DC to Chicago: Customer Event Recap

Wow

We’ve just had a ball doing our customer event in DC and Chicago. I think our top takeaway was how much people are craving information on Sage Intelligence- we knew this was going to be one of the best topics but we were really delighted with the kinds of questions that people asked and the kinds of things they revealed about what you want more of.

For example, at the DC event, one person said that the presentation made her entire day when we demonstrated how to work with a dynamic range in Excel, and how to use the “tree” functions within Sage Intelligence. Another attendee told us that just seeing the pivot tables and slicers being created from scratch really made an impact and made her feel like she could get started with Sage Intelligence. I feel very encouraged when people attend an event like this and then walk away with specific tools and inspiration to get started and get what they want out of the product. We are always here to help, of course- but I think clients really benefit the most when they are fully empowered to work on their own.

The DC event was extra special because we capped it off with a champagne toast to celebrate the merger of Mazzullo, Inc with DataQuest. What a lively note to end a conference on! This merger brings a lot of opportunity for us to support and educate the Mazzullo clients, and bring them into the DataQuest fold officially. Our organizations have had an informal client-support relationship for years and this is a satisfying culmination of what has been a very friendly and supportive dynamic between our two companies.

At the Chicago customer event, attendees spent time learning from one another, inspired by the panelists on the Customer Best Practice panel and other attendees. Two examples in particular stand out. When one client saw what Protect-A-Bed had done with their warranty process and it’s customer portal (described here), they realized there were several creative uses for building out the sample Sage CRM self-service portal for their own needs- for example, as a way to collect customer feedback and get to know their customers better. Others gravitated toward a client who has spent a majority of his time leveraging his Excel skills and self-educating on how to create powerful financial statements within Sage Intelligence. For us this is one of the most inspiring outcomes- people who make the commitment to learn as much as they can on their own, and reach out to other clients to create a learning community. We support that and try to facilitate that when possible.

Clients aren’t the only ones who benefit from this informal networking. We were inspired by Debbie Mazzullo, our new partner at DataQuest, whose DC clients host “user groups” at their location and invite other clients to come and learn. There is typically a focused training agenda that is a half-day event that is based on the hosts’s needs. If that sounds like something your organization would be interested in hosting, please let us know so we can arrange it and build our community. One of the tenants of DataQuest is to empower our clients with the knowledge they need to be successful and we love the idea of collaborating with you to make that work in your environment!

Thank you for making this an excellent customer event!