Summer Discovery
Summer Discovery provides thousands of middle and high school kids the amazing opportunity to study and travel in the US and around the world each year. Their years of success, personal attention, extensive experience and impeccable safety standards have made them the most trusted name in the industry.
So, they're an amazing company. And they're particularly special to us because, way back in 2000, they became our very first client!
Crafting a Process
It was through working with the Musikers that we developed the methods we have applied with all our subsequent clients ever since: get to understand their industry, the way they do business, the personalities and the culture of the organization, and provide tailor-made solutions built around the way they operate.
We started by building a website for them, promoting the great trips they provide and inviting people to contact them to begin the application process. It was a really nice website, but it was the content management system we built that really blew their socks off. With the amount of detailed, dynamic, ever-changing data they worked with, they needed an awesome CMS that was simple, intuitive and efficient, and that’s what we delivered.
Solving with Automation
Working with the Musikers, we quickly realized how the labor-intensive process of dealing with reams and reams of paperwork was sucking up great quantities of their time and resources. We knew that we could create an effective solution that would digitize and simplify the entire process, making it easier for clients to submit applications and for Summer Discovery to process applications, update information, reduce waste, and increase efficiency.
3 Amazing Student Travel Companies, All Under 1 Roof
Developing the perfect fit.
The work we’d already done for them and the relationship we’d built meant the Musikers trusted us to take on the massive task of automating and digitizing their operations. We did it in stages, building a system that fit in intuitively and seamlessly with their methods and ops, so that there were no major disruptions, no massive learning curves, no confusing new procedures.
The result was both a revolution in the way the Musikers operated and, at the same time, a seamless and unobtrusive transition to a more efficient way of doing business. The properties we created for them operate on a multitude of different levels:
- they’re pioneering
- they look amazing
- they provide an incredible amount of information (literally thousands of dynamic, information-rich pages) in a simple, engaging manner
- they enable potential participants to contact the company directly with questions and comments
- they accept detailed, multi-faceted applications, making for a straightforward, customer-friendly experience
The sheer enormity of the CMS is astounding. It’s not simply a place for editing content – it’s a complete online marketing machine. It allowed them to automate their forms process, making the business virtually paperless. Every one of the thousands of participants they travel each year has to fill out multiple, multi-page forms. Then there are countless pages of supporting documents. We cleaned it all up with a blend of web-based forms and a sophisticated Fax to PDF system which uses an injected barcode to code and file the returned forms with the correct student. It has enabled them to automate vast amounts of their client outreach, follow-up and informational services. It’s super intricate and it works, flawlessly.
Everything we’ve done for Summer Discovery is the result of getting to know them—both as people and as a company. We took the time to fully understand how their business works, and we work with them to make their business work better. We built Brix around their methods and processes, automated them and improved on them organically over time. The systems keep growing and getting better, and the sites we have built for them have always been an example of the best in current design and technologies.
Everyone Wins!
Working with the Musikers has been an incredible learning experience for everyone. They learned the incredible potential of digital properties and how the web extends far beyond marketing, providing business efficiencies they had never imagined possible. And we learned the value of forging close working relationships with our clients and taking the time to really get to know them and the way they work.