For years, Brandon Hall Group™ research has identified a gap between what HR technology buyers want from providers and what those tech providers tend to focus on, which is AI, other tech functionalities, and, um, AI.
Our Voice of the Customer research studies show that buyers want HR tech providers to be partners first and technology vendors second (or third). Most customers (72%) — and especially those in the SMB segment (500 employees or less) — want a provider to understand their business and their industry and help them succeed.
That’s easier said than done and requires providers to be willing to invest time and money to actively engage customers and meet their specific needs. What does that look like? isolved, an HR technology and services provider primarily serving the SMB market offers an enviable model.
isolved, featuring an all-in-one HR solution (People Cloud), and a robust set of HR services that can be a lifeline for small companies, may not be a familiar name for many of you. But it should be. The company has largely flown under the radar over the past several years while becoming highly profitable with a customer base closing in on 200,000 organizations (not a typo) representing nearly 8 million employees. If you work for an SMB — or know people in SMBs looking for an HR Tech provider — keep isolved top of mind.
isolved, a Brandon Hall Group™ Smartchoice® Preferred Provider, sees HR prospects and customers as “people heroes.” That may sound like a sales gimmick, but if you spend time with isolved leaders, as I have, you realize that is how they think. isolved realizes it must align with customers’ needs so people heroes can be successful by leveraging isolved technology and services.
Brandon Hall Group™ has known and worked with isolved for a while, but my eyes were opened wider after attending their first-ever analyst summit in Arizona last week. In a tech market dominated by AI, the event was notable for how infrequently AI was mentioned (I counted 8 times in over 10 hours of presentations) and how often executives talked about partnership (with customers and other providers), collaboration, listening and customer service and support.
Let’s dig into why isolved stands out:
Building Relationships
isolved understands that to build understanding and trust with a customer, you must ask more questions than you answer.
Alice McDonald, SVP of Field Sales/West, understands that HR practitioners and leaders in the SMB space crave best practices far more than they want to buy new technology. “What we focus on is how our salespeople can enable people heroes to truly become strategic advisors to their company. We can convince people to do business with isolved by helping them with best practices.”
Megha Shah, SVP of Strategic Relationship Management, who came to isolved from UKG in July 2024, has her relationship managers conduct detailed interviews multiple times each year, including onsite visits, to learn about customers and understand their needs.
Once a customer comes on board, Shah said, it’s critical to connect with them often. “We talk roadmap, keep customers aware of all things isolved at least a couple times a year. We also send our people into a company after we go live with our products to see what else we can help them with. We do not charge extra for that. We see the value in it.”
The approach works. Customers told stories of starting small and ramping up their business with isolved as the relationship matured.
Phil Long Dealerships, which has 16 automotive operations across Colorado and employs more than 1,200 people, started small. Jennifer Lyons, Director of Benefits and Payroll, initially just used isolved for benefits, administering HSA and FSA dependent care benefits through the isolved platform. But as she learned more about isolved, she realized the payroll system was more flexible than the competitors, so she made the switch. Now the company also uses isolved’s HR services and most of the People Cloud offering.
At Nlets, with less than 100 employees, Suzanne Church is a solo HR practitioner. She started with a basic handbook review using isolved HR services. Now, besides leveraging the elite package of HR services, Nlets uses most of the full People Cloud platform.
isolved’s scope of business would not have grown without ongoing support and trust-building. Before Shah, arrived, most customer conversations were in reaction to questions or problems. Now — just eight months later — it is 50-50 proactive and reactive. Within a year, Shah expects customer conversations to be 80% proactive.
Specialized Offerings for Specific Industries
The company understands, better than most, that loyalty to a brand depends on building trust, which requires a deep understanding of the industry and the business.
isolved serves most major industries, but two-thirds of their customer base is comprised of these industries – professional and business services, non-acute healthcare, hospitality (restaurants and lodging), construction and engineering, and manufacturing.
These are isolved’s top target markets for FY25. And when they target a market, they go deep. Let’s take the restaurant industry, for example, where isolved has more than 7,000 customers between direct sales and reseller sales.
Opal Wagnac, SVP of Market and Solution Strategy, another hire from UKG, led a market study that broke down the industry in intricate detail. After five years, the restaurant sector has finally regained its pre-pandemic employment levels, but the volatility of the industry remains and makes it difficult to assess what’s considered normal for the sector. Given the industry’s thin margins and cost-consciousness, are restaurants a good target?
The answer, after an ethnography study where researchers embedded themselves in the sector and sub-sectors, is yes – with the right approach. Wagnac’s team created a playbook with customized offerings for restaurants, differentiated by size and type of establishment. Customizations include pricing per location per month rather than per employee per month, plus differentiated HR services such as proactive compliance support, absence guidance and manager coaching for employee relations.
This type of customization leads to strong trust and loyalty. Do other providers do this? Yes, but the depth of focus – and the willingness to share their approach — is distinctive.
Other Differentiators
Of course, all this customer-centricity would be useless without strong and evolving products and services. isolved is certainly investing in AI tools; they just see AI as a means to an end, not a differentiator. They also have a robust product improvement and development roadmap. It includes:
- HR administration efficiencies to reduce costs and reduce repetitive tasks.
- Perfect Payroll™, which among other things proactively identifies anomalies. between the current payroll and a normal payroll.
- 401(k) plans provided by 401GO, an isolved Marketplace partner. It gives employees of SMBs access to a powerful mobile app, budgeting tools, and valuable education content while leveraging cutting-edge tech to create a 401(k) plan in minutes.
- Payroll Anywhere™, where payroll can be managed through mobile applications, making it possible for these smaller organizations to perform payroll tasks on the go.
- An employee workspace tool.
Other providers have similar functionalities and roadmaps, but the key here is that isolved has the resources to deliver them to the SMB market that has been starved for these tools. Plus, while most providers are shying away from providing HR services, isolved is all in, expanding services to companies with no HR staff or limited resources where additional headcount is unlikely regardless of the need. isolved can step in to help with strategic work so the HR staff can focus on staying connected with employees. It is an unstoppable strategy – services can drive tech sales, and tech sales can lead to services sales.
Positioned for Sustained Success
isolved has grown in part because of a unique and large network of referral partners and resellers. Todd La Fever, President, COO and founder, said the company built an ecosystem where partners operated similarly to isolved. When partners get to the point where they can’t scale, isolved acquires them, their customers and employees, who already know the isolved system. This allows for robust growth without the normal headaches of acquisition.
isolved has acquired 38 partners over the past seven years, La Fever said. The latest transaction is the full integration of ApplicantPro, a longtime partner for talent acquisition solutions, into the isolved brand and business. Now rebranded as isolved Talent Acquisition, businesses have the option to use a standalone talent acquisition solution and services or the full isolved People Cloud™ that brings hiring, HR, payroll and benefits together as one system.
This kind of savvy drives organizational growth while the dedication to understanding and serving customers’ unique needs drives the trust and loyalty that enables multi-level customer acquisition and elite retention.
But don’t expect isolved to start to expand head-first into the enterprise market or aim for global expansion. While they are certainly set up to compete in those spaces at some point, La Fever makes it clear that most customers will always remain in the smaller end of the SMB market. He is also satisfied with staying focused on the U.S.
Make no mistake: isolved has an aggressive growth plan. But the company believes in their process. They know who they are, and what they are not.
We invite you to take a closer look at isolved.
