Tricent automated their sales and compliance documents and has saved up to 120 hours of work per month ever since.

Expensive and inefficient 

Tricent is a compliance tech company that allows its users to automate compliance-related tasks and improve their file access management. In the past few years, the Danish scale-up has been full steam ahead, and they've convinced well-esteemed customers like Lunar, Quandoo and Better Collective to use their full-scale compliance solution. Every month, they are closing new deals, growing their headcount and scaling their business.

"Essentially, we are trying to automate all the boring stuff," says Michael Birch. His official title is Head of Customer Success in Tricent, but in reality, he has taken charge of the entire customer journey with his holistic sales ops approach. 

When he got in touch with Contractbook a little while back, he had identified multiple issues in Tricent's contract management setup. First, they were using multiple tools and solutions in the process, which was expensive and made it impossible to create a unified workflow. Secondly, their process was simply too manual. 

When a lead reached the right stage in the funnel, their sales reps would use MS Word to create a contract manually and then send it as a PDF file via email. As a compliance company, this process would also involve sending DPA's, MSA's, and other compliance documentation as additional email attachments. Everything had to be signed and collected through back-and-forth emailing - a time-consuming and confusing process. 

Often, the sales reps would store the signed contracts in their inbox, which meant that Tricent could lose access to the documents whenever someone left the company.

"I'm very process-driven, and I wanted to make myself dispensable," Birch tells us. So when we saw what he was able to build with Contractbook, "It was basically a no-brainer."

Automated and organized

Today, Tricent has an automated workflow for all sales and compliance documents. 

Whenever a lead reaches the Negotiation-stage in HubSpot, an order form is automatically generated and sent to Birch to review. He will quickly glance through the document to check that all details are correct, which they usually are because the contract is based on a fixed, non-negotiable template. He will then sign it and send it to the new customer. 

Once it’s counter-signed, the team receives a Slack message to celebrate the new deal together. At the same time, the customer success team gets a notification in Zendesk with all the information they need to complete the handover.

“It’s very, very simple,” Birch says. 

Their compliance documents are also automated. They’ve created a Legal Hub with all their compliance documents on their website. Through that hub, Tricent’s users can generate their Data Processor Agreements in Contractbook by answering a simple questionnaire. The form is connected to Contractbook. When a user has signed a DPA, it’s automatically stored on Tricent’s Contractbook account. 

In general, all Tricent’s documents are accessible from a central account and organized with folders and tags, making them easy to find for the people who need them. 

A cost- and time saving exercise 

The most crucial benefit of using Contractbook, says Birch, has been time optimization. 

“Sales reps shouldn’t spend time on contracts. They are here to close deals,” he says. According to his own estimations, Tricent is saving 20-30 hours of work per week solely on sales contracts. They don’t have to waste time on drafting contracts, and the negotiation phase is a lot more seamless as there is less back-and-forth emailing. “It’s almost a monthly salary. Like one person’s work.” 

With the DPA questionnaire, it’s even more time saved. “Before, our sales reps would have to sit there and act as if they were in legal, or they would need approval from the CEO, who probably didn’t have time. This new setup could have saved us way more than 30 hours per week. 40 hours, 50 hours, maybe. It’s beyond doubt that the time we have saved using Contractbook has been unbelievable,” Birch explains. 

On top of that, Birch has reduced the number of tools in his tech stack, which is saving him a lot of money every month. “It has been a cost-saving exercise.” he elaborates. “We can remove two tools and just use Contractbook.” 

The new setup has also given Michael Birch and Tricent a much more organized view of their legal documents. 

“It’s 100 % more flexible. 100 % more transparent. We don’t have to go through inboxes or change passwords to access documents. With peace of mind, I can say that I have every document in Contractbook. Nothing is secret to me. Everything is open and honest. It’s great!” Birch explains. 

Having such an overview of their sales agreements makes it easier for Tricent to manage their pipeline and report to the board. All the data about order forms and closed contracts is there - easy and accessible to Birch and his colleagues. 

Getting started

Using Zendesk, Slack and HubSpot, Tricent has a modern tech stack that integrates easily with Contractbook, but you can create similar setups with other CRM systems, communications tools and customer support software. Companies like Tricent pick the Foundation plan to get access to our standard integrations and the form-based contract creation feature. That also includes up to 18 implementation hours from Contractbook.

“As Head of Customer Success, I know how I want to be treated as a customer. That’s one of the reasons I like Contractbook. You are personal, open and transparent,” Birch explains. “I must praise you. You are prepared. We don’t waste time. It’s straight to the point, and you are willing to run the extra mile for your customers. I get the help I need, and you listen to me,” he concludes. 

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