An A1 Review from Austria’s leading telco
We’re delighted to announce another happy DESelect customer story.
Our CTO Jonathan spoke with Michael Tichy and Roman Kump, from A1 Telekom, Austria’s market-leading fixed and mobile network operator.
The limitations of Query Studio
Michael kicked off by explaining how A1 began working with Salesforce:
“Primarily we used Salesforce by itself, working with the data extensions and automations to prepare data. Very often we used Automation Studio and SQL Query Studio, before formatting and preparing the data for the organization’s marketers to use.”
Sharing feedback from his colleagues, Roman went on to explain:
“Having spoken to other data experts in the business, we all agree that it’s very easy to select campaign data with DESelect compared with Query Studio, which is not so comfortable to use. Finding data extensions — making selections is not so easy.”
Deep diving into the detail of limitations and issues faced by using Query Studio, Michael explained:
“The main difference between not having and having DESelect is that now we are able to focus on the content detail — the ‘how to’. How can I get the data? What’s the logic?
In the past, we were always asking ‘why is the SQL in Query Studio not working?’ The answer was never clear — either something went wrong, or something had occurred that we simply could not understand. Sometimes Query Studio gives you the basic message ‘something went wrong.’ Of course, we could never find a fast answer. We might spend hours or even days trying to fix these problems.
The main issue was that we had a lot of time-consuming tasks. With DESelect, we can just focus on the selection itself, get the logic behind it right, and not worry about anything else. This has created a huge improvement in our work.”
Interested to understand more, Jonathan probed into the territory of time consumption, to which Michael elaborated:
“As newcomers to Salesforce, it was a complicated process. As we learned to understand the system, we could see that part of the UI was completely missing. For us, it was completely new to have to write SQL to get data out of a system. Salesforce does have some minor UI support for this, but it’s very limited.
The use cases and complexity of our campaigns grew. The more complex they became, we saw how much harder it was to get things done with Salesforce out-of-the-box features.
Since we switched to DESelect, it’s been a lot less time-consuming, because we no longer have to search for and fix syntax errors.”
Direct vendor-to-end-user support
On the subject of support, Michael added:
“Now, if there are issues, we can contact DESelect support, and it’s normally resolved within 24 hours. This helps us a lot, as with Salesforce issues, we have to Google or go on forums to find answers to problems. With DESelect, we have direct support from the vendor itself. We have real people on-hand to help and support us if we get stuck with a feature, which leaves us to focus on the logic.”
Expressing his views on DESelect’s key benefits, Roman added:
“I think the greatest benefit is that making selections using SQLs means that only a few people can do it. We only have maybe four specialists who can make hardcore SQLs. Meanwhile, we have 15 people who can select campaigns using DESelect. Now many people with low or no SQL skills can easily make selections. That’s the biggest benefit. We have extended our team of data experts simply by adopting DESelect.”
Hammering this point home, Michael added:
“With DESelect you can totally avoid SQL. It’s not needed anymore. There are no format issues, it’s always the same approach, and it’s comfortable and easy.”
Roman and Michael launched into a quickfire exchange of benefits at this point, which we very much enjoyed. Roman kicked off:
“Also, there’s a lot more clarity from DESelect, which means you have fewer errors. Manual SQLs are hard to read, whilst DESelect just naturally has more resistance to errors.”
Michael:
“With DESelect, you have a one-pager, where everything is there. It’s such a good structure that you can easily find any errors.”
Aaaaand back to Roman:
“Picklists are also a gamechanger with DESelect. I’ve made 20 or so. This functionality is very cool. The autorefresh is cool too!”
A1’s DESelect adoption
They say feedback is the breakfast of champions and we value it above all else, as it’s what helps drive our roadmap. Jonathan inquired about how easy adoption was for A1’s marketers. Micheal responded positively:
“It was very easy. The first meeting we had with the DESelect team answered most questions, then we had great support to answer anything else. Performance now is very good; it helps us a lot. The UI is built in a really great and intuitive way. All the steps are in the UI. I have a feeling it was programmed by someone who’s used to working in Salesforce because it’s so practical; you can feel it.”
Finally, in discussing A1’s overall experience, Michael commented:
“It’s really very good. We also like that DESelect is so open to user feedback and try to add it to the development roadmap. We feel DESelect understands our needs and wants to help make things simple. This direct response between vendor and customer is a benefit for both, I think.”
Adding his own feedback experience, Roman commented:
“We’ve talked about some features, then two months later, we have them! It’s impressive, it’s really great.”
A1 Telekom recommends DESelect
The two had a few words for anyone interested in DESelect’s capabilities. Michael went first:
“Give it a try! Ask DESelect whatever questions you have, because the answers really are very good. Every question we had was already in the solution itself. You just have to give the tool a try.”
Keen to have the last and most enthusiastic words, Roman hit the nail on the head:
“If you want to select complex selections in Salesforce, DESelect is a must-buy. And get the Advanced edition! It’s got some really great additional features.”
Massive thanks to Michael & Roman for taking the time to share their experience, and to A1 Telekom for adopting DESelect with such enthusiasm.
If you’d like to learn how DESelect can help your organization, check out this quick tour, or schedule a demo today.