When “Aggressive Timeline” Meets the Right Partner

I get pulled into a lot of conversations about ambitious timelines. Most of the time, "aggressive" means a few extra weeks of crunch. Every once in a while, it means something different, and Wachter's StaffSafe project was one of those times.

Wachter is a nationwide technology integrator out of Lenexa, Kansas. They design, install, and maintain everything from electrical systems to IT networks to physical security for clients across the country. Among their offerings is StaffSafe, a live safety-monitoring solution that connects retail and quick-service restaurant (QSR) frontline employees to a trained human responder at the press of a button.

Late last year, Wachter received a request from a major restaurant chain customer who wanted an easier way for its franchisees to learn about StaffSafe, get a quote, and subscribe online without having to pick up the phone.

That's a fairly tall order, and Wachter's team was given six weeks to build it.

"That was a very aggressive timeline," Alan Clark, Wachter's Product Experience Manager, told us. "It would have been nearly impossible to meet that deadline on our own. That's why we reached out to Thunder. We needed experts to help us."

Six weeks for a full Salesforce Agentforce Revenue Management and Agentforce Service Portal  build is fast by anyone's standard. In fact, it's the quickest Revenue Management engagement our team has run to date.

Starting from nothing

Prior to this project, subscribing to StaffSafe through Wachter meant picking up the phone. A customer would call or email a Wachter project manager, and the request would get handed off – from intake to sales to the team that actually built out the project. Each handoff took time, and multiplying that across the volume Wachter was expecting meant many manual hours and a real risk of burning out a small internal team.

What we built together closes that gap. A franchise owner can now learn about the service on Wachter's site, submit a simple intake form, and land as a qualified lead in Salesforce, with no human interaction required. From there, sales follows up, and once the customer is ready to move forward, they receive credentials for a self-service hub built on Agentforce Service Portal, where they can share what's needed to get their project moving at their own pace.

Alan noted: “It’s a great capability that  a customer can really enjoy using, because it gives them autonomy with zero pressure.”

The pivot nobody planned for

As everyone knows, an accelerated timeline often comes with some turbulence. In our case, the joint team didn't get it exactly right on the first try, but that only strengthened our partnership.

Right before the holidays, Wachter's team showed early functionality to their customer – the person who initially requested this implementation. The feedback was fairly pointed: the intake was asking for too much, too soon. It needed to be simpler and less burdensome. For a team with just a few weeks to go, that’s the kind of constructive criticism that could derail things.

Instead, we regrouped, figured out what actually needed to change, and got back to building, including a few late nights testing things in real time. Alan remembers it as one of the moments that defined the partnership:

“Thunder responded so professionally and gracefully. They said, 'Yeah, we get it; let’s circle the wagons.'"

That's the version of "agile" that matters on a project like this: a willingness to recognize the need for change and to go do it together.

Where partnerships like this go

Ultimately, our joint team delivered the project on time and a little under budget.

Wachter’s system just recently went live, so the real usage numbers are still ahead of us. But there’s one thing I keep coming back to: how a successful build results in a strong relationship, not just a functional system.

We had daily standups, side conversations to solve problems before they became blockers, and a team that worked across time zones and still showed up for each other. By the end, there was even a little bit of sadness that the sprint was over, which only happens when people actually enjoy creating something together.

Wachter is already thinking about what's next, and we're right there with them. When a customer tells us they'd like to keep the same team for the next phase, that's the outcome we're looking for, because we’re in it for the long haul.