Using App Data Room to Differentiate Us from the Competition
Updated August 05, 2018

Using App Data Room to Differentiate Us from the Competition

Stan Pflueger | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with App Data Room

Prior to deploying App Data Room, our company was distributing hard copies of our marketing collateral and forms. Using this approach, our collateral did not include video options. App Data Room was deployed across our entire field sales team. Today approximately 50 sales reps use App Data Room to present video and written marketing collateral to potential customers. App Data Room also allows our Marketing Department to modify and add marketing collateral to the library without relying on a third-party vendor.
  • Allows us to include video collateral in our portfolio
  • Allows visibility into an activity that the recipient performs once collateral is sent to them
  • Provides analytics around most and least used pieces of collateral
  • Allows our marketing team to generate and upload new collateral on demand
  • While the analytics have improved, we could use better reporting capability that will help us understand which accounts are being touched
  • Reduced cost of printing hard copies of collateral
  • Ability to push new collateral to reps in the field immediately
  • Increased selling time for rep because they have the ability to prepackage agendas prior to sales calls
  • App Data Room
App Data Room was the only product that we evaluated prior to implementation. Prior to implementation of App Data Room, our Marketing Department was working with a third-party vendor to create documents. Our reps were limited to being able to provide hard copy materials and were not able to show video material. After implementing App Data Room, our Marketing Department could create, edit and upload material on-demand, and our reps reduced their frequency of printed material which resulted in reduced costs. The benefits of App Data Room were significant and immediate, and so we did not evaluate any other vendors.
In our case, we have sales reps across the country. App Data Room allows us to make new collateral available on-demand. The implementation of App Data Room also has resulted in significant reduction in our spend for printing hard copies. The app is intuitive for our reps and was not difficult for them to grasp.

Using App Data Room

50 - All 50 users are representatives within our sales department who are responsible for presenting our company's capabilities to potential customers. Support is provided from the Creative Director in our Marketing Department who creates, edits and uploads new material. Support is also provided by members of our Sales Operations team who is responsible for setting up and training new users.
3 - 1 of our in-house support persons is the creative director in our Marketing Department. This individual is responsible for creating and publishing collateral in the App Data Room tool. The other two in-house support persons are part of our Sales Operations Department. These individuals are responsible for adding / removing users and providing leadership with data on usage.
  • Presenting new-product information to prospective customers during in-person sales calls
  • Presenting new-product information to prospective customers during remote sales calls
  • Emailing referral forms (used to initiate orders) to prospective customers
  • Some of our sales reps have large territories which prevent them from interacting in person with customers. These reps use the video and other collateral to interact with customers.
  • We will continue to leverage the capabilities of App Data Room to reach out to clients in hard-to-reach locations using remote conferencing capabilities
App Data Room has been instrumental in allowing our sale representatives to present up-to-date and innovative marketing collateral to potential customers. A second value add is that our Marketing Department is able to create and upload the most current material to the app so that our sales representatives have access to the most up-to-date information to present to our customers.

Evaluating App Data Room and Competitors

Yes - Prior to implementing App Data Room, our sales representatives were printing hard copies of sell sheets and referral forms and presenting these documents to prospective customers during sales calls. This approach prevented our reps from utilizing video resources in order to have a greater impact on our customers. This approach involved significant printing costs which were reduced, and allowed our reps to utilize state-of-the-art video resources with greater impact on our customers.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
The following product features were the motivating factors in our decision to invest in App Data Room: 1) reduction of printing costs - we significantly reduced the amount of money we spent on printing hard copies of existing material. And, while environmental considerations were not part of our decision-making process, it is an additional benefit; 2) uploading new collateral to App Data Room is intuitive and can be accomplished real time. This feature allowed us to save the money being spent on a vendor to upload new documents to our printing catalog.
We would not make any changes to our evaluation and selection process. We are happy with the product. It has resulted in cost savings, it is easy to use and requires minimal support to maintain the app.

App Data Room Implementation

No, key insights. Implementation was easy. The App Data Room staff hosted initial training sessions for our support personnel, and then these support persons conducted training and support sessions for our users.
Change management was a minor issue with the implementation - Change management was a minor issue during the implementation because the value proposition of App Data Room was so compelling that our users were excited about the opportunity to add it to their arsenal. Even our reps who I would describe as "technological challenged" were able to understand how to use the app.
  • Some of our reps have limited technological capabilities, so it took some additional time to get them to use the product.
  • Implementation was easy. We did have some concerns about the analytics within the app. While the analytics have improved, there is still room to improve.

App Data Room Support

The few support requests that we have submitted have been resolved within 2 business days. The App Data Room staff has also been responsive to suggestions from our staff to upgrade the product - specifically in the area of analytics.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
I would describe all of the support provided by the App Data Room as exceptional. They have been responsive to our requests to improve the analytics within the app. When limitations to our requests exist, the team has explained those limitations and worked to try to find ways around them.

Using App Data Room

Overall, the App Data Room product is easy to use. Our Marketing Department is able to quickly upload updated and new material once they create the documents. Users are able to quickly find material filed by subject matter. Once the appropriate material is located, it can be presented on their iPad and emailed to prospective customers who indicate interest in the products.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • Creating and loading collateral to the system is easy to do
  • Setting up new users and deleting users is simple and intuitive
  • Data analytics have improved
  • Data analytics could use some improvement. It's not easy to know how many times a user has used the app during a specified period of time
Yes - Mobile interface on the iPad is the only option. Using App Data Room on other mobile devices such as phones would not be practical because the screens are not large enough to display the documents. Using App Data Room on a laptop computer is not practical either because our sales reps do not carry laptops into sales calls.