How One IT Services Company Grew into Cross-Selling Bliss with ConnectWise
Emerge IT Solutions
Kentucky-based Emerge IT Solutions offers managed services, traditional IT services (including an on-site NOC), and value-added reseller services. These different solution offerings, while robust, often contributed to a lack of transparency as different arms of the business operated in silos, which restricted cross-selling opportunities. If a customer wanted to buy a product and have Emerge install and manage it, three separate quotes from three different teams were required—and most of the time, teams didn’t discuss their quotes before distributing.
Even while leveraging Word templates, there was no consistency in pricing or branding between reps and work flows, which led to an overall disconnect. Lack of a centralized information source also created missed revenue opportunities for Emerge. Agreement amendments that were not entered were easily overlooked, resulting in the amendments never being billed. New devices were supported through their RMM tool, but there wasn’t an effective process to bill those additional needs to the customer.
“My biggest challenge is [wearing a lot of] hats—putting them on and being as efficient as possible because I don’t have the resources to be anything but—which is where ConnectWise is really like my third staff. We do a lot of automation.”
– April Sterling, Operations Support Manager at Emerge
A Light at the End of the Tunnel
When Emerge implemented ConnectWise Sell®, they were able to streamline their processes and standardize the steps each team member needed to take. “It was painful before, because it was confusing,” said April Sterling, Operations Support Manager at Emerge. “Now it’s consistent every time.”
April, responsible for quoting, ordering, billing, systems setup, reporting, and new business development, said working efficiently is imperative to her success—and ConnectWise allows her to do just that.
When Automation Became a Game Changer
For their VAR clients, they leverage automation capabilities and templates within ConnectWise Sell to make the quoting process much faster—averaging between 150 and 200 quotes and 60 product orders a month from one team member. Emerge leverages Communications Manager for prospecting new clients and uses automated workflow rules within ConnectWise Manage® to keep their sales account managers on track.
Now, when they’re adding new licenses for their clients, they can send out an automated notification that they’ve made a change to the agreement and the next bill will reflect the new licenses. The entire company has gone from working out of separate systems to a more efficient, streamlined process, which has increased collaboration, raised customer satisfaction, and enabled every team to think globally about their customers.
As they started gaining more customers that touched all parts of their business, they’ve been able to quote and provide them with holistic solutions, enhancing the overall customer experience. “It upped our game and allowed us to start thinking globally about our customers, and helped us be more collaborative internally.”