We needed to get everybody in one system. As they did the search, they decided that the Dynamic solution was the best fit for all of our divisions. We haven’t fully implemented our plan for all the divisions yet—they’re working on the second division this summer, as a matter of fact. Once we get all our division history, once we get them all on CRM, then they’ll integrate our accounting system. I believe they’re using Math as our accounting system; that also can be integrated with CRM. That was a big deal for us, that we could have even our accounting integrated with this solution In the healthcare division, we went on to find a live chat software that would integrate with Dynamics for my support team to use. WhosOn is what we’re using as far as our chat that integrates with CRM. That was one of the big benefits for us, that there was so much integration with other products.

Is InfoGrow working with the other divisions as well?

Yes. They’re not actively working with them right now. We’re still in the internal stage, and we’re mapping things out. The healthcare division was the guinea pig. They’re going to use healthcare as the template and then modify what they need for each individual division. They are talking and working with InfoGrow.

How happy are you with what they’ve delivered so far?

Very, very happy. Bob Sullivan is who I originally started talking with, and he is very much the professional. He totally understood the pain that he could hear in my voice when we first had our conversation. He brought in one of their engineers, Steve Luc, who actually worked with us on the account, and Steve was just phenomenal. He actually had a background with GoldMine, so he knew some of the challenges that we were facing in going from GoldMine to CRM. He was very helpful in making recommendations to us as well as fixing some of the problems that we had created for ourselves.

When working with InfoGrow, is there anything that you find to be unique or special compared to other developers that you’ve worked with?

I think a big part of it is in going from the group that we’ve worked with originally that we were unhappy with, InfoGrow suddenly put my mind at ease in that they just became a partner in this with me immediately. They jumped in with both feet. I had a call with Bob and Steve early in our discussions, along with our project manager who was leading the transition to CRM, and they both just jumped in with both feet. We did a two-hour go-to meeting and showed them the overall setup of what we were doing. They were able to just jump in immediately and say, “Right now, I can tell you this, this, and this. You could make some changes and see huge rewards.” I am impressed by their level of personalization, and they started adding value immediately. It made me feel much better about the project.

Looking back on the work they’ve done for you, is there anything that you would do differently a second time around or think that they could improve upon?

Nothing that I think they can improve upon. What I would do differently is I would engage them right out of the gate. Had we had their expertise in helping us initially map out what we wanted to do before doing any type of customization, it would have put my project on time. I wouldn’t have been eight months delayed in trying to get it working the way that we could just use it. That’s why when we finished implementing on the healthcare side. I went to the EVP of our core division, who are the next ones slated to do the transition, and said, you definitely have to work with these guys, because they know what they’re doing. They know the pains that we had in GoldMine and how we’re trying to resolve them in CRM, and it’s been valuable. That’s why they’re working with them.