Dave Howell with Velocity Audio Visual, Inc., knows the cardinal rule for implementing software the right way: invest in training from the very beginning. In May, they were able to successfully overhaul their contacts, inventory and systems from FileMaker to Flex and he attributes that to one-on-one training he received with Flex Rental Solutions CEO Chris Stein.
Velocity AV invests in the right rental management software
Velocity AV is a full-service AV company with more than 19-year track record of servicing clients nationwide from their corporate office in San Diego. Howell himself has 36 years’ experience in the AV and Event industry. Velocity serves the corporate event market — a focus on technology and pharmaceutical sectors, as well as putting on spectacular galas and festivals.
“We do a lot of cool nonprofit and fundraising stuff, the diversity of people you meet with is incredible, the industry exposes you to a lot of people you don’t really meet on a regular basis,” said Howell.
The company has been growing steadily year after year, and their current system was just not keeping up with the complexity and demand of managing and tracking equipment and logistics. They’ve been running their business using FileMaker — which acts as a self-created database — but it lacked the functionality and power to fully track his investments and ROI.
But — he knows the best software implementation project can fail without the right training and support in place.
“I couldn’t track the return on our AV investments, there was no billing integration,” said Howell, “I have been looking for software that made sense with how we do business, but everything that I could find was software that was adapted to our industry, but Flex was a system written around our industry and around the unique ways we do business.”
Flex training makes a difference
“We didn’t have a full understanding of all the software could do, and that is why we invested in onsite training,” said Howell, “it opened our eyes to how flexible the system is and how easily we could set up the right processes for doing things, we had a good idea of how the system operated, but we still needed some extra guidance on understanding parent-child relationships.”
Howell said they were able to get all their processes in place in less than five months — a lot sooner than they had expected, thanks to onsite training.
“The biggest thing we struggled with was integration with our client database, we invested in having Flex import our client database, the training really helped us realize what we were missing and all the things we could be doing.”
Velocity AV is a relatively small company — there’s 8 in the company in total, but it was important for Howell to invest in training for most their team members, or at least those involved with warehouse operations, sales and quoting, operations and billing.
“All my questions were answered during onsite training, we were even able to customize Flex to our specific needs right then and there, there were several things we didn’t know we could do and Chris helped us figure it out, it was really helpful” he said.
“We have it all in Flex and helps us move our inventory and manage everything, we can streamline our sub-rental process and keep us from over-renting equipment,” added Howell, “with reports I can also track our investment and easily find which items are giving me a higher return.”
On site training provides Flex users with one-on-one personalized training especially designed to meet their unique business needs. Beforehand, we try to learn the customer’s pain points, goals, obstacles to success, and any implementation roadblock that may be preventing them from using Flex to its full potential. We become invested in our client’s success from beginning to end.
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