How One Fortune 250 Company Goes Beyond Online Surveys

Market Research
September 27, 2016

One of the greatest benefits of using Alchemer is its ability to go far beyond the traditional understanding of what online survey software can do.

One company has taken full advantage of Alchemer’s easy to use integrations, both built-in and custom, to power unique applications that simply weren’t possible with their old survey platform.

Here’s how.

How Customization and Integrations Are Put to Work for Dish Network

Dish Network became a global Fortunate 250 company through hard work and careful investment, not throwing money at their problems. Because of this, the company has developed a culture of frugality and bootstrapping almost unheard of in large companies.

When their contract with their previous survey software provider expired, business operations manager Sean Payton didn’t just renew blindly. Instead, he looked at the competition to find out if there was a more cost-effective alternative. This was how he found Alchemer.

While they opened their Alchemer Team Edition account with he intent to use it just for survey administration and analysis, it didn’t stay that way. Soon, they were branching out into new territory that their old software would not have handled.

“The funny thing,” Peyton says, “is that at the time we had no idea just how powerful Alchemer actually was or how much value it would bring to our organization.”

Going Above and Beyond Surveys with a Complete Data Collection Tool

As Peyton grew more familiar with Alchemer’s service and capabilities, he started to wonder if there was more to this software than he originally thought. He imagined creating complete workflows powered by data; in short, he wanted to take full advantage of Alchemer’s power as a data collection tool.

A few months later, he attended an Ultimate Training in Boulder, Colorado. By working one-on-one with technical survey experts, Peyton was able to dive deep into Alchemer’s advanced features–including the custom URL variables that would make his dream workflows possible.

With help from fellow Business Operations Manager Larissa Murphy, the team was able to design new, powerful tools using customized dashboards and integrations with third party services like SQL and Tableau.

Setting up custom integrations wasn’t as difficult as it sounds.

“Although they weren’t out-of-the-box integrations, creating them was easier than you’d think,” says Murphy. “With a little basic coding on our part—a lot of which we just Googled to figure out—we were up and running.”

 

Using the Flexibility of Alchemer to Create Company-Wide Tools

By using Alchemer’s underlying data capture functionality, Peyton, Murphy, and other members of their team were able to utilize custom integrations for a variety of tasks, first within their own department and later throughout the entire company.

This was a perfect example of how flexible and customizable Alchemer’s services are. While the Team Edition can be easily integrated with a library of compatible third party systems, Alchemer also grants access to the API and custom scripting for developers. This additional flexibility allows for endless customization.

By using this custom scripting, Dish was able to create and power bespoke tools and utilize them companywide, including:

Data Collection for Sales Training Tracking

This tool streamlines and automates much of the sales training process, allowing individuals to sign up for specific training sections and tracking data such as attendance and geographic information.

It also automates much of the sales training workflow by automatically sending informational prompts and followups to those sign up for training sessions.

Hotel Recommendations Powered by Surveys

Dish employees can now easily compare the best hotel choices when traveling for work by way of an internal reviewing tool powered by Alchemer.

Similar to Yelp, this tool allows employees to share feedback on recent hotel stays that can be easily accessed by the entire company.

Calendaring

By combining the services of Alchemer, SQL, and Tableau, The Dish Support Team was able to create a master calendar that is now used companywide.

The calendar coordinates company events with ease, while also allowing for individual employee functions such as request for time off. Events are added and updated through Alchemer’s forms

 

A Partnership Without Limits

Through imaginative thinking on both sides of the table, The Dish Support Team and Alchemer were able to create versatile customized tools that continue to make data collection and company logistics within Dish a breeze. This brought insight into the depth of the benefits Alchemer can give an organization, and also proved how cost-effective partnering with the company has been for Dish.

“We’ve been able to do so much with Alchemer for such a small cost,” says Peyton. “We’d be spending ten times as much to get the same functionality in another tool.”

Peyton and the Support Team have more custom integration ideas planned for Dish’s future, including a content repository to house training materials, and are ecstatic with the possibilities and versatility that Alchemer has given them.

“The only real limitation was our Imagination,” Says Peyton, on his team’s initial discovery of Alchemer’s full potential. That continues to be the only real limitation to this day.

Download the full case study to read more about how Dish used Alchemer to create a better functioning data collection system and beyond.

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