Product integrations are a great way to drive efficiency in your business. Centralizing data and tools from multiple sources can make it easier for associates to monitor projects, communicate with customers and keep your business humming.
Product integrations also can serve as a reminder of how customer input can influence vendor partners.
“If we have customers who ask for something or a third party reaches out [to us] and wants to integrate with us, we’re always open to that. We’ll start a conversation.” says Eric Liddell, vice president of product architecture at Procede Software. “We want to have the best product we can so if we discover there’s an integration that will make the customer’s life easier, we’ll almost always pursue it.”
Karmak has an equally hospitable policy with vendors.
The business system provider had more than 40 vendor partners participate in the product expo at its user conference last month, many of which offer integrations into Karmak’s products. John Cowan, vice president of business solutions, says attendees were so numerous because Karmak is open and engaging to any partnership that strengthens its user’s operation.
“A lot of times customers will come to us and say they want to work with a company and they need an integration or want to know they use a tool and we try to respond as aggressively as we can,” he says. “Our Fusion system is the heart of their business, but they have a lot of other things in their business too and we want to connect them to the heart to feed all of those other systems and allow [the customers] to work the way they want to work.”
Business management systems aren’t the only vendors busy in the integration space either. Digital solutions can be integrated independent of a DMS as well, and those solutions providers also cite user feedback as a key driver toward integrations.
Fusable, parent company of Trucks, Parts, Service, announced in September a new integration with dealer sales, CRM and vehicle management solutions partner Arcadium that Product Manager Laura Hoover says “came out of dealer feedback.”
“Dealers were telling both Arcadium and Fusable they’d like to see RigDig data in their Arcadium tools to keep their sales teams in one system,” she says. Hoover says the new partnership, in which RigDig data is shared through Arcadium’s platform and Arcadium dealer information can be shared with Fusable if the dealer consents, is designed to enable users on either system to work more intelligently and effectively across their sales teams.
[RELATED: Fusable and Arcadium unleash new data integration partnership]
She cites enhanced client insights, efficiency in account management and sales growth as three benefits users will receive with the integration.
Procede’s many integrations offer scores of user benefits, but Liddell says a solution doesn’t need a set number of benefits to earn an integration. Procede may integrate a new partner specifically to solve one operational challenge and streamline a user’s experience.
He says sometimes users don’t see a task or process as a problem until it is solved.
“We’ve had times where we’ve asked ‘If we did this, would it help you?’ and we get to show how they were doing something could be better,” Liddell says.
“We want to make our API layer as robust as possible,” adds Cowan. “We want to make it easy for anyone to integrate with Fusion who wants to. The more the merrier. We think the more partners and options customers have, the better.”
The DMS providers also add another reason they are open to partnership is when one really breaks down the nuts and bolts of a product integration, the development work isn’t that hard. Writing the code to connect two systems sometimes only takes days. It’s the front-end communication with prospective partners and user interface discussions and testing with dealers that slows bringing a new integration to market.
[RELATED: How Procede Software strives for differentiation to drive customer success]
“One of the big challenges is always getting a complete spec” from an integration partner, Liddell says, because often integration systems move faster than official documentation. “Systems will change and [a vendor] might not have documentation immediately available for that.”
He adds, “Ours is never a technical challenge. It’s always about instruction.”
Instruction matters post-development too. Hoover says Fusable and Arcadium have been active on the fall conference circuit training users on their new integration and have educational materials available to existing customers on each product.
“In my experience, ease of use and user input on what exactly is integrated leads to better adoption of an integration solution and helps our users and the integration be successful,” she says.
The DMS companies also note live testing with pilot users is essential to rolling out a new product system-wide and providing the benefits users desire.
“We have a third-party on-ramp with a standard defined process,” says Neil Osborn, Karmak’s vice president of product development. “We get them in the door and understand their needs and requirements first. Then we provide guidance to them and they go through a certification processes. Once they are ready they will work with their first pilot customer and after that they are off and running.”
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Lastly, the product experts note customers shouldn’t go silent once an integration they requested finally goes live. Vendors say they always want to hear what should be integrated and expanded next so they can remain busy bolstering their solutions.
Says Hoover, “We regularly poll users on what other tools they use, and collect feedback from clients on specific integrations requests. The more we hear of an integration request, from clients the higher the priority it becomes.”
“We’ll almost always be on the side of building [an integration] if there are no red flags against it.” Liddell adds. “If it helps our users, it’s worth it.”
