Customer Success | PPS Office

JavaScript is required for our website to function.

Please disable any browser extensions that block JavaScript from loading.

Ryan Blieden

Managing Director, Payroll Paper Solutions

Every month, Ryan Blieden processes 1,000 or so customer emails using Act!. That’s not bad for a managing director with countless other things to do.

This level of personal productivity is one reason Ryan was able to take his payslip consumables company to a market-leading position in Australia and New Zealand.

“Without Act!, we certainly wouldn’t have achieved the growth we did,” says Ryan. He’s now firmly focused on achieving similar success for PPS Office – which supplies printing products for warehouse use – and once again Act! is playing a central role.

“Act! makes us much more efficient and means things that used to take me 30 to 45 minutes I can do in just 5 minutes. Right now I’m effectively doing three people’s work because of that. Act! is so good when it comes to handling repetitive tasks, which is great in our type of business, where we’re just rolling over the same order for a client from month to month.”

Using a CRM like Act! is a far cry from when Ryan began in business some fifteen years ago. Then, as he admits, his contact management system was much more ‘old school’, with his customers’ records just a few sheets of paper for each one, filed alphabetically in folders.

We wouldn’t have achieved the growth we have without Act!.

No time-consuming set up

Not until his sister joined the company and pointed out the inefficiencies of his system did Ryan accept that he needed some sort of database management system. So he took the plunge and tried replicating his paper-based system using FileMaker.

“It was cheap, but it fell short in quite a few areas. And as we were growing, it was obvious we needed a better CRM that could cope with a bigger database but was still affordable for us as a small business,” says Ryan.

“I was attracted to Act! because of how adaptable it was right from the start, so we didn’t have to spend so much time customizing it as we had to with FileMaker.”

It’s a lesson that Ryan’s keen to pass on, so when he heard about another firm in the same building falling into the same trap, he felt obliged to share his own experience with them.

Speak to an Act! Certified Consultant about what you want to do and they can tweak Act! to help you achieve it. You’ll save yourself a load of time.

Getting even more from Act!

Ryan is also learning more about Act! himself, thanks to the advice he’s been getting from an Act! Certified Consultant.

“They’ve always been there when I’ve needed advice or assistance on how to improve processes,” says Ryan. “They’ve also been really good at pointing me in the right direction so I can learn how to use the software better.”

When PPS upgraded to the latest version, Ryan decided to check out the library of ‘how-to’ video tutorials for Act!. To his surprise, he found there were “bits of Act! that had always been sitting there, but which I’d never used.”

Additionally, Ryan also discovered that the way he had set up his systems wasn’t necessarily the best way to do it. That was a revelation. For instance, he realized he could use the Opportunities feature in Act! to manage product costs, prices and customer discounts more effectively.

“I was about to go and reinvent the wheel before I found that out,” says Ryan. He also saw that he could be making much better use of Act! to dramatically cut the time spent preparing quotes.

Based on his newfound knowledge, Ryan’s advice to anyone just starting out with Act! is, “watch those videos and get to know more and more about Act! and how you could be using it. Then speak to an Act! Certified Consultant about what you want to do and they can tweak Act! to help you achieve it. You’ll save yourself a load of time.”

A new use for Act!

While Act! has been a major part of Ryan’s working day for the last 10 years, in an interesting twist he’s now finding a new way to use it — managing his household bills and reminders.

“I thought, if I’m working with Act! for 40 or 50 hours a week, why swap to something else when it comes to staying on top of my personal tasks?”, says Ryan.

Act! has already proved its worth after Ryan won a dispute with an electricity company, even though there was no documentation, because he was able to show his time-stamped conversations with them.

For someone whose business is all about products that are quickly used up and replaced, Act! is proving to be an indispensable tool with more than a little staying power.

Act! has made us much more efficient and means things that used to take 30 to 45 minutes now take just 5.

Key Takeaways

Ryan is able to effectively manage and keep in contact with over 5,000 customers and 8,000 contacts within his Act! database.
Act!’s KPI dashboard enables Ryan to better manage his team of sales people because he can see emails sent, calls made and tasks completed.
By using Opportunities, Ryan can much more easily stay on top of product costs, prices and customer discounts.
Ryan finds that Act! works seamlessly with Microsoft® Office making it very easy for him to keep track of emails and documents.
Ryan has saved hours of time by speaking with an Act! Certified Consultant.

Download this Act! Success Story

Download Story

About Act!

More than CRM. Your total relationship solution. Act! unites sales, marketing, and customer management in one intuitive platform to help you stay organized, attract new customers, and turn relationships into results.

Act! impresses specialist printing products firm