Agency Drivers

“We decided to invest in replacement software and after extensive research, settled on the product of one of your competitors, a leading supplier with an apparently comprehensive system which, on paper anyway, should do all that we required. Unfortunately it was a disaster for us and after eight months of unending queries, engineer's visits, program upgrades and the printing of large volumes of specialist stationery, we gave up and obtained a complete refund of the, not inconsiderable, purchase price.

Then DataCraft appeared on our horizon….

The RDS program has a much lower price than the others we looked at, is much more comprehensive, very much more flexible and much faster. We are impressed with the speed, simplicity and flexibility of the system and even more, with the speed and effectiveness of your after-sales support.

Your company quickly grasped the nature of our requirements and has developed a surprising depth of understanding of our business which has resulted in our now having an almost custom built system. We are very satisfied with RDS and I would not hesitate to recommend the system to any other organisation”.

Roger Stanley – Agency Drivers
Antal
“Taking 100 as the norm for quality and responsiveness of the support function of an organisation who supplies a software system (using my long experience of running large organisations supporting complex IT systems over large geographies) then Datacraft are a 120, in other words Datacraft don't just come up to the mark they exceed expectations.  The issue here is not just how comfortable a user feels dealing with an organisation.  The issue is that all software systems have bugs, all bugs can be fixed, but only if the organisation behind is functioning. We found that a competitive supplier appeared dysfunctional in terms of its support process and its attitude to users. In other words, a well functioning support process comes about when an organisation realises that support is a necessary evil and if it is to be done at all then it should be done well because it will result in continued and even increased business. Datacraft, as an organisation, firstly has a well functioning support process and secondly has the customer focus that is required.
Datacraft have shown themselves to be responsive to suggestions for changes in functionality whereas our experiences with a competitive company would not even agree to fix bugs (they strenuously argued the case for each one, rather than just fixing it). The point is that Datacraft are more likely to fulfil the needs of an organisation like Antal who have 45+ offices, probably each one having slightly different requirements.  Also, I would feel confident of Datacraft fulfilling the needs of Antal going forward by being sympathetic to the changing and evolving needs of Antal”.

John Geoghegan – Antal
SELECT Training
I'd like to help you come to a decision regarding TBMS.  It's difficult to know where to start without knowing exactly what you need to do.  We provide training through open courses but around half of our delivery is tailored training run specifically in-house.  We have been using TBMS since 1999.  Before TBMS, like you, we used MS Office for everything.  This worked until our frustration levels grew to breaking point and we knew we had to do something.

We looked at three other products from the UK, U.S. and Australia before we chose TBMS.  The feature list and ease of use of the others was very poor.

Strengths:
99% of the information we need to share between ourselves and our customers is right there all of the time.  I can't tell you what a difference in confidence it makes when you are talking to a customer, knowing that you have everything up to date and in front of you.

Through TBMS we have been able to automate most of our admin'  for marketing, sales, bookings, course prep', and course evaluation/follow up. Within 2 minutes of taking a booking for an open course, we have the joining instructions, invoice, pre-course questionnaire all ready to send out. Ability to transfer or change delegates on a course at the touch of a button.

For us, TBMS paid for itself within the first 6 months.

Mail shots etc.  The ability to select which customers are interested in which courses and mailshot them is invaluable to us.  You can easily maintain different lists for each course.

Weaknesses:
TBMS isn't perfect.  The more we use it, in fact, the more critical we are of it in terms of " if only it could do this as well".  We take the good things for granted and forget the chaos when we didn't have it.

There are still a few things on our wish list that Datacraft would provide if we ask.  For example, we use a Xerox document centre with four different types of paper.  I'd like to automatically assign different paper bins to different reports or Word documents.  In customer salutations, I'd like each person to be able to set up their own salutations for each contact so everyone can mailshot in their own name more easily.

This is all to do with working smarter and minimising our labour costs.  We could get all of these features and lots more put into TBMS but we have to look at the return on investment. (this feature was already in the software but the user didn't realise it when he wrote this eulogy)

Support from Datacraft:
Installation and training for TBMS took just two days.  We met Raymond for the first time during this period and we have had no need for him to come back since.  During the past year, we have experienced several small problems which DataCraft has dealt with very quickly. Raymond has usually emailed an answer or fix for us within a few hours.

I can say that the support has been superb.

If you are concerned about the cost of their travel to the U.S.  I believe it is cheaper for them to travel there than to Guernsey.  That is why the support via email and telephone is so important to us.

Modifications:
Originally, I was looking for an off the shelf package that worked close to the way that we worked and I was against having a product modified specifically for Select Training.  Since TBMS was installed, and due to DataCraft's excellent support and turn around time, we have had several custom modifications made to make TBMS fit better into our organisation.  This has been very rewarding and I doubt this could have been achieved with a large vendor.

I suspect TBMS would have to be modified to fit your purposes, if only to have the reports on Letter size paper rather than on our A4 size.  Also, we do not have sales tax in Guernsey,  I guess you have one or perhaps two sales taxes to contend with.

I would suggest you consider TBMS extendable and not fixed in stone.

Remote Connection:
We have one user who works from home.  She is based in Jersey ( 20 miles away, different island ) and connects via the Internet using a remote control product.  We use ADSL and ISDN.  

If you have any specific questions or need any more information then please let me know.

Regards

Keith Turner - SELECT Training