SWECKER

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for Farmers Life Insurance based in Seattle. I work as the digital strategy director. On behalf of the Farmers Life company, which is actually a separate entity from Farmers Insurance, I am responsible for developing our digital marketing channels and our digital infrastructure in terms of quote processing, online forms and tools, calculators, lead routing, and the overarching digital budget.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SWECKER?

SWECKER has been helping Farmers Life in a smaller capacity for a number of years, helping us to digitize and distribute things like life insurance policy prospectuses.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Life insurance can be seen as a type of financial tool, almost like an investment but not quite, and as such, there are really large volumes of documentation that need to be sent out to customers and to agents on an annual basis. SWECKER would help to package these things into interactive CDs in a very user-friendly way. They’ve been doing that for about five years. I’ve worked with them to extend their scope of work to start developing web tools for us that, for example, could be put on Farmers.com, interactive calculators, infographics, and things of that nature. That’s their extended scope of work.

How did you come to work with SWECKER?

SWECKER was a pre-existing Farmers Life vendor when I joined the company. The scope of their work was much smaller, focused on e-document delivery to and on behalf of agents.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with SWECKER in 2011 and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

As far as project performance, we had no online tools to speak of prior to joining the company. What we’ve developed is all new. In terms of the interaction with SWECKER and from a project management perspective, they have been 100% on time and on budget.

How did SWECKER perform from a project management standpoint?

They have great communication and flexibility, especially with regard to legal and regulatory compliance delays on our side.

What did you find most impressive about SWECKER?

Their level of partnership and desire to really help us out is probably the biggest thing. I haven’t really seen that level of integration with some of the other agencies I’ve worked with in past roles. I previously was working with Xerox for about eight years, where I led the interactive marketing team worldwide. Even though the budget for some of those projects was ten times what we are working on here, they were not nearly as flexible. Those agencies were far quicker to increase charges if we had a delay, whereas SWECKER has just been more nimble.

Are there any areas SWECKER could improve?

The only thing that comes to mind is when developing one of our first social media campaigns, they went a little bit too far in terms of trying to be playful in animating the posts. Rather than have more of a mature on-brand type of messaging, they were probably trying to extend that. I think they were just trying to see how far they could push it and then pull it back. That’s the only thing that comes to my mind; otherwise, I can’t think of anything.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Precept Wine is one of the fastest-growing wine companies in the United States, with a unique portfolio representing emerging American wine regions throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho and New Mexico. We offer the best quality-to-price wines of any producer in the country, with critical acclaim to match and are embodied by a combination of owned vineyards, estates, and passionate employees.

My role is Web and Corporate Creative Coordinator. I'm involved in all web and digital media projects as well as all Precept corporate branding projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SWECKER?

We were looking to update our web presence because it was outdated when I first started here. We worked with SWECKER on developing new websites.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We built a couple of websites for our brands, and we just needed a different solution that would take us from the dark ages to something more current. SWECKER was super helpful in troubleshooting the small web issues that we had from our old platform. We pretty much only work with SWECKER for web development. They take our concept of what we want the website to do and function and then bring it to life. I think we developed six to eight new websites with them last year. We're running on Drupal and then we have a WordPress site as well. They also did a site transfer for us with our main Precept website onto a new server.

How did you come to work with SWECKER?

We were working with a different company on a whole bunch of old CMS websites. The contact we had in that company then left the business and put us in contact with SWECKER, which is how the relationship started. They initially started helping us out with just troubleshooting issues on our old CMS platform. I was working with a couple of other different web developers at the time as well, but I’ve always enjoyed working with SWECKER; they’re always helpful. That’s when we started talking about doing some new websites together.

How much have you invested with SWECKER?

We have spent somewhere around the $15,000 mark.

What is the status of this engagement?

I think we did six to eight websites within a three to four-month timeframe. They're ready to go. They built the platform for us while it was on our side and did the marketing here internally. As far as their response time, for most things they're really quick, and they're always ready to go. It never felt like I was waiting for something to come.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I don't have any specific numbers per se, but as far as usability of our website now compared to how it was two years ago, it's a huge difference on our side. We're doing a lot of the uploads, upkeep, and maintenance of the website. To have a user-friendly backend has been a huge time saver on our side which is the one thing we were looking for. Then obviously, the sites are professional, they're clean, they're beautiful, and they're great for consumers to visit our site. 

How did SWECKER perform from a project management standpoint?

They always communicated effectively. I always knew when to expect something from them. They always gave me a call if they needed feedback from me right away. It was all smooth and easy with no major issues.

What did you find most impressive about SWECKER?

We're a smaller company, and we do everything in-house. We don't always work well with different companies because they must adjust to how we work, but SWECKER has always been able to adjust. Things take time here, and there are a lot of different people that are involved on the Precept side too. I tended to be the main liaison between our marketing team and their IT team.  It was easy to work with them; they’re always positive, and they're always working to adjust to our needs, which is awesome.

Are there any areas SWECKER could improve?

No. Honestly, they've always helped us out. If I have any issues with the new websites they've built, they've always been quick about troubleshooting any issues. Overall, working with them has been a really good experience.