Adopting and adapting software is a big undertaking, even for the tech-savvy.
Doug Linhardt, Director of Client Services at Data41, understood how important it was for his team to have the highest level of support when they customized Accelo to achieve their resource management goals.
A data analytics company in Irvine, California, Data41 uses cutting-edge software to help its clients elevate their enterprise performance. The team, which has grown to 20 strong since the company was founded in 2006, provides B2B clients in all industries with insights into their finances and operations and environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG).
Doug and his team used to use Autotask PSA, but he says it was taking far too much time to do basic scheduling and understand how their resources were being applied. The platform also became more MSP-forward over time, so it was no longer a great fit for Data41. Doug went searching for a new solution.
“We looked at a number of different tools, and Accelo rose to the top as the most flexible and reasonable,” he says. “I really enjoy being able to have retainers, projects and tickets in one place. Other products usually handle retainers or tickets, and then projects are secondary.”
Turns out, this was a wise decision. The team at Data41 love the ability to use Accelo to see each team member’s commitments and remaining hours. Having billable rates attached to tasks was pivotal for accurately tracking billable work. It’s also been convenient to integrate with Office 365 and see all of their emails in the platform.
Functionality is important, but Doug says his favorite thing is the attentiveness of Accelo’s team to users’ needs and requests.
“I like the fact that you’re doing updates continuously and trying to improve the product. That may sound like a small thing, but trust me, when you’re trying to use an old product that’s not really getting updated, it’s problematic.”
Administrator Zach Kamp agrees: “Any time I find an issue, it gets fixed in the next patch.”
Since onboarding in 2020, Data41 has enjoyed more efficient resource management, improved visibility and quicker project scoping.
As a project-based team that also provides customer support, they need to be able to schedule and identify holes in their backlog. Having a unified system for these essential needs is especially useful for alignment because the team has been hybrid since day one.
In three years of working with Accelo’s experts and experimenting on their own, Doug, Zach and the team have been impressed at how flexible and customizable Accelo is.
“You can build it how it ends up working best for you,” says Zach. “We’ve been figuring that out, and it’s just been getting better and better.”
This successful experimentation wouldn’t have been possible without the Premium Support plan. While Doug says Accelo always provided excellent traditional support, he knew the response time would depend on bandwidth. He wanted to provide his team, and especially Zach, with speedy responses and access to deeper problem-solving.
About nine months post-implementation, he signed on to Premium Support. It’s been worth it to have access to two-hour SLAs and expanded modes of support: live chat, phone and video conferencing. This is on top of the email and Community support provided for every user.
“We can just ask simple questions any time,” Zach explains. “There’s good communication through all stages. It’s been nice to have quick, accessible experts that are basically in your back pocket.”
➡️ The folks at Data41 wanted to give a special shout-out to Broc, one of our superstar Tier II Support Engineers! Meet Broc and the rest of these experts, whom we refer to as Team Rocket.
Doug has a deep awareness of how impactful this move has been operationally — and how costly it can be to resist paying for dedicated support.
Rather than “figuring it out” internally, as many try to do, he says learning the best practices from people who know a platform’s nuances is invaluable. Instead of spending a week or two testing and figuring out a new process, Zach can put his time towards other billable work and opportunities for the company.
“My philosophy in a system is that you’re going to fail before you succeed, but you want to kind of shortcut that cycle — and that’s what Premium Support has helped us achieve.”
Doug Linhardt, Director of Client Services
From this big-picture perspective, Doug decided to take advantage of a profitable “shortcut”: having Accelo’s Support and Professional Services teams on hand to help set up time-saving triggers.
In addition to Premium Support, Data41 engaged with Expert Services, Accelo’s consultative program that helps users solve complex problems with personalized solutions.
They were paired up with Dan, an experienced Implementation Manager, to revamp their invoicing procedures. The team learned what they were doing correctly and what they were missing in just a few sessions. Doug says it easily saved his team 80 hours of work.
“When we go through Expert Services, we know we’re speeding up the learning cycle because what we’re being taught has already been tested. Accelo’s experts have seen enough cases that we can trust their guidance and they can fit things to our needs.”
➡️ Users on the Premium Support plan get 20% off Expert Services!
As the firm continues to absorb the advanced knowledge provided by Premium Support and Expert Services, Doug, Zach and the rest of the team at Data41 are excited about the future of their partnership with Accelo.
They’ll be looking to fully implement the Sales module soon, and they can’t wait to see what’s to come with the upcoming release of Accelo v4 and the brand-new mobile app.
Are you an Accelo user looking for additional support channels and even faster response times? Learn more about our Premium Support plan.
