Thursday, August 07, 2008

Trying New Things, Generating More Success

Just recently, T-Mobile announced the release of the newest version of their most popular cell phone, the Sidekick. Cascade Web Development is proud to have played a part in this rollout process. No, T-Mobile didn’t come to us seeking advice on how to create the next best cellular phone, but they did ask us to develop a critical web application for training their national salesforce.

Whenever a new product is released within a major corporation, information regarding its specifications, features, and maintenance all needs to be distributed to those responsible for selling it. Otherwise, what you get when you walk into your favorite electronics store is a bumbling sales clerk who knows less than you about the product you’re after. No one likes that, and its an outcome that successful companies would like to avoid at all costs. That’s why when T-Mobile decided to begin the process of developing the newest Sidekick model, they contacted Cascade Web Development for a custom web application capable of achieving these desired results. Our development team set to work, and 4 weeks later, the project was finished!

If only it were that easy…

Actually, what really happened involved the strategic implementation of various tools that Cascade Web Development had never truly needed to work with before. These included the use of SCORM in an LMS, and the software program Articulate. The application needed to walk the salesperson through the various aspects of the product, quizzing them along the way. The salesperson would be prohibited from progressing through the training program until he/she had completed the required quizzes.

But developing the base solution was only the beginning. T-Mobile needed to manage and track things like user accounts, user activity, and program scores and statistics. Evergreen, our Content Management System, met these challenges head-on by integrating a series of targeted modules. Every user could be tracked, managed, and have their scores reported, so that eligible participants would be entered into various sweepstakes for their own T-Mobile devices.

By harnessing the power of the web, and implemented an incentive-based training system, T-Mobile is continuing to experience success in bringing their sizable salesforce up to speed with the newest installment of their hugely popular product, the Sidekick.

If you think your company would benefit from this type of training application, contact us today. We’d love to hear your thoughts. As a relatively young firm, we’re continually striving to remain on the cutting-edge in terms of what we’re doing on the web.