Email, Analytics and Content Management for a Complete Compliance Solution

The client: A manufacturer of products requiring strict quality and certification documentation.

The challenge: In order for the client to ship products, their end customers required that certain quality and certification documents already be on file at the customer site.  Products shipped with a manifest listing names and version numbers of documents that should be on file at the customer site.  If these documents were not already on file, or version numbers did not match, the shipment was rejected.

The business process that had been agreed to between the client and their end customers was that the client would publish updated documentation to their website and notify end customers when updates were available.  It was the responsibility of end customers to download new documentation and update their files.  In practice, the client had trouble controlling exactly when documents were published to the site or even knowing when new versions had been put up.  This meant that email notifications often went out before the new documents were available and customers who followed links in the mail would not find the new documents on the site.  When the documents were uploaded to the Web before emails went out, customers would browse to them and complain that they were not notified of the update. 

The client also had no way of tracking when emails were received and opened and no easy way of tracking downloads to a particular client.  This meant that end customers would often neglect to download and file updates, and they would then blame the client for not sending updates.

The solution:  iData worked with the client to implement a complete content management, email and analytics solution.  Business users at the client site were able to upload updated documentation exactly when they needed with no help from IS.  They could even pre-load documents and set them to become active at a pre-defined time.  Business users were also able to send out email notification exactly timed to correspond with availability of the documentation and to track delivery of this notificaton.  Finally, the analytics component of the solution allowed the business users to track exactly who downloaded updates and when.

The result:  In addition to saving time and effort by automating a manual Web publishing and bulk email process, the client was able exactly document their compliance with service agreements to customers.  As a result, they were able to turn the conversation from one questioning their performance as a vendor to one where they proactively sought to help their end customers resolve issues with keeping documentation up to date.

Click here to learn more about iData's Synapse Publisher^TM Web Content management system or see the Publisher^TM demo. 

Click here to read about the Synapse CommLink^TM opt-in Email platform or see the CommLink^TM demo.

Click here to learn more about the Synapse VisiTrak^TM Web analytics solution.