Starting from zero, Mustang Cat’s lean comms team used ContactMonkey to build structure, reach deskless workers, and drive measurable culture impact.
When Jerilyn Hall joined Mustang Cat as Employee Communications Manager, she wasn’t looking to improve an existing internal comms program. She was building one from scratch.
With no tracking, no consistent sending process, and nearly half the workforce never receiving reliable communications, the challenge wasn’t optimization. It was establishing a foundation entirely.
After researching platforms and hearing a strong recommendation from Thompson Cat (a fellow dealer already using ContactMonkey), Jerilyn compared her options — including in-person conversations with competing vendors at industry conferences — and made her choice.
The Challenge: No Metrics, No Foundation, No Visibility
Before ContactMonkey, internal communications at Mustang Cat lacked structure at every level.
Company-wide messages were distributed through image rotators with no way to track whether anyone had seen them. There were no engagement metrics, no benchmarks, and no clear picture of whether communications were landing at all.
The visibility problem was especially acute for deskless employees (a group representing 40–50% of the total workforce) who had no reliable communication pipeline. There was no consistent sender identity, no recognizable look or format, and no feedback loop to understand how employees were receiving information.
“We had very limited understanding of what they were seeing,” Jerilyn explained. “There was no clear pipeline — who the sender was, what our look was, what our messaging looked like.”
Why Mustang Cat Chose ContactMonkey
After evaluating multiple platforms, Jerilyn’s decision came down to a few clear differentiators.
Value for budget. ContactMonkey offered a level of metrics and visibility that competing platforms couldn’t match at a comparable price point. The return on investment was, in Jerilyn’s words, significantly greater than anything else she evaluated.
Familiarity without complexity. The drag-and-drop email builder felt intuitive from the start. The analytics dashboard was clean and easy to read. Features like the heat map, available from day one, gave immediate insight that other platforms charged a premium for.
Focused expertise. ContactMonkey wasn’t trying to be everything. Rather than a bloated all-in-one tool, it was a best-in-class email platform with thoughtful integrations. That specialization gave Jerilyn confidence.
“You guys didn’t reinvent the wheel, you took the best parts of existing things and made them one,” she said. “And you’re the master of this rather than trying to be the jack of all trades.”
The Impact: Trust, Engagement, and a Culture Shift
When ContactMonkey launched at Mustang Cat, engagement was immediately and notably high.
“People want structure. They want something they can rely on. They want consistent communication, that’s what builds trust,” Jerilyn noted. “And that’s something we did not have before ContactMonkey.”
Since implementation, the results have been meaningful across several dimensions:
Deskless workforce reached. For the first time, Mustang Cat had a reliable, trackable channel to communicate with employees who were never previously connected to company-wide messaging.
Employee award nominations surged. Nominations for Mustang Cat’s Servant Leader of the Year award (a recognition tied directly to the organization’s culture and mission) increased exponentially after ContactMonkey was introduced. By targeting unopened recipients and identifying the most engaged work groups, the communications team was able to drive participation in a way that wasn’t previously possible.
Communication trust increased. Employees now know where information is coming from and where to go when they need it. That transparency has measurably improved dynamics between work groups, and Jerilyn believes it has been a contributing factor in reduced turnover, alongside broader organizational improvements.
Manual tasks became automatic. Features Jerilyn had been manually building into her newsletters (read time indicators, hot links, feedback opportunities) were later released as native ContactMonkey features, eliminating extra work and validating her instincts about what employees respond to.
An Unexpected Delight: ConfidenceCheck
When Jerilyn was given an early preview of ContactMonkey’s new ConfidenceCheck feature, her reaction was immediate.
As a team of one-and-a-half managing all internal communications, the pressure of sending company-wide emails without a second set of eyes is real. Confidence Check (an AI agent that reviews emails for errors and quality before sending) addressed a pain point she hadn’t even thought to ask for.
“I often do it by myself,” she said. “To know that ContactMonkey was looking for ways to have my back…I was just stunned.”
What’s Next for Mustang Cat
Mustang Cat plans to:
- Continue leveraging audience segmentation to ensure the right messages reach the right employee groups
- Use engagement analytics to build a stronger benchmark and refine the communication strategy over time
- Expand on two-way feedback loops to deepen the trust built through consistent, transparent communication
Key Takeaways
- Built from zero: ContactMonkey gave Mustang Cat its first real internal communications foundation: metrics, structure, and a consistent channel.
- Deskless workers reached: 40–50% of the workforce now receives reliable, trackable communications for the first time.
- Culture impact: Servant Leader award nominations increased exponentially after targeted campaigns via ContactMonkey.
- Trust and transparency: A clear communication pipeline reduced ambiguity and improved cross-functional dynamics.
- True partnership: Ongoing product improvements, responsive support, and an early feature preview reinforced long-term loyalty.
