© 2015 Sprinklr, Inc. All rights reserved. www.sprinklr.com info@sprinklr.com

Founded in 1997 in the heart of Austin, Texas, Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas is known for both its true love of movies and its signature spin on the cinema-eatery concept. At Alamo Drafthouse, patrons can enjoy movies galore along with a cold beer or cocktail and a bite to eat – all from the comfort of their seats. Its carefully curated selection of new and classic movies and unique special events like interactive quote-alongs and celebrity guest appearances took it from beloved local staple to widespread success. And naturally, that success has propelled them to large-scale expansion across the United States.

the problemDue to the company’s rapid expansion, the brand quickly outgrew what could be actively maintained by a social point solution. Various factors influence change within a business, ranging from contract renewals to quarterly business reviews, or budget shifts. In Drafthouse’s case, the vendor prompted the brand to evaluate the scalability of the platform as well as Drafthouse’s growing needs in social media, which ultimately could not be satisfied. “We have a large web of social structure. We needed a platform that could do a lot more. Our current solution lacked many features, such as robust analytics,” explains Casey Warnick, Director of Social Media for Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

For their growth, the vendor suggested Drafthouse set up two separate accounts, doubling monthly payments to cut costs. This was frustrating, especially with the purpose of a true enterprise platform being to manage social from one place. After considering the inability to add additional users without being moved to the point solution’s “Enterprise Level,” Drafthouse had reached its breaking point.

the solutionDriven by insufficient reporting and lack of size or scalability, Drafthouse needed a new social platform solution. “We didn’t have robust enough analytics to grow our social media efforts, learn from them, and improve. We needed a lot more reporting, such as specific numbers on promotions, and more than just a simple number of likes and comments,” shares Casey. Only 10% of organizations are able to claim full integration across their content tools (Altimeter, 2014), and Drafthouse wanted to be one of them.

how Alamo Drafthouse fell in love with Sprinklr.

case study

KEY HIGHLIGHTS:

• Driven by insufficient reporting and lack of size or scalability, Drafthouse needed a new social platform solution.

• Through researching the market and discovering what Drafthouse lacked in their current social media management system, the brand came to understand what was necessary criteria based on must-have features for their future technology.

© 2015 Sprinklr, Inc. All rights reserved. www.sprinklr.com info@sprinklr.com

To sustain the current standards Drafthouse had worked hard to achieve, the brand needed a new social platform solution built from the ground up at the enterprise level. With cinemas opening in Brooklyn, L.A., and San Francisco within the next year, Drafthouse could not afford to be hindered by a point solution.

Through researching the market and discovering what Drafthouse lacked in their current social media management system, the brand came to understand what was necessary to overcome existing problems and prevent future problems. Drafthouse began to develop a criteria based on must-have features of the technology, and qualitative measures of the vendor that highlighted the following:

ENGAGEMENT AND ANALYTICS

Drafthouse needed a direct focus on the success of their existing social strategy to centralize reporting across all channels, dive deeply into campaignlevel metrics, and understand campaign performance. Workflow features and reporting dashboards within Sprinklr came into play to create efficiencies and key performance indicators (KPIs) that were critical to Drafthouse’s success. Drafthouse needed to monitor and filter incoming social conversations through moderation dashboards with the capability to filter inbound messages by keyword, status, sentiment, channel, or priority level. If the Drafthouse team were working on a platform that could automatically tag, route, and assign inbound messages based on sentiment, influence, and keywords, they would have the ability to triage messages, expedite turnaround times, and process messages in bulk, even across channels and accounts.

Additionally, it was imperative for the brand to track, measure, and optimize goals and SLAs. The team needed features to drill into conversations directly from reporting, while sustaining the capability to filter by response time, resolution, queue processing time, user reporting, and more. These technology features were critical in obtaining meaningful insights from reporting that indicate the best times, days, and content attributes for engagement.

GOVERNANCE

Permissions and automated rules to establish routing protocols, approval flows, and policy compliance were pivotal to Drafthouse in scalability, and allowed them to simultaneously maintain focus on local efforts. A platform with governance features that the brand was looking for would allow Drafthouse to add as many users as needed, per market, while implementing fine-grained, rolebased, and account-based access. For example, a creative manager with multiple theaters in their market could add a team member to the platform, but still prevent the member from publishing without having to route message approvals or visibility to certain markets. The brand also needed a feature that would scale governance to a simplified global user provisioning through distributed functionality: similar users (based on role, geography, or department) assembled into a common user profile for bulk actions and permissions. This would provide appropriate team members granular access to everything contingent upon a crisis occurrence, allowing key stakeholders to take action fast.

APPEAL AND LOCALABILITY

In being forward-minded, Drafthouse needed to ensure the platform of choice performed well for larger brands. In doing so, Drafthouse was able to gauge its prospective successes with the platform, as well as analyze the outcomes of other successful brands using the platform. “We wanted to ensure that we also spoke

TOP 5 FEATURES:

1. ENGAGEMENT

2. ANALYTICS

3. GOVERNANCE

4. APPEAL

5. PROXIMITY

© 2015 Sprinklr, Inc. All rights reserved. www.sprinklr.com info@sprinklr.com

“Our decision with assessing the final two came down to the platforms. Sprinklr has a clean look and feel while the other platforms still felt clunky.”

casey warnickSOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE CINEMAS

with a current client. It was important for us to know that other people have had good face time and enjoy the product,” explains Casey.

Visibility and communication style were important too, as Drafthouse prides itself in being a local Austin business with an established and distinct personality. Because Sprinklr has a local Austin office and global representatives, Drafthouse didn’t have to sacrifice the local aspect, which meant a lot to them. “The platform was sophisticated, clean, and professional so we knew that tradeoff was worth it. We would get the same amount of attention with Sprinklr than we would with another local company’s office,” states Casey.

how they solved it1. RESEARCH

Over the course of a two-month process, Drafthouse assimilated high-level research for the products that best fit their needs. As a business that continues to grow, Drafthouse required a platform that separated the premium features from what they needed immediately. This way, the brand could build and grow organically with the platform.

2. ENGAGE

Contacting each vendor and meeting with them spoke to how professional the teams are. Drafthouse observed differences between scrolling through a website and watching a promotional ad, to witnessing firsthand how the products were being used in live demos. This allowed the team to assess some key functionality points: Is it slow? Is it clunky? Is it intuitive? Do the buttons make sense? Is it easy to customize?

3. WEED OUT

After one-on-one phone calls, non-customized demos, and research, the Drafthouse team determined that the pool of sophisticated platform solutions that met their needs was meager. For the smaller platforms, Drafthouse participated in conference call demos that allowed the brand to make quick decisions in eliminating point solutions that didn’t truly provide the full spectrum of features needed. “The smaller vendors and point solutions of the world, while great on their own, just didn’t have everything we needed, and we didn’t want to piece together our social media management,” explains Casey. Ad hoc tools create inefficiencies and result in overlapping workflows that can become fragmented across a growing organization.

4. ASSESS

The platforms that did meet the desired criteria required a more thorough, inperson assessment by the Drafthouse team, with the two biggest contenders taking up the most amount of time. Casey explains, “Our decision with assessing the final two came down to the platforms. Sprinklr has a clean look and feel while the other platforms still felt clunky.” After the must-have technology features and qualities of the vendor were rigorously scrutinized, the time came to ask questions that were not addressed through research. Was the user interface (UI) clean? Were the key functionalities that were previously pitched really that functional? Casey warns other decision makers in assessing vendors that are unable to give specifics, “I saw that as a big red flag. This should be the most important part of our relationship, the beginning, so, if not now – when?”

© 2015 Sprinklr, Inc. All rights reserved. www.sprinklr.com info@sprinklr.com

“We are a national brand with a fast-paced expansion. Having a local presence in each market is a critical social opportunity, so growth and complexity simply must be managed within the same solution..”

casey warnickSOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE CINEMAS

For fast-paced, growing companies making long-term, strategic decisions for their social platform, expectations should be high for the experience. Curated environments that are personalized and relevant to the industry illustrate the platform’s level of complexity and detail. As a result, the purchasing brand is able to visualize how it can enhance their customer experience while using the platform.

5. SELECT

The thorough assessment process made Casey and her team feel confident in selecting Sprinklr. Not only did the platform satisfy Drafthouse’s technological needs, but it also aligned with the Drafthouse personality. As for the other guys? “It just didn’t feel as seamless,” explains Casey. “Unless there was a clear connection and great communication, we didn’t want that gap through all of the training process, implementation, and our ongoing face-to-face time, which was so important to us. Sprinklr was very professional and prepared, and that really set the tone for the presentation – which made the platform seem superior.” This viewpoint was shared with the VP of Marketing of Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, who also evaluated the presentations of the platform finalists.

6. CONFIRM

For a business that is growing and making the leap to enterprise systems, going from a month-to-month payment to a unique billing structure does not happen overnight. Once the vendor ensures the brand’s needs, a process begins to make sure everything is completely customized and tailored for the brand. That being said, leaders and decision makers – like Casey – had to prepare their teams for the intermittent time within this selection and confirmation process in which they would still be operating off of the point solutions they previously had. The software is built from the ground up to provide seamless integration across markets and functional sets throughout a brand’s organization, but sometimes unavoidable external factors can slow down a process of change. During the confirmation process, a few different factors come into play that should be safely baked into a brand’s timeline: personal time, holidays, and huge industry movements, specifically for Drafthouse. For example, their holiday movie season became the number one priority, and temporarily put their social transition on the back burner.

resultsIt’s difficult for any business that has recognized they’ve outgrown a platform to initiate the process of change. Decision making through implementation can take up to a full quarter. The research and the time? Worth it. Drafthouse now has their social media channels throughout their entire social web and national markets housed in one place. The seamlessness of the platform also allows room to grow as Drafthouse inevitably expands over the next two years and enters new markets. “With Sprinklr, we have so much reporting power, we’re going to be able to tag content and see which copy and images performs better, the sweet spot for spending, and what works for grand openings. It is going to be a very exciting year,” shares Casey with a smile. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is now ready to tackle everything social as they continue to offer a unique and unparalleled cinematic experience.

© 2015 Sprinklr, Inc. All rights reserved.

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