About Arbtech
Arbtech is the UK's leading provider of arboricultural, ecology, and biodiversity survey services. Founded in 2005, the company employs over 80 staff including ecologists, arboriculturists, and biodiversity specialists deployed across the UK to carry out surveys for planning applications, development projects, and environmental assessments. With a high-volume, field-based operation processing thousands of survey orders per year, Arbtech needed an operational CRM setup that matched the complexity of their specific service business - something off-the-shelf sales CRMs were not built to handle.
The Challenge
Arbtech had no CRM in place. Client relationships, survey orders, and project tracking were managed across a combination of Excel spreadsheets and Basecamp - a project management tool with no client relationship layer, no pipeline tracking, and no reporting. For a company doing millions in annual revenue, there was no reliable way to know how much a given client had spent, whether a relationship was growing or declining, or what stage any given order was at.
Three specific problems framed the engagement:
High-volume, non-standard order flow. Arbtech's orders are not deals in the traditional CRM sense. A survey order might be worth £800. The same client might place dozens of them per year. The object model needed to reflect this: a custom Surveys object, not a standard deals pipeline, to capture the full lifecycle of each order from quote to delivery to invoice.
No client relationship visibility. Without a CRM, there was no connection between survey orders and client accounts. No way to see lifetime value per client, relationship strength, or engagement history. No way to identify which clients were growing, which were at risk, and which were ripe for expansion.
Manual reporting at every level. Daily reporting on email volumes, quoting activity, and order status was done manually by multiple team members. There was no automated visibility on what was happening in the pipeline on any given day.
Our Approach
Novlini delivered the initial implementation as a structured project followed by an ongoing retainer, working directly with Arbtech's head of digital and operations.
Discovery and Workflow Mapping
We started with a full mapping of Arbtech's current workflows: how a survey order comes in, how it gets quoted, how it gets assigned to a field consultant, how it gets delivered, and how it gets invoiced through Sage. This workflow mapping - from quote to cash - became the blueprint for the Attio data model.
Data Model Design
Two core custom objects built: Surveys (replacing the standard deals object) and standard Companies and People for client relationship management. Each Survey record captures the survey type, quoted value, assigned consultant, delivery status, and invoice reference. Surveys are linked to client companies and contacts, giving the team a 360-degree view of each relationship.
Survey types drive automation: when a survey of a given type is created, a predefined task list is automatically generated and assigned to the relevant team members. This eliminates the manual task setup that was previously done for every order.
Pipeline and Reporting
Stage-based pipeline configured for the survey lifecycle: Quote Requested, Quote Sent, Awaiting Information, Confirmed, In Progress, Delivered, Invoiced. Views and dashboards built to give the admin team live visibility on what is in each stage, what is overdue, and what needs follow-up.
Automations configured to chase inactivity: if a survey stays in a given stage beyond a defined threshold, a task is automatically created and assigned.
Enablement
Full team onboarding delivered for the admin and operations team. Documentation and workflow guides created. Ongoing retainer in place for continued development and support.
Technology Stack
Attio - CRM, Surveys custom object, pipeline tracking, client relationship management (replaces Excel + Basecamp)
Sage - invoicing and finance (integration in progress)
The Results
Arbtech went from no CRM and no client relationship visibility to a system where every survey, every client, and every stage is trackable in real time.
Client lifetime value visible for the first time - every order linked to its client record, relationship strength and order history accessible in one place
Manual task setup eliminated - survey type triggers a predefined task list automatically, no more manual creation per order
Pipeline status visible without asking - admin team can see at a glance what is quoted, confirmed, in progress, and overdue, without daily manual reporting
Overdue deals surface themselves - inactivity automations create tasks when a survey sits too long in a stage, so nothing falls through the cracks
25-person team operational from day one - no transition period, no parallel spreadsheet
"Novlini are a fantastic choice for implementation. Giacomo understood the business need from the off and has a real practical approach to solutions engineering. The team delivered a workable product from a vague, unique business case. Looking forward to working with the team in future."
Duncan Smith - Arbtech ★★★★★
Why It Matters
Most CRM implementations start from a standard sales pipeline and try to adapt it to the business. For service companies with high transaction volumes and field-based delivery, that approach fails. The unit of work is not a deal - it is an order, a survey, a case, a project. Building the Attio data model around that unit, with a custom Surveys object and automations that reflect the actual workflow, is what makes the difference between a CRM the team uses and one they abandon after three weeks.
For any professional services firm, field services business, or consultancy looking to implement Attio with a custom object architecture tailored to their specific operations, this approach is the template.