I sat down with James Foxall to find out how Tigerpaw is leaping into the office equipment space with a fully vetted product
Well, there's one thing that James and I have in common, boy can we talk it up! So much, that this will be a two part interview.
It’s unusual to find a 30-year-old company that still has the passion and entrepreneurial spirit of a startup, but that’s exactly what I found when I interviewed James Foxall, CEO of Tigerpaw.
I caught up with James in-between his busy days to find out what makes Tigerpaw so special, what benefits Tigerpaw One has for the office equipment space, how it helps businesses solve their pain points, and hopefully get a peek at a few secret projects they’re working on.
Art Post
James, thank you for taking the time out of your day to chat with us. I appreciate it and I’m sure our readers do, too.
James Foxall
You’re welcome, Art. Happy to talk with you.
Art Post
Let’s get right to it. Can you give us a quick overview of Tigerpaw One and what you guys have been up to?
James Foxall
Absolutely. Some quick background: Tigerpaw was founded in 1984, and today we have more than 40,000 customers in 29 countries worldwide. Our flagship product, Tigerpaw One, is an end-to-end business automation and service management software. Our software includes robust, multiple award-winning CRM, sales and marketing tools, invoicing, quoting, service, and inventory management functions.
In 2015 we changed our business model from selling perpetual concurrent-user licenses of individual software modules and add-ons, to an all-in-one, subscription based offering with one low monthly price per user. And that change has spurred a huge amount of renewed interest in our offering.
Art Post
That’s an impressive amount of functionality.
James Foxall
We’re very proud of Tigerpaw One and the value it brings to our customers!
It’s been a great tool to show new customers the power of our software, but we’ve also had a huge base of our longtime customers convert over to the new model as well. There’s no complex pricing matrix, you don’t need to keep track of what features you have or don’t have, and you don’t need to guess what your bill is going to be. With Tigerpaw One you get everything at one affordable monthly payment. And our customers love that.
Art Post
Tigerpaw is known as a software company, but I’ve heard you say that’s not necessarily your focus. Could you talk about that?
James Foxall
Of course. At Tigerpaw, we build and sell software; but that is not our mission and that is not our purpose. Our purpose is to help people run better businesses. The software and the training that goes along with it are the tools that allow us to get that done.
When we hear about companies juggling multiple spreadsheets to manage their sales pipeline, a different system to manage their invoicing, and yet another system to manage their quoting and proposals — when we hear about companies like that, we know we can help them.
Tigerpaw One does all of those things. You can do all of those things and much more in one tool. There is a better way than managing a dozen different systems that don’t even talk to each other. From a business perspective, that doesn’t make sense; but that’s where many people find themselves.
And often times companies, or CEOs, or department heads don’t even know there’s a better way out there. Or, they know there are other ways, but they may be nervous about jumping into adopting a new software package when they don’t know what their after-purchase support will be like.
It happens all the time. People are sold on a new product but then have no support after the sale.
We don’t want to become another piece of “shelfware.” There’s no value in us getting software into someone’s hands and then they don’t have the tools to use it properly.
We just don’t believe in doing business that way.
Art Post
So what does Tigerpaw do differently when a customer comes on board?
James Foxall
That’s a great question.
When a customer commits to Tigerpaw, we commit to them. And we continue to support them after the sale. We have detailed onboarding and training, we have a dedicated team that will work with you hand-in-hand for your implementation, we work with our customers to discover their business pain points and create a customized project plan to help them reach their goals. All Tigerpaw One customers get unlimited access to our Support Team and they can reach us by phone, through the web, or email.
And we recognize the importance of customized learning. We’ve created a top-notch training program in our Tigerpaw Academy that will help new and veteran users alike take their businesses to the next level.
Art Post
I took a visit to your website before our call and I was curious about Tigerpaw Academy. Can you tell us more about that?
James Foxall
Tigerpaw Academy is our customized education and training portal that is designed from the ground up to help our users become Tigerpaw experts. Our Training Team has put together a comprehensive education program that allows our customers to become experts at the features that matter to them.
We understand that not everyone needs to be an expert at everything, so we have courses with clear flow that build on each other for specific job roles. Are you in sales? We have a training course to help you maximize your funnel, track your pipeline, and close more leads. Are you in marketing? We have courses to teach you how to schedule activities and campaigns, optimize your email marketing, and drive more qualified leads into your sales team’s pipeline.
And we have those same deep levels of learning and training resources for accounts and contacts, billing, accounting and taxes, price book and inventory, service, our mobile app, and dozens more.
Even better, we have broken down our curriculum by profession and title. So you can find a match for what your job is and we have a series of courses designed just for you.
We recently added the ability for managers to assign courses to their team. Managers have the ability to be in control of their own success. You don’t have to wonder, “Did my people get trained? Do they know how to do this?” Now you can assign your team courses and watch their progress as they move through each module and unit of their training.
It’s really a holistic system to help companies better implement Tigerpaw One; and it teaches a lot of great business-building practices.
This is all on top of our training library, free templates, Community Forum, webinars, and live Ask the Expert sessions.
Art Post
While I was cruising through your website and stumbled across your Ask the Expert feature. Can you tell us more about what that is?
James Foxall
We are absolutely dedicated to the success of our clients. So we put a lot of resources out there to make them successful. Ask the Expert is one of those resources; it’s a very unique thing to Tigerpaw.
Every Monday through Friday we have one of our training experts give a live webinar session that any Tigerpaw One user can attend. And anybody in your company can attend that session and ask them any questions. There’s no feedback loop, no waiting for lengthy responses, no wondering if your email disappeared into the void like you get with some companies. You can attend these sessions and get real, direct, applicable answers to your questions about our products.
Sometimes these sessions are packed and you can learn from other peoples’ questions during Ask the Expert. And other times you’ll get lucky and you’ll be one of a handful in that session. That’s like getting personalized training from our experts. These are trainers that we typically charge a couple of hundred bucks an hour to get access to, and we make them available every day of the week at no additional cost.
Art Post
That’s a great service.
James Foxall
It’s really cool. We think it’s something unique. And it is especially helpful for businesses that are just getting up and running.
We also have an 800 Help Desk. Lately we have been averaging under three-minute hold times, which is just stellar in this day and age. When you call, we have human beings that will pick up the phone and answer your questions. You will be talking with one of our deeply trained support experts. Our people are here to help you solve your problems.
And when you really want to do a deep dive into a specific topic or feature of Tigerpaw One, we have all of our additional resources. The Academy, our live webinars, daily Ask the Expert sessions, and our Community Forum — those resources are there to really teach you instead of just answering a quick question.
We even have a calendar of events we maintain so you can plan what you want to attend and find a live learning session that fits perfectly into your schedule.
Note from Art: I'll be posting up Part Two of this interview tomorrow. Enjoy!
About Tigerpaw
Tigerpaw Software, Inc. is a leading developer of end-to-end business automation and service management software. Its flagship product, the award-winning Tigerpaw One, empowers thousands of businesses to manage and automate marketing, sales, service and inventory functions. The company was founded in 1984 and quickly established itself as a premier solutions specialist for small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs). Tigerpaw remains firmly on the cutting edge of business software development with an ever-expanding base of more than 40,000 users in 29 countries worldwide. Despite its growth, Tigerpaw remains a family-owned business that specializes in helping a wide range of clients better run their business with a complete, 360 degree view of their operations.
Tigerpaw One is sold by subscription for one low monthly fee per user.
For more information, visit the Tigerpaw website at tigerpawsoftware.com, email sales@tigerpawsoftware.com, or call their toll-free number at 800.704.9009.
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