“Our main app is a CRM. Beyond that, it's a complete company management system. It basically runs the entire operation of my business. We call it GigSync.”
JDE Events produces high-production-value events across the New York City and Westchester areas. These events have staff, talent, audio, video, and lighting equipment, sometimes even fabricated sets and complex special effects equipment. And all of it needs to be seamlessly coordinated to ensure their client’s priceless experience goes off without a hitch. It goes without saying that communication, organization, and timeliness are crucial.
“One of our biggest problems was how compartmentalized all of our processes were,” said CEO Alex Lampert. “We found ourselves spending a lot of time doing data entry or just updating our systems. We have a ton of moving parts, so that was a huge strain on us. It's not just show up here at this time and leave at this time, it's 80 other things along the way…”
Alex found a solution, using Glide to create custom apps to manage the business. First, a CRM, then other apps to grow sales, increase customer satisfaction, and even help his team coordinate.
Using Glide has increased sales while simultaneously reducing the time spent by their team
“Sales have grown at least 35%. And efficiency. It takes us 25% of the amount of time it used to take us to do anything.”
The team at JDE Events has been able to use their apps to provide more thorough, personalized, and faster service to their customers. “I can't even begin to start with how this system has impacted my business because it's in every direction,” said Alex. “We've even seen an increase in inquiries because the client satisfaction is so high,
because of how frictionless our client experience has been and how easy we've made it for them.”
Their CMS is available on mobile, unlike the legacy systems and spreadsheets that they were using previously. This mobile accessibility has meant that his team can respond to client inquiries in real time, often closing deals within just 20 minutes of their day starting. They are also no longer tied to their desks, which has been a game-changer for a team that is often on-site and transporting supplies rather than in the office. “Every process is just like click, click, done,” said Alex.
He also introduced a new AI-assisted marketing flow that analyzes client requests, ideates services they might
want, and automatically generates proposals for prospective and existing clients via text message or email. He calls it “push-button marketing.”
“With our push-button marketing in Glide, we're already noticing that clients are now spending more, doing more, or even inquiring more because they have all these tools that are available to them now.”
More organized admin and financial reporting for leadership
Glide has given Alex more effective tools to manage the financial side of the business as well, tools which also save him a ton of time on admin. “As the business owner, I can now easily run my reports every day,” he explained. “I can see my sales numbers, I can see my expenses, I can see my costs, I can see my payroll numbers and I can run my payroll. I have our Glide apps fully integrated with QuickBooks so that I don't ever have to go into QuickBooks to manage things.”
With more business to manage, the time savings have really added up, giving Alex more time to focus on growing the business and improving how things run. He’s been able to build all the tools he needs himself, without having to spend money on engineers or software developers.
“The best part of Glide is that we can constantly nuance our own process and then nuance how our software accommodates that process without having to use a software engineer or spend any money. We can just go in and do it ourselves.”