Case Study: Playground King’s Leap from ACT! to Zoho One

A multi-generation family business modernizes operations, cleans up critical data, and unlocks automation for growth.

Client: Playground King
Consulting Partner: Tech Benders
Location: Florida, USA
Industry: Recreational Equipment & Playground Installation
Employees: Approximately 24

Introduction: Playground King is a well-established, family-owned business specializing in the design, sale, and installation of residential playground equipment. Serving schools, municipalities, and private organizations, the company has built a strong reputation over decades for quality craftsmanship and dependable service. As the business transitioned from one generation to the next, Playground King recognized the need to modernize its technology to support continued growth and operational efficiency.

Playground King provides end-to-end playground solutions for commercial and institutional clients. Their services include consultation, design, sales, and professional installation of playground and recreational equipment. The company works closely with schools, municipalities, parks and recreation departments, daycare centers, homeowners’ associations, and private organizations to deliver safe, durable, and compliant play environments. In addition to equipment sales, Playground King manages the full project lifecycle—assisting clients with site planning, product selection, budgeting, scheduling, and coordination of installations. Their team ensures that all playgrounds meet applicable safety standards and are installed correctly and efficiently. With decades of experience, Playground King is known for guiding customers from initial concept through final installation and long-term use.

Business Background: Founded in 2001, Playground King grew steadily under the leadership of Nicole Gulledge, focusing on long-term customer relationships and repeat business. For many years, the company relied on ACT! CRM to manage contacts, prospects, customer history and installations. When Nicole’s son, Jake Gulledge, began taking over day-to-day operations, he brought a fresh perspective—and a strong desire to make better use of modern technology, automation, and data visibility.

Challenges: Playground King faced several critical challenges:

Disorganized and fragmented data: Years of inconsistent data entry had resulted in duplicate contacts, incomplete records, and disconnected sales histories.
Outdated interface: The ACT! CRM interface was antiquated and inefficient, making daily use frustrating and limiting adoption across the team.
Limited automation: The company lacked automated workflows for prospect follow-ups, installation scheduling, and tracking potential sales opportunities.
High risk of data loss: The most important requirement was ensuring zero data loss during migration while restructuring the data into a more usable and scalable system.

Solution: Tech Benders guided Playground King through a full migration from ACT! CRM to Zoho One, delivering both a technical and strategic transformation. Key elements of the solution included:

Complete data extraction and cleanup from ACT!, including contacts, notes, histories, and sales information
Data normalization and de-duplication to create a clean, reliable CRM foundation
Migration to Zoho CRM within Zoho One, providing a modern, intuitive interface accessible from anywhere
Custom automation workflows to:
- Trigger prospect follow-ups automatically
- Track installations from sale to completion
- Monitor potential and active sales opportunities
System configuration aligned with real-world processes, ensuring the team could easily adopt the new platform

Results: The migration delivered immediate and long-term benefits:

100% data retention, with improved organization and usability
Dramatically improved user experience, leading to higher team adoption
Automated follow-ups and workflows, reducing manual tasks and missed opportunities
Improved visibility into sales pipelines, installations, and customer history
A future-ready technology stack that supports growth under the new generation of leadership

Conclusion: By moving from an outdated ACT! CRM system to Zoho One, Playground King successfully modernized its operations without sacrificing decades of valuable customer data. The transition not only protected the company’s history but empowered its future—giving the next generation the tools they need to run a smarter, more efficient, and more scalable business.