How FirstUp boosted delivery efficiency and achieved a 75% utilization rate using Rocketlane

About FirstUp

FirstUp is a leading workforce communications platform that helps large enterprises like Hilton, Amazon, and Ford reach and engage every employee, from the frontline to the executive suite. Their platform powers timely, personalized communications at scale.

As Director of Service Delivery, Lisa LaVan's mission was: deliver a seamless, transparent, and efficient service experience. But with rapid growth came new challenges. As customer volume and complexity increased, Lisa needed to build a scalable, repeatable implementation process without compromising on quality.

FirstUp's top goals were clear:

•  Increase customer utilization: Maintain a 75% utilization rate across individual contributors.

•  Improve operational efficiency: Streamline project management, time tracking, and value delivery with a lean team.

•  Enhance visibility and forecasting: Gain real-time insights into workload, project health, budgets, and capacity.

•  Boost customer satisfaction: Accelerate time-to-value for customers and improve CSAT scores.

The Challenge

Before adopting Rocketlane, FirstUp's service delivery team faced several operational hurdles:

Disjointed Communication

Customer conversations were scattered across emails and separate systems, leading to slower response times and missed context.

Inefficient Work Planning

Weekly planning was manual and fragmented, making it hard for the team to prioritize tasks and align on workloads.

Lack of Visibility Into Utilization and Capacity

Leadership struggled to understand team availability, track time accurately, or forecast capacity for upcoming projects.

Manual and Delayed Budget Tracking

The financial health of projects was monitored retroactively, creating risks of exceeding budgets.

Without a centralized platform, these challenges made it difficult to scale operations efficiently while maintaining high-quality service delivery.

The Solution

Implementing Rocketlane transformed the way FirstUp's service delivery team operates.

Centralized Client Portal for Communication and Execution

Customers and internal teams now collaborate in one place, improving transparency and response times.

Increased Efficiency and Clarity

Weekly work is laid out at the start of each week, helping contributors stay focused and proactive.

Smarter Capacity and Financial Management

Leadership can now easily forecast workloads, manage PTO, and monitor budgets in real time, preventing burnout and budget overruns.

The Impact

Achieved 75% Customer Utilization Goal

Real-time reporting and seamless time tracking empowered FirstUp to consistently hit and measure its utilization targets.