Making the decision to implement a Service Operations Automation platform like Accelo can be a daunting experience for many service professionals. At first, it might feel like you’re taking on more work or simply asking for more pain, but it’s important to realize how simple and rewarding it can be - not just for you, but for your entire team.
With so many businesses still running on a cocktail of disconnected tools we thought we’d share with you this first-hand account of an individual who took a chance on automation and hasn't looked back...
Delia has been the Managing Director of IT Engine, a New Zealand based software solutions company for almost two decades and loves everything about the industry; the gadgets, the trends, and the constant change of pace. And being the expert she is, Delia knew that if she didn’t keep up with the changing pace of technology, she’d get left behind with her competitors.
Delia and her team had been using an in-house tool that they continually had to customize to suit their needs - but there was one major problem - it didn’t integrate with any other essential systems or automate their busywork. To put it as simply as Delia did: “It was driving the team crazy!”
She shopped around for a smarter platform and landed on Accelo, and, after a month of perseverance and great support, she's up and running with a cloud-based system that manages all of her client-facing work in one place.
We asked Delia to share some helpful tips for other service professionals who might be in the same boat as she once was; tired of inefficient technology, desperate for a modern solution, and slightly intimidated by change. Here's what she had to say:
Switching to a smart platform will be overwhelming at first, but bear with it. We kick-started our implementation process with an hour and a half phone call that helped Accelo understand how we worked. From there, we had ongoing support calls to fully understand how we should approach different parts of the platform to work more efficiently but still at our own comfortable pace.
We chose to implement Accelo in the month of January as this is generally a quieter period for many service businesses - so that really helped us as we had time to digest all the training and familiarize ourselves with new workflows.
"We literally jumped in with both boots and haven’t looked back!"
Rather than stew on a problem that was stunting our progress, we called our support rep at Accelo and had an answer to our problem within minutes. How? Because they understand the platform more than anyone else. Anytime we came up against something that we couldn't figure out ourselves, we’d just make a note to go over that in our next call and ‘wha lah’ problem solved.
Our engineering team struggled with the implementation process because they were the ones who didn’t have enough mental space at the end of the day to focus on learning something new. But, being the engineers that they are, they wrote themselves they’re own ‘cheat sheet’ which has gone a long way in helping them (and newcomers) get their head around service operations automation technology.
Once we’d all adjusted to our new business software (after just a month!), we began to experiment with integrations. For example, we now integrate with Xero and Exchange to further simplify our workflows and take full advantage of the platform - and already we can see that it’s ‘ticking all of the boxes.’ For example, a job like billing which used to take days is now a matter of minutes.
"Bottom line, If we’d known in the early days that there was a solution to our problems we would have invested in automation long ago."
But in saying that, it does take time to find the right software and one that works for you, not against you.
If Delia’s experience is something you can relate to or if it makes you want to learn more about the benefits of automation, click here to start your free trial of Accelo today.
