a year in

Great Expectations vs Reality – My first year at Signagelive by Aferdita Qesku

As I sit here writing this blog for our website and other social media it is hard to believe that it has really been a full year since my journey with Signagelive started. It feels much longer! My second thought is “why on earth have I chosen ‘Great Expectations’ as part of my blog title? There could be better sayings to live up to!

Expectations though are things which we all have to live with in everything we do. I’ve had a good few years to learn not only how to set my own but also rise up to meet other people’s. With that in mind, the beginning of my journey at Signagelive was all about understanding different expectations, either those of our end customer or our resellers and distributors alike. They are not all the same and it would be a mistake to think that they are. The hardest part in my opinion is bringing expectations of where you think your solution is (as a company) at and “bridging that gap” with your customers’.

BRIDGING THE GAP… daily effort… for 3 of our greatest expectations

First expectation – ‘Simple solution’:

In my many conversations with our channel it became apparent that one of the points that was always being raised was that Signagelive is a simple solution. I agree with our customers 100% on that. However, having a simple solution doesn’t mean you can only achieve simple ideas with it. That second, vital part is where our education about the product has seen an increase in recent months. Yes, Signagelive is great for a like for like switch of printed posters to digital. Is that all that can be achieved with the solution though? Most definitely not! A look at our customer stories on our website or our YouTube channel will quickly show that we do more than just help customers put screens on walls.
One of my favourite projects that I have had the pleasure of being involved in is the DAMOC cooler by Focal Media. Simple as far as digital signage is concerned but a prime example of how the industry has come on in leaps and bounds over the years. Utilising existing infrastructure (in this case a fridge) to engage customers and increase brand awareness. Just writing about it and watching the video is making me want an Extra Cold Heineken!

Second expectation – ‘Signagelive will do it for me’:

One of the main things our customers rave about are our FREE support facilities – be it Live Chat, email or calling us and Signagelive support representatives taking them through the process of helping with their deployment. Whilst our support infrastructure is great and work hard from 8:00 am till 12:00 midnight, we do not want our customers to be over-reliant on them. This is one of the reasons we have and are continuing to work hard in the background to develop an end user and reseller training package to deliver in the very near future. This will not only be seamless and consistent, but will give our customers the tools to be self-sufficient with information on how to use Signagelive whether the deployment is for a video wall synchronisation or a menu board solution. Register for our Blog updates and we can keep you informed of when these changes become available.

Third expectation – ‘Cheap’:

I prefer to call it cost effective solution. Signagelive will never be the most expensive solution out there. Cloud technology enables us to be far more scalable for large deployments than on-premise solutions. However, at the same time we will also never be the cheapest. So to quote someone with far more $$$ in his pocket than I (Warren Buffett) “Price is what you pay, Value is what you get”.

This is most definitely something which I refer back to when discussing Signagelive with potential customers whom are already using another provider. Make sure you are comparing apples with apples. We are in a technology age and nothing will stand still for long, if it does it will become irrelevant and be surpassed by better solutions.

For starters we’ve been around since 1997, and although Rome (Signagelive) wasn’t built in a day we’ve had some time to pack extra features into our solution whilst not impacting on the licence cost. This has been through a mixture of feature requests as well as market governed additions. Reacting and proactively adding features to our platform is never something which we will stop doing. An excellent example of this is our BETA version of Proof of Play born out of the ever present question of Return on Investment (ROI).

Imagine media agencies running campaigns for their customers. “Where” was their content shown (i.e. Reception HQ – London)? “What” was playing (i.e. what promotion content)? “When” has the content played (i.e. what time, how often)? Can they use this information to correlate with other data and improve what content is shown at what time / based on what interaction? All very relevant and valid questions which can all be answered with the use of Signagelive PoP. Proof of Play has been designed as an additional (chargeable) module for Signagelive. That way only customers wishing to use it will add it to the network and thus not impact the overall cost of the licences for any other customer who does not require it. Our Proof of Play data can be used in conjunction with audience measurement tools (software) to see how content can be improved. We are currently working with a couple of companies to bring this all together in one seamless use of Signagelive.

PoP

Another new development which has been driven by the ever increasing use of mobile technology is our new responsive Dashboard. All customers can log on via mobile or tablet (not previously available due to Flash elements) and see at a glance all the information about their network. Add to this that you can also set your own KPIs as to what the dashboard shows you, makes the management of larger networks even easier. No doubt will this will prove a great diversion for those sleepless nights! Or alternatively you could be writing a blog post.

For my team and I the daily effort of bridging the gap continues. Next week the blog will bring you more information and ideas. Join us here every Thursday. Try our our FREE 30 day licence for yourself or sign up for our weekly webinar (every Wednesday) to find out more information.