StackBoost

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of operations for Healthcare Solutions Direct. We’re an insurance agency that sells insurance products to the senior population.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with StackBoost?

We hired them for integration services for our Five9 call center platform and a CRM build.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The engagement involved sourcing all of our information from our current CRM, building it into the new CRM and then customizing the CRM to have automation. It’s built on Jira.

For the integration, we needed seamless integration from our sales department to our customer service department to improve their communication.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with multiple techs, but primarily communicated with Rich (Founder).

How did you come to work with StackBoost?

They were referred to us by word of mouth.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project is complete. All of our redundant tasks are done by a computer now rather than a human, which increases our return on profit. They’ll continue managing all of our backend. Their quality was solid. There are always mistakes, but they were minimal during this build.

How did StackBoost perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management style is very fluid, rather than structured. The world of project management is very black and white, but Rich doesn’t work in that world, which is fine with me.

He wants to get the most significant problem out of the way and then will fix the little issues. This is also how I operate, which made the project feel seamless.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Rich doesn’t sugarcoat anything. There are no surprises. Customers might not like the answer because they want it to go a certain way, but he’s going to give them that feedback. He wants to help his clients.

He also knows what he can accomplish and what he can’t. He's not going to promise anything he can't do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were a few typos on certain things that were very simple. It’s not a big deal, but something that needed to be addressed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you know what you want before you get into it. Make sure that you have a clear outlined scope of what you want to accomplish. As long as you know what you want it to look like in the end, you’re going to get that.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the operations manager of a marketing agency. We do marketing for our clients and promote their services and provide potential prospects for them to sell products or offer their services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with StackBoost?

We hired them to build software so we could automate our process and alleviate some of our time-consuming responsibilities.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built a CRM for us. It’s a database that’s capable of going through our workflow automatically. It’s also used as a reference point for our vendors and our clients, so that we can show transparency into our process.

How did you come to work with StackBoost?

I’ve worked with Richard (Owner) in the past, and he’s done a phenomenal job at everything he does.

What is the team composition?

Richard is my main point of contact.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve paid about $15,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together on April 1st, 2020 and our work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The work has allowed me, as someone that does the backend administrative high-end tasks, to not micro-manage the employees’ work as much because they know it’s getting done thoroughly. Now, I can step back and make sure things are operating efficiently. It’s been very beneficial and has combined all of our other solutions into one.

How did StackBoost perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform well. We use Slack and Skype to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Richard is amazing to work with.  He can manage a lot at one and meet all of our expectations. It’s a pleasure to work with somebody who can code and simultaneously translate my ideas into software. It’s not something a lot of people in the tech world can do, it makes working with him seamless.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

Ideally, I’d want them to increase the amount of attention they give to our project so that they can focus and get it done from start to finish. I understand they’re a small company though, so that challenge is expected.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to have a thorough outline that’s as detailed as possible.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of LLG Trading Corp (Live Leads GURU). We do marketing campaigns for a number of different countries nationally.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with StackBoost?

We were trying to consolidate a number of different software portals into one system that would offer better reporting and greater efficiency.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They consolidated three different platforms into one single user log-in. This allows for data-sharing across all the platforms. The three platforms included a dialer service, a CRM service, and a fulfillment and activation system. 

Before, none of the information from the frontend dialer system was connected to the results of the backend of the product delivery or the retention of people on the service over time. Now, I can see each salesperson and their results in real-time, along with their retention over any period of time.

What is the team composition?

I only communicated with a project manager named Rich (Founder).

How did you come to work with StackBoost?

Rich was referred to me by a colleague.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with StackBoost in November of 2019, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’ve employed 5-6 programming teams to do different projects like this over the past four years. StackBoost was hands-down the best. This is evident through their quality of work, their follow-through, their capability to hit deadlines, and their frequent updates about the timeline. 

How did StackBoost perform from a project management standpoint?

Their communication was absolutely phenomenal all the way through the process. He communicated every single step of the way in every way you could possibly want.

We had some delays on the project that weren’t related to anything StackBoost could control. They were on top of it and continued to deliver results. Even when we were waiting on third-parties to deliver, they were tenacious about making sure deadlines were met and getting results.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their thorough work ethic and their consistent follow-ups were impressive. Also, their ongoing support after the project was technically complete stood out. They stayed on for a period of time, continuing to check in to see if any issues had arisen.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I couldn’t have been happier with these guys — it was unbelievable. Compared to the work I’ve had done in the past, it was night and day. In fact, this is why we decided to take on another project with StackBoost.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you clearly communicate your expectations. Look at any third parties that may be necessary to get the job completed and understand their influence on the project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am work at Medigap Healthcare, a health insurance agency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with StackBoost?

We initially brought StackBoost in to work with our CRM to capture data fields we needed. Next, we wanted to analyze data and how the data correlated to other data points. This led to a project involving system automation. We wanted all of our systems to talk to each other in an automated fashion so we didn’t have to hire full-time staffers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

StackBoost worked as a remote contractor on our Jira-based CRM software. They worked with data analysis through Jira to analyze customer data and metrics. StackBoost allowed us to access the data in a way that was convenient and made sense. They added Tableau integration to pull automated lead reports from the CRM so we could better understand our customers.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Richard (Founder, StackBoost) on the data project. Our marketing team worked with a few others.

How did you come to work with StackBoost?

I’ve known Richard for a few years. I chose to work with him because he doesn’t say no; he also sees how technology affects the business and how both correlate to each other.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $100,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working in April 2018 and the project is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our number of leads generated has increased by 300% since we implemented the lead management software. It’s improved efficiency and marketing performance; our stick rate with customers has improved by 10% while also allowing us to handle more calls. We’ve also seen our expenses go down because we would’ve hired two full-time employees without their automated system.

How did StackBoost perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re good; I’ve been using them for years. Even if I text Richard with an idea late at night, he picks up and explores that idea with me. Their communication and ability to walk me through ideas are great.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve never been able to find anyone other than StackBoost that can understand the technical and financial sides of the business and how they correlate. Through this acuity, he finds alternative methods to accomplish my goals.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’re extremely good at what they do.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would say over-explain and over-communicate what you’re trying to achieve. Don’t just tell them what you want, tell them why you want it and make sure you communicate all the important aspects. If you over-communicate, it’s going to be a perfect marriage of success.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of an insurance company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Stackboost?

We have a lot of remote agents as well as in-house agents, and we needed a tracking system to give us the ability to get into the weeds of exactly what’s happening and who’s doing what at any given moment.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

With each particular lead, there are a wide variety of different insurance providers and even more types of products that are actually being sold. We need a way to track and monitor every single one of those transactions, and Richard (CEO, Stackboost) has made it very streamlined for us to get a picture of how many active clients we have on a daily, monthly, quarterly review. That includes who’s touching the product, what product is sent to what person, if there are any status changes, or if there’s a payment that doesn’t go through.

He has been able to customize Jira and Confluence to do that, as well as to create unique tools for us. The biggest problem we had is that we provide our remote agents with a computer so that we can retain control with everything that’s going on with those clients, but a lot of the agents have problems using them. Richard enabled us to basically sit down on our end and go into their computer and fix the problem by ourselves using this EST tool.

Essentially, any technical issues we have we can take to Richard, and he designs programs around what we need. With every improvement we’ve made or solution we’ve developed, we have an outline pretty much within five days and are fully implemented at 40.

What is the team composition?

Most of the time I just deal with Richard. He leads a team, but everything I do goes straight to him.

How did you come to work with Stackboost?

I heard he was starting this company from a couple of other companies I know in healthcare, so when I started that I called him up and asked him if he would be able to help us out. We sat down and went through the whole thing with him and he immediately knew that he had a solution for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $50,000-$60,000 so far and are expecting to double that budget within the next year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in January 2019 and our work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s been an incredible asset for our business. One thing I think Richard has got going for him is that not only does he do a great job, but he can go from business need to solution without making you deal with any of the technical drama in between. Some of our agents are 60–65 years old and the program he’s made has been the easiest thing for them to use.

In the past, we had to have four employees specifically tasked with looking through all of the reports—looking at sales per day, per week, per month, and per year­—just to make sure that all of the carriers we work with are providing us with all of the information we need.

Now all of those characters can just log in on their end and fill everything in and that translates into a real-time picture of everything going on for us. It’s made an unbelievable difference in streamlining our entire process.

How did Stackboost perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management is unbelievable. Richard is always able to take what my partner and I want to do and create the program we need to do it. He learned our business inside and out and builds these key tools that just work well.

He is one of the few people I have ever met who can understand what we want from a business perspective and then just build it. He makes things very simple and absolutely intuitive for us to use.

Every day we have 12 different products, about 48 carriers and another 61 on the health side, and he has streamlined all of the processes that they’re involved in and made a system that is very easy to use. I’ve never had anybody who started once we were using his programs who couldn’t understand and use it within less than a week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I am always absolutely blown away by the quality of their work and the efficiency with which they are able to grasp the problem and solve it. It’s rare to have a programmer who understands business needs and can implement something that you can use right away.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I really don’t think there is anything they could improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust what he’s doing. Tell him exactly what you need, and he’ll be able to come back to you with a product that is actually better than what you thought it was going to be.