From Fragmented Tools to Full Funnel Visibility: How ALTO US Built a Scalable CRM Foundation for Retail Safety Growth

Platform: HubSpot CRM

Who They Are

ALTO US is a niche B2B retail safety company that deploys Customer Success Specialists into retail locations to deter Organized Retail Crime (ORC), support victims, and coordinate with law enforcement.

Who They Serve

Enterprise retailers including Walgreens, Kroger (Ralphs, Food4Less), Whole Foods, CVS, restaurants, and convenience chains. Buyers are VPs and Directors of Loss Prevention.

How They Sell

Every engagement begins with a 6-month pilot — no exceptions. Clients then convert to a per-store, per-month subscription. Managing multi-site enterprise accounts requires tracking across hundreds of store locations.

The Challenge

A Niche Business Running on Mismatched Tools

ALTO US operates in a space most CRMs were never designed for. Their go-to-market involves long consultative sales cycles, enterprise multi-location accounts, a unique 6-month pilot-to-subscription model, and a service delivery team that functions as both operations staff and victim advocates working alongside law enforcement. Managing that complexity across three disconnected platforms was creating real business risk.

Core Pain Points

1. Legacy CRM: one contact per company. Their previous CRM allowed only a single contact record per company. Enterprise deals involving VPs, regional managers, district leads, and store contacts were impossible to manage — contacts got lost, context disappeared, and accounts were chronically under-documented.
2. Email sending platform: a marketing island Email marketing lived in a completely separate system with no connection to sales activity. There was no way to know if a prospect had opened an email before a call, or to trigger follow-ups based on pipeline stage.
3. No pipeline visibility The sales team of three had no shared view of deal status, activity history, or pipeline health. Forecasting was manual guesswork. Leadership could not see what was progressing, stalled, or at risk.
4. Spreadsheets as the master record The official store list — hundreds of client locations organized by grandparent retailer → parent banner → individual store — lived in spreadsheets. Contracts and CS notes were scattered across shared drives with no audit trail.
5. Event leads going nowhere The sales team attended industry conferences and loss prevention events — their primary source of new logo opportunities — but scanned badges were loaded into spreadsheets and rarely followed up systematically. Leads went cold.

"We needed a system that could handle enterprise accounts the way we actually sell — multiple contacts at multiple levels across hundreds of store locations. Our previous CRM couldn't do that. We were losing critical context on every deal."

— Michelle, VP Sales, ALTO US

The Data Challenge

Before HubSpot, ALTO's contact and account data lived in four places simultaneously:

• Pipedrive — deal records (one contact only)
• Mailchimp — marketing contacts (no CRM sync)
• Google Drive — master store list & contracts
• Event badge scans — spreadsheet imports

The Solution

A Unified HubSpot Foundation Built for How ALTO Actually Works

Second Mile designed and implemented a HubSpot architecture that matched ALTO's actual sales motion, delivery model, and account complexity — not a generic CRM setup retrofitted to fit. Every configuration decision was driven by how ALTO generates leads, runs pilots, manages enterprise relationships, and expands accounts.

Multi-Contact Account Architecture & Data Migration

Building the grandparent / parent / child store hierarchy in HubSpot required solving a problem their previous CRM had never addressed: there was no unique identifier that could link stores across thousands of records. Second Mile discovered that ALTO's master store list already contained a "Place ID" — a unique identifier for each store location — and used it as the custom HubSpot unique identifier, eliminating duplicate records and enabling clean associations at every level.

• Place ID as the unique store-level identifier; Client ID at the parent level
• Five-object Pipedrive migration: companies, contacts, deals, notes, and meeting activity — US-only data, cleaned before import
• Unlimited contacts per company — no more one-contact limit
• 3,353+ historical contacts imported with proper account associations

Sales Pipeline & Sequences Built for the Pilot Model

The deal pipeline was structured around ALTO's actual 7-stage sales process: from initial outreach through pilot kick-off to subscription conversion. Hubspot Sequences were set up for the two highest-volume sales channels — post-event follow-up for new contacts and re-engagement for existing relationships — so the sales team could enroll leads within hours of a conference rather than letting badge scans go cold.

• 7-stage pipeline: Prospect → Qualified → Proposal → Pilot Kick-Off → Active Pilot → Subscription Conversion → Closed Won
• Event follow-up sequences: separate tracks for new vs. known contacts
• Uplead and cold outreach sequences for prospecting workflows
• Sales activity (calls, emails, notes) auto-logged via Duo + Uplead integrations
• Pipeline reporting replacing manual spreadsheet forecasting

Integrated Marketing, Lead Scoring & Nurture

Previous email deliver tool was retired and all email marketing moved into HubSpot, connecting contact behavior (opens, clicks, form fills, website visits) directly to sales records. A practical lead scoring model was built around ALTO's event-heavy business: conference booth visits, webinar attendance, and website engagement are the primary MQL triggers, reflecting how their pipeline actually fills.

• Lead scoring designed around events, webinars, and web intent signals
• Contact source tracking: organic, events, Uplead, direct — for channel ROI
• 5-step automated nurture sequence targeting LP professionals
• Segmentation by industry (grocery, pharmacy, c-store), geography, and role
• Event lead import enrolled into nurture sequences within 24 hours
• Email open rates of 60–91% across the nurture sequence (Q4 2025)

CS Onboarding & Expansion Tracking

Customer Success got their own HubSpot workspace: pilot onboarding pipelines, QBR scheduling, and expansion deal tracking for store-level upsells.

• Pilot onboarding pipeline with milestone task automation
• QBR scheduling integrated with HubSpot meetings tool
• Expansion deals linked to parent account records for upsell tracking
• CS team seat structure: service seats with full visibility into sales pipeline

The Results

Measurable Impact Across the Entire Revenue Funnel

Within 10 months of go-live, ALTO US had transformed its revenue operations: sales activity doubled, marketing engagement far exceeded industry benchmarks, and the CS team was managing pilot-to-subscription conversion from a single unified system for the first time.

67% Post-Launch Win Rate

16 of 24 closed deals won after go-live — up from no measurable baseline.

60–91% Email Open Rates

Across ALTO's 5-email loss prevention nurture sequence in Q4 2025. Industry avg: ~21%.

4,359 Contacts Centralized

3,353 historical records imported and 794+ organic contacts added — all tied to the proper account hierarchy.

2× Web Traffic Growth

Website sessions grew from ~20–30 page views/day pre-launch to 60–120/day post go-live as nurture sequences drove return visits.

21 Active HubSpot Users

Up from 10 at the start of the engagement — spanning sales, CS, marketing, and operations.

Beyond the Numbers

What Really Changed for ALTO

Enterprise accounts are now manageable. With multi-contact associations, ALTO can track every stakeholder inside a relationship — from the corporate VP of Loss Prevention down to the district manager and individual store contacts — in a single connected account view. This was simply impossible before.

The pilot model is built into the system. Every deal has a clear path: prospect, qualify, proposal, pilot kick-off, active pilot, subscription. The 6-month pilot isn't a workaround anymore — it's a defined stage with automated milestones and accountability built in.

Marketing and sales are finally speaking the same language. When a loss prevention professional opens a nurture email or visits the website, that activity is visible to the rep before they pick up the phone. Context that used to live in disconnected systems — or nowhere at all — now flows automatically.

CS can manage expansion at scale. As ALTO grows a retailer relationship from a 10-store pilot to a 50-store regional program, the CS team can track each expansion deal, milestone, and QBR inside the same system as the original sale. Upsell opportunities are no longer discovered by accident.

In Their Words

What the ALTO Team Said

"Before HubSpot, every enterprise account was a mess. Our previous CRM gave us one contact per company — one. We sell into a company with ten people involved across three banners and a hundred stores. We were losing deals because we couldn't track the relationships."

— Michelle, VP Sales, ALTO US

"The nurture sequences changed how we follow up after events. We used to scan badges and hope someone sent a follow-up email. Now leads go into a sequence automatically and we can see exactly who engaged before we reach out. It's a completely different experience."

— Connie (Constanza), Head of Marketing, ALTO US

"I can finally see where every pilot stands without asking the CS team for a status update. The QBR scheduling, the expansion tracking — it's all in one place. That visibility used to not exist at all."

— Natalia, Operations & CS Lead, ALTO US

The Second Mile Approach

Why This Implementation Worked

Deep discovery before a single field was built. Second Mile ran structured discovery sessions across every team: sales, marketing, CS, and operations. The HubSpot architecture was designed from those conversations — not from a template.

Data migration as a strategy, not a chore. Migrating five object types from Pipedrive (companies, contacts, deals, notes, activity) alongside the master store list and Mailchimp data wasn't a lift-and-shift. Second Mile's data architect led a structured migration plan: US-only data filtered and cleaned, then loaded object-by-object in the correct sequence so associations were never broken. The discovery that ALTO already had a Place ID unique identifier — embedded in their master store list — saved weeks of custom identifier work.

Built around the pilot model — not despite it. Most CRM implementations would have treated the 6-month pilot as a workaround. Second Mile made it a pipeline stage with its own automations, milestones, and reporting — turning ALTO's unique sales motion into a competitive advantage.

Training that matched real workflows. Each team — sales, marketing, CS — was trained on their own view of HubSpot, not a generic demo. Adoption hit 21 active users within the first months, with meeting volumes peaking at 218 in July 2025.

Ready to build a CRM that fits the way your team actually works?

Second Mile designs and implements HubSpot systems built around your real sales motion — not a template. Whether you're migrating from legacy tools, managing complex enterprise accounts, or trying to connect marketing to pipeline for the first time, we'll build you a foundation that scales.

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