When a senior executive asks for an ROI number, they don't always understand the complexity behind it. They just want the answer. For Eduardo Umaña, Business Operations Manager at TechChoice, getting to that answer used to mean hours of work stitching together data from different tools.
Geckoboard changed that.
"In the past it was hard for me to pull together ROI. And when you're dealing with high level executives, they just need the solution. They just need the answer."
When HubSpot can't give you the full picture
TechChoice is a technology advisory firm based in Boston. They don't sell products, they design and execute technology solutions for customers across across both the public and private sector. Technology providers sponsor some of TechChoice's marketing initiatives, and in return they expect to see a return on that investment. Proving it meant pulling deal data from HubSpot alongside information from other sources and producing a clean ROI story. The problem was that HubSpot wasn't built for that.
"HubSpot provides the tools to track the numbers that you need for the simple calculation of an ROI. But it breaks down when you try to actually do the calculation. Because if it's not in the same object, or if you have the information on another platform, you simply cannot do it. I had to do a lot of work just to get the number. And then we realised that maybe we could look into a different solution to get this right."
Sharing the story in one place
Geckoboard gave TechChoice a way to bring HubSpot data together with information from other sources into one place, and share it cleanly with whoever needed to see it.
The centrepiece is the MDF (Marketing Development Funds) ROI dashboard. It gives technology providers a clear view of monthly recurring revenue broken down by quarter, by month, and by which product sets TechChoice clients are consuming most at that point in time.
"It allows us to tell the story of what we do with their funds and how that translates to more business for them. That's one of our favourite dashboards."
For the sales team, Geckoboard surfaces individual and team performance through leaderboards that give reps a live view of where they stand against quota, how far along they are toward President's Club, and how they compare to their peers.
"Sales reps thrive on competition, and seeing their placement on the leaderboard serves as motivation."
Visibility that reaches every stakeholder
What makes TechChoice's setup distinctive is how widely the dashboards are used and by whom.
For the executive team, Geckoboard gives the company president and VP immediate clarity on performance without needing to run a report or asking someone else to.
"Geckoboard is really useful to summarise our data, simplify it and focus on what is important for each stakeholder. High level executives use it to be able to make decisions, sales reps use it to track where they are in the sales leaderboards and it can provide ROI for providers that sponsor our events."
For technology providers, the MDF ROI dashboard is shared via a link or dropped into a pitch deck as a screenshot. No accounts to manage, no platform access to grant.
"It's simple to build a dashboard, to make sure that it's telling the proper story. And to share, it's so easy. It's just like a copy paste of a link."
For the sales team, each rep's dashboard is embedded directly into Monday.com so performance data sits alongside the tools they're already using every day.
"It's so easy to combine Geckoboard and Monday. To see what's going on and for reps to have a finger on the pulse."
Transformation of the day-to-day
The before-and-after is stark for Eduardo. The numbers still get produced, the ROI still gets reported, but the effort behind it is a fraction of what it was.
"We could still deliver the data without Geckoboard but it would be a pain in the ass. Geckoboard makes my life easier in Operations. I'm easily able to deliver the dashboard reports that the team needs to do their work."
And across the business, the shift in visibility has been just as real.
"Before implementing this solution, I think that we were kind of blind. We have more visibility on everything now."
Remarkable customer support experience
Before committing, Eduardo needed to be confident the platform would actually work for TechChoice's specific setup. The trial gave him that confidence, and so did the team behind it.
"Whenever I needed something, they [Geckoboard Support team] were really on it to figure out how to do it. And I was thinking, if they do this when we hire them, then this platform is a keeper."
That impression held after signing. When Eduardo reached out with a problem, received an answer, and moved on, the Geckoboard team kept working on it, and came back days later with a better solution.
"This has never happened to me with customer support. They kept working on it and they found a solution then reached back out to me. Normally you're lucky to get an answer. After signing for a year with Geckoboard, it's just gotten even better. Because they know our account now."
The impact across the business
That relationship is what sealed it. But stepping back, the impact Geckoboard has had across TechChoice tells its own story. Providers get a clear view of their ROI. The exec team has visibility on performance without chasing reports. Sales reps know exactly where they stand. And the dashboards that serve all of them sit in the tools each stakeholder already uses every day.
For Eduardo, sitting at the centre of all of it, fielding requests from every corner of the business and pulling data from every direction, the change has been felt most personally.
"Geckoboard's been a life changer for me."
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