From Complexity to Simplicity: Graston Technique's Admin Panel Evolution
Executive Summary
Graston Technique is a US-based medical company that sells both the rehabilitation instruments and training only to the licensed clinicians. Every purchase must be validated by checking licenses and completed courses if required. GT needed an admin panel to automate this workflow, as well as to facilitate other sales and customer support operations.
After trying solutions such as Salesforce and a custom home-built admin panel that didn't meet their specific needs, Graston Technique found Forest Admin and built a POC. Nearly two years later, according to Dominic Medina, the CEO of Graston Technique, Forest Admin has proven to be an efficient admin panel solution that has greatly improved the company's sales and customer service workflows.
About Graston Technique
Graston Technique is a medical rehabilitation company offering an instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization (IASTM) treatment protocol used by physical and occupational therapists, hand therapists, chiropractors, athletic trainers, massage therapists, and other licensed professionals to treat soft tissue injuries. Graston Technique offers around 200 courses annually, aimed at helping professionals treat patients recovering from surgeries or injuries involving muscles, ligaments, and tendons.
What made Graston Technique look for an admin panel solution
COVID-19 has forced many businesses that used to run in-person activities to move them online. It was also the case of Graston Technique that shifted their weekend in-person courses to online sessions and also added self-paced e-learning programs, all available for purchase on the website. However, it brought specific challenges to the customer onboarding - GT needed to quickly find a way to automate the license verification of potential trainees before finalizing the purchases.
The team initially chose Salesforce as their CRM, mostly because it's a well-known and reputable solution. However, customizing it to their specific needs was difficult, and Salesforce provided a plethora of features that were not relevant to the company's use cases. Eventually, Graston Technique realized that their needs were so unique that they seemed to have no choice but to build internal tools themselves, despite the time and effort required. Initially, their homemade tool met their needs, but as the business evolved, maintaining it and adding new features became challenging for the sales team, who were the primary users.
At first, Graston Technique decided to return to Salesforce, but in the meantime, the team learned about Forest Admin and created their first POC. They required a system that was customizable, user-friendly, and scalable without the high costs and complex maintenance associated with Salesforce. Forest Admin met all the requirements and enabled Graston Technique to enhance their workflows, preventing the team, for example, from reimbursing customers who should not have been allowed to register because they don't have a license.
How Graston Technique uses Forest Admin
The Sales and Customer Support are the teams that use Forest Admin on a daily basis to perform their regular operations and whenever they need to consult prospect and customer data. Neither Salesforce nor the home-built admin panel had been able to support the workflow that requires verifying the license before finalizing the purchase. Before adopting Forest Admin, Graston Technique had no choice but to allow everyone to sign up and then manually reimburse those that don't fit the criteria. Thanks to the low-code customization possibilities of Forest Admin, the process has become clearer and more straightforward for both their customers and team members.
Sales Workflows Before Forest Admin
Sales Workflows After Forest Admin
The customer flow Forest Admin offered our team helped us eliminate wasted time and laborism redundancy.
Forest Admin as the central hub for Sales and Customer Support Operations
Forest Admin also serves Graston Technique as a CRM software that gives the Sales team a complete customer view in a single place. Whenever they contact potential customers or existing customers for a potential upsell, the sales team members take advantage of all customer data available on Forest Admin, which enables them to have a more personalized conversation. With the help of search and filters, they can quickly find the required account or accounts from specific locations, which makes their work faster and more productive.
Customer Support is another team that benefits from the complete customer view on Forest Admin. Having instant access to Graston Technique's customers' names, locations, licenses, courses taken and passed, and instruments bought, they can assist customers in the most efficient way possible.
Apart from data management, Graston Technique uses dashboards to monitor sales and support KPIs. Dominic Medina has stressed that with Forest Admin the team can create new charts independently without relying on the tech team, which was impossible with previous solutions.
Forest Admin has helped us work more efficiently, cut costs, and make the process much smoother. The system's flexibility and user-friendly interface have made it our preferred tool, helping the company expand and serve customers better. - said Dominic Merlina.
Summary
Forest Admin allowed Graston Technique to automate business workflows and facilitate the daily tasks of Sales and Customer Support teams. Thanks to the no-code features, both teams are independent from the tech team and able to adjust the tool to match their needs. Forest Admin has proven to be more flexible and easier to use than other admin panel solutions like Salesforce and custom home-built platform.