Tropical Marine Centre deliver outstanding customer service with the help of Tugger’s HubSpot connector

Who are Tropical Marine Centre?

Tropical Marine Centre (TMC) is a leading supplier of high-quality, tank-raised and sustainably caught marine fish, coral and invertebrates. Stocking over 1800 marine species at any one time, TMC supplies many premier aquatic shops, but remains exclusively B2B.

TMC was founded with a love and respect for marine life. As such, the ethics within TMC run deep, and since their inception in the 1970s, TMC has been focused on researching progressive techniques to collect, pack and transport marine life. To this day, all the marine life they sell has been hand and net caught, to ensure the least amount of stress possible for the livestock. TMC also supports many conservation organisations around the world, pushing for more regulations around hobby fishkeeping.  

Tropical Marine Centre also holds expertise on how to store marine life after collection, ensuring the perfect environment for the marine life to thrive. It is no wonder then that Tropical Marine Centre won ‘Kreisel - Best Aquatic Product’ at SUPERZOO 2024 for their Jellyfish drop tanks.

We caught up with marine life enthusiast and Tropical Marine Centre CEO, Brian Schaff about his marine business, and why he found that Tugger was the perfect addition to his HubSpot CRM, helping him gather data from across his business.

The Problem: Data reporting gaps between multiple business systems.

When Brian started using Tugger, he was already happily using CRM giant, HubSpot so what was the problem? Brian explains, “We weren’t able to connect HubSpot in an easy way to our existing reporting system.”

This is a common problem. Many businesses are happily using a system to record and track daily activities, but struggle to get data out of this system when they want to take a strategic look at their business, and need to see the bigger picture. In the case of TMC, they were struggling to get the data reporting they needed, even though the data was within HubSpot.

The Solution: Using Tugger to bridge reporting gaps

Brian knew that he needed a solution. He was already using HubSpot, and wanted to integrate his system to Power BI for data reporting. So Brian started to look for a simple, and efficient solution to link the two.

Brian explains, “Our search started on the HubSpot website. We were looking for a system that could connect HubSpot to our data reporting system [Power BI]. At this point, we had already tried a few different solutions, but then we found Tugger. Tugger seemed easy, and when we contacted the team they were great, so we decided to give it a try.”

We asked Brian what stood out about Tugger after trying other solutions? “We chose Tugger because we wanted a better reporting integration with our existing systems. Tugger promised to bridge the gap between Power BI and HubSpot, and remarkably, our other systems too.”

“And the service stood out to us from the beginning because during initial discussions, Tugger were extremely responsive to our needs, the service felt very personal. For example, we had a pre-existing data reporting dashboard that was important to us. We didn’t want to lose it completely. During initial discussions, we were exploring what might work and all my questions regarding adjustments to this dashboard were answered quickly and effectively. This meant a lot to me because this dashboard was an important area of our data reporting.”

Tugger offers all customers pre-built Power BI reports which can save customers a lot of time. Not only does Tugger transfer data from their system(s) and into Power BI, but these pre-built reports make it easy and quick to get up and running with Power BI reporting. Brain explains that, while he was looking at his options, this was a big draw towards Tugger.

The Results: Better supporting all customers with new dashboards

Brian is now using Tugger alongside his HubSpot system, and Microsoft Power BI. We asked Brian what sort of difference introducing Tugger has made. Brian explains how the team at Tugger have really understood how Tropical Marine Centre operates, helping him to better-support his valued customers.

“We’ve been in business for more than five decades and a lot of our suppliers are small businesses of which we have incredible relationships with. We pride ourselves on our service. We like to think of our suppliers as part of our family, and us as part of theirs because if we’re successful, they will be too. Tugger, has treated us like we treat our customers, they have consistently gone above and beyond to support us in achieving our goals. Tugger’s personalised approach sets them apart, and their dedication to our success has truly won us over.”

Brian explains how Tugger helps them better-engage with their customers.

“Tugger has built the bridge we needed between HubSpot and Power BI. We use the dashboards that are now available within Power BI a lot. For example, the ‘deals’ view helps our customer service and sales teams get visibility across our customer communications. Now they have the guidance to interact with all our customers, including the smallest ones, ensuring no one gets overlooked. It's redefined how we engage with our clients, ensuring that every customer knows they’re valued.”

Brian also expands on this on the personalised service he has received from Tugger. “With Tugger, we’re not just one more customer, they have really listened to us and helped us achieve what we need. Due to the fact that the communication with Tugger is so strong, we’ve never had any major concerns. When we had a small niggle around the data not transferring as we expected (it turned out that it was down to us), within the hour Tugger had provided the solution! Tugger are always very quick to provide answers via emails, or to jump on a Teams call. I’ve had several calls with the Tugger developers which have got very hands-on, calls where we actively look at formulas and change them live, as we speak. It’s a truly exceptional level of customer service.”

Long-term, does Brian feel he will continue to see the same level of value from using Tugger? “Tugger is a growing, and dynamic business. Every month, there are more dashboards available and different ways to look at the data. This ongoing development is a game-changer. With new data analysis options regularly introduced, the experience stays fresh and exciting. But the best part is how responsive the team is to our requests for changes and additions, they really listen. Knowing that there are talented people at Tugger who can help us quickly if we need a new field adding or more complex changes, has made Tugger an indispensable tool for our business. For example, we presented a challenge and a couple of weeks later a new dashboard was made that was a perfect solution. The Tugger dashboards are truly remarkable, and they integrate with our systems very quickly. Tugger's extensive knowledge of these dashboards is genuinely exceptional, and their rapid plug-and-play integration sets them apart.”

Finally, as we’re always looking to grow and improve, we asked Brian what we could have done differently. Brian answered,