Challenge: Founded in 2000, this marketing company offers a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform through which its hospitality clients target opted-in guests with email marketing promotions. The predominant means by which guests’ email addresses, names, and birthdates were collected was through a paper-based subscription form (a “slip”) completed at the restaurant. The company faced two challenges. First, it needed a way to get this information from the restaurant into its clients’ databases quickly — speed of data transfer was important in this rapid new marketing channel. Second, it needed to acknowledge a guest’s subscription via email within a short time so the guest would remember subscribing and not treat the welcome email as spam. The marketing company approached TDEC to help solve both challenges.

Solution: TDEC devised a system in which each restaurant location would collect completed slips in a self-addressed, stamped envelope marked with the location’s store code, and mail them on a weekly basis. TDEC associates received the envelopes and scanned each slip. Image files were then transferred to a second group of TDEC associates who keyed the data, performed quality control, and created an output file sent by secure file transfer to the marketing company’s database. TDEC delivered a 48-hour turnaround time, from receipt to secure transfer.

The company’s success brought new complexities. With upwards of 1,600 restaurant clients using different subscription form formats and collecting different information, the sheer number of business rules was challenging, and daily paper-based changes slowed data entry. TDEC deployed a software system that streamlined the process: instead of paper-based changes, the marketing company created a daily XML file of all new business rules, which TDEC ingested, automatically adopting any new rules into the data entry screen. TDEC’s ingenuity sped the process and lowered the cost per record.

As the marketing company continued to grow, TDEC processes evolved to meet its needs. TDEC established scanning centers in Canada and Europe as the company expanded into those markets, and helped redress issues with client restaurants about the receipt and entry of paper slips by embedding timestamps onto scanned images and developing search functionality. The company, and even its clients, could now search scanned images by client code, store code, date, or email address.

Results: TDEC has provided a full range of document management services to this hospitality marketing company across a long-running partnership. TDEC personnel have entered over 100 million records (each containing one or more fields), allowing the company’s restaurant clients to engage their guests through email. TDEC’s services have helped the marketing company expand its own offerings and given its clients faster access to growing databases.