Website 2024

The challenge

The largest wireless telecom merger was about to take place. Cingular and AT&T were about to unite as one company. The Justice Department had issued a cooling off period between the two companies in which they were not allowed to talk to one another until the FCC and the FTC had approved the merger.

Cingular was in a difficult position of not being able to coordinate the internal communications of bridging the combined companies nearly 80,000 employees. For example, Cingular had created an Order Form for managers and employees to order internal communications materials, and now it could not be coordinated with the AT&T people.

Also, the project had multiple stages and timelines. All Points assembled a variety of kits which contained the internal communications pieces. Quality Control was essential as it is in every case… the employees must receive what they had ordered. This was challenging in that each product is very similar with the only difference being some small print on the front cover. This posed a potential challenge in case some of the product that arrived at All Points was mislabeled by the printer.

The solution

On August 31, 2004 at 4:30pm, All Points received a rough draft of the Order form. On the morning of 9/3, All Points presented a website that served as a communications gateway that allowed communications from Cingular & AT&T to flow through the website with All Points serving as the communications intermediary.

The entire website including all client revisions was completed by 9/13. Also, we suggested setting up and implemented a customer service email cingular@allpointspackaging.com for any order inquiries.

The result

We understood the importance of the project and exceeded expectations in every instance. All Points consistently provided Cingular with the necessary data for them to make logistical decisions. This was important point due to the higher than expected number of orders.

All Points analyzed the delivery address data in an effort to reduce packaging and freight costs by determining the most efficient box size. All Points inspected every box (this is a part of our process) to ensure that the contents match the product label. This QC procedure prevented over 500 errors due to mislabeling.

For the Kickoff Boxes, Cingular requested our assistance in designing the box. We considered the purpose and the content and designed a box with a plastic handle to make it easy to carry from meeting to meeting. From the time we received final approval to produce and ship 22,059 kits via FedEx, we had a 1.5 day lead time

In an effort to streamline the process, time was a top priority, FedEx placed 14 employees on site at All Points to scan and sort the packages. FedEx stated that All Points processed what was equal to the weekly air volume for the Atlanta area in one day. By the conclusion of the project, we had shipped over 29,000 packages in total and had shipping related issues with only 10 packages. This is an amazing feat due to the turn time and complexity of the project.

At the conclusion of the project, Theresa Childs - MS&L for the Cingular and AT&T Merger stated:

“All Points processed 22,059 overnight FedEx packages in 1 day for us. The miracle happened for 2 reasons: Our team was prepared and we had a great partner in All Points. I witnessed one of the most amazing fulfillment projects that I have ever seen!”