Improving Communications in a Remote Business

The rise of telecommuting owes itself to the fact that much of business activity happens online. As a result, the workforce has expanded to a global level with savings on overhead costs and a boost in employee productivity. At the same time, cloud business management software has made this remote dream possible.

Simon Eder owns a web development business and oversees seven employees both locally and worldwide. “We have 55 business catalyst sites and about 180 Wordpress and hosting clients.” With such an extensive list of clients and projects, Simon knew he had to consolidate the communications and work between a physically dispersed team.

Multiple Systems + a Remote Team = Twice the Separation

Before implementing Accelo, their team had been using WorkflowMax, Open Goo, Zoho and other open source options to manage their data. Because functionality was spread out over multiple systems, it left holes in the features OolyBooly needed, such as ticketing, contracts, and reporting.

Along with the missing features, the platform platter was missing integrations with Business Catalyst, Google Apps for email, and Quoteroller for proposals-- three platforms they use most often. With a team located locally, worldwide and some contracted employees, the disparation between platforms only caused more disorder. Looking for resolution, Simon sought out a platform that could perform all the functionality OolyBooly needed. “We looked at over 100 broadly and 20 in depth and the Accelo cost/benefit/functionality won out.” 

One Place to Get an Overview of All Things OolyBooly

“I like that I can sign into Accelo and see the status of all the jobs going on.”

Whenever he wants to check up on the status of projects, support tickets or conversations with clients, Simon signs into Accelo and looks through the feed. The activity stream shows every email interaction happening between the team and the clients. Along with that, he can see the progress on all the different Projects, a feature that provides much needed visibility to a remote business.

From Back-and-Forth to Getting Things Done

Another benefit was the integration with their email client. Because a lot of work lies hidden in email conversations, Simon says they liked that they could turn emails into support tickets and jobs. With the ToDo List, all business emails can easily be converted to tasks. 

For example, whenever OolyBooly gets an email about a support issue, it's assigned to a staff member and given to them as a task. Rather than getting lost in an inbox, these requests will stick around until they've been marked as finished. Staying on top of communications not only enhances productivity within a remote team, but also strengthens client relationships.

Improved Billing Process for Quoted Projects and Ongoing Work

OolyBooly produces 1-4 projects per month, including ongoing work for clients. Much of those projects are quoted or fixed fee (web design, SEO, etc.). Since a part of their business is hiring contractors, they like that they can track contract work via non-billable tasks and jobs.

Having all the features they needed in one place not only improved their processes, but also reduced the number of disparate systems they were using.

Trying Accelo in Your Business

If you'd like to see if Accelo can help your business transition to a management platform in the cloud, we'd love you to try it for yourself.

OolyBooly is a web design and development agency based in Perth, Australia. They focus on website and marketing solutions built with Wordpress and Adobe Business Catalyst.