About ARC Group Benefits
ARC Group Benefits is a Montreal-based employee benefits administrator founded in 1997. Through its proprietary ARC Connect platform, the company manages group insurance plans for organizations across Canada, handling plan administration, claims reimbursement, and client service in French and English. With a technical team of 10+ in-house engineers and a sales cycle that runs 3 to 12 months, ARC operates as a high-touch B2B services business where relationship intelligence and reduced double-touch matter more than volume outreach.
The Challenge
ARC Group Benefits had no formal CRM. Sales activity was scattered across Asana task boards, Trello, and spreadsheets. With five to six people touching sales or account management in some capacity, contacts were getting double-outreached, context was being lost between conversations, and there was no central view of where any relationship stood.
The team had a clear requirement: a modern, API-first CRM that could integrate with their proprietary ERP for contract and account management data, and that could eventually support AI-assisted outreach and lead scoring. They were not looking for another legacy system, and they had the technical resources to handle API integration internally. What they needed was expert guidance on CRM architecture and the right data model for a long-cycle, white-glove sales process.
Our Approach
Novlini delivered a structured advisory and implementation engagement focused on CRM design and Attio configuration, with the ERP integration scoped for a second phase.
CRM Architecture Design
The engagement started with a detailed discovery of how ARC's sales and account management processes worked across their French-speaking Montreal team. The pipeline was designed around a white-glove, high-touch sales motion targeting CFOs, People Ops leaders, and company presidents at organizations with 300 to 1,000 employees, a market where the sales cycle runs three to twelve months and every conversation matters.
A data model was built to reflect ARC's two-sided workflow: prospecting and new business on the CRM side, and active contract management handled in the ARC Connect ERP. A handover logic was designed so that when a deal reaches a signed stage in Attio, the relevant data can be passed to the ERP without recreating workflows that already exist in a system that works.
Attio Configuration
The workspace was configured for a five to six user team with stage-appropriate views, lead assignment by sales rep, and a pipeline built around ARC's real sales process rather than a generic funnel. Rb2b was introduced for website visitor identification, so that when a company matching ARC's ICP visits the site, a lead is surfaced in Attio for the relevant sales rep to act on.
Claude MCP Integration
Claude was connected to Attio via MCP so the team can interact with the CRM in natural language, query contact history, draft personalized outreach emails with full context from the deal record, and run lightweight lead scoring against public signals without leaving the CRM.
ERP Integration Scoping
The integration between Attio and ARC Connect was designed and documented for the internal engineering team to implement. The scope covered the key data flows: renewal dates, onboarding status, contract lifecycle events, and client archive flags, so that account management activity in the ERP surfaces as context in the CRM.
Technology Stack
Attio - CRM, prospecting pipeline, relationship intelligence (source of truth)
Rb2b - website visitor identification, lead surfacing
Claude MCP - AI-assisted outreach drafting and CRM querying
ARC Connect ERP - contract and account management (integration scoped for Phase 2)
The Results
ARC Group Benefits went from scattered tools and no CRM to a structured Attio setup built for their specific sales motion, with AI and website intelligence connected from day one.
Double-touch eliminated - all sales contacts and conversation history now centralized in one system accessible to the full team
Pipeline reflects the real process - stages and views designed for a 3-12 month white-glove sales cycle, not a generic funnel
Website visitors surfaced automatically - Rb2b identifies companies visiting the site and creates or updates the relevant Attio record
Claude MCP connected - team can draft context-aware outreach and query the CRM in French or English directly from the tool
ERP integration designed - the technical team has a clear implementation spec to connect Attio to ARC Connect without disrupting existing account management workflows
Why It Matters
For a B2B services business with long sales cycles and a small, high-context team, the CRM's job is relationship management, not volume tracking. Every person at ARC who touches a prospect needs to know what was said last, when, and what the next step is. Without that context in one place, double-touch happens, conversations start from zero, and deals get lost to competitors who started earlier.
The right architecture for ARC was not a mass-outreach stack. It was a clean, AI-connected CRM that reflects how their team actually works, with a clear path to deeper integration with the systems they already depend on.