Challenge
Most people remember, back in middle school, those days when a substitute teacher would show up, fumble around in the A/V room to find a TV, dig through a box of movies, chase down the right cables to hook up the DVD player—an exhausting process. The sales team at ABC was feeling a lot like those substitute teachers, bogged down with cumbersome old tech and processes at crucial moments. Every time they went out sell ABC’s seasonal schedules to local affiliates, the team had to fumble with a book of DVDs (and chase down whatever TV they could get their hands on) to demo the programming for potential and existing advertisers. After the sale was done, they were stuck using spreadsheets and file drives to record the order. Simply, the entire sales process was behind the times.
Solution
ABC Executives needed a smart, streamlined solution—one that didn’t further bog them down with a multi-year vendor contract. Idea Asylum Productions had been a long-term trusted partner to ABC in delivery of preview content to affiliate stations and, when modernizing the effort with a tablet application, they hunted for a single vendor that offered mobile technologists, no licenses or upsells, and a lightweight support arrangement—enter Metal Toad. We put our strategic discovery process to work, interviewing all key stakeholders to create user stories tailored to each persona. From that, a clear solution emerged: a single app that the sales team could use with any mobile device or computer—replacing all the old DVDs and spreadsheets with a modern, polished presentation. Metal Toad created a mobile app that caches videos locally, so the sales team can use them even with no internet connection. A browser-based counterpart was developed that duplicates the look and feel of the app, but relies on streaming video for content delivery. In other words, any technological situation that a sales call could present, the ABC sales team would have access to all necessary sales tools. The app relies on a host of key technologies: A proprietary custom JavaScript framework and PhoneGap 1.9 with custom plug-ins A single codebase for both implementations, using the latest versions of RequireJS and OpenAJAX A backend consisting of modules and APIs that provide easily-managed content and data to both implementations
Results
The new system revamped the entire sales process, making it faster, easier, and more efficient. ABC’s sales demo—shows and all—is now readily accessible from any tablet, at any time. And the data gathered during sales meetings, including the orders, is sent to the digital sales hub in Burbank, with real-time analytics and integration with multiple ABC systems. And with ongoing 24/7/365 support from Metal Toad, ABC’s sales process is always poised for seamless implementation.
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